But I WANT it!

Oh no, I think I’m turning into one of those nutters who want to be trendy fashion-setters. That was never on my list of Things to Do In Life.

I went to the mall today to get a hair clip and scope out potential dresses for an upcoming wedding. Upon walking into the department store, however, I ran into the Purse section. It is getting about time to pick out a new winter purse, so I looked around a bit. And then . . . I saw it.

The Seatbelt Purse.

I had seen it earlier this week in a magazine and loved the idea — made out of real seatbelt material arranged in a basket-weave pattern, lined with some fabric pilots use, and sewn together by NASA-grade thread. Whatever color you want, they’ve got it. Naturally, this is considered one of those uppity designer brands and the size I like runs at $80.00.

Which, sadly enough, is quite cheap by designer standards.

Feeling poor, I grudgingly put down the purse, made a mental note to put it on my Christmas list, then appeased myself by buying some Boots Boots.

Don’t ask me if they cost more than the purse.

I said don’t.

Short Workout

Usually when first exposed to all the heavy weights and buff bodies at a fitness center, one ends up heading home feeling out of shape and unattractive. During my first two weeks attending a fitness center, however, I have come home feeling incredibly short.

I’ve gotten a good routine started at the gym. First, my husband and I spend some time on the treadmills. These nifty machines have their own individual media centers where you can watch television, listen to music, or pop in a DVD — this is courtesy of our friend Willis, but that is another story. I had noticed that I couldn’t see the television very well because the ceiling lights were being reflected back at me. Yesterday, I asked Steven if he was having the same problem.

“No, I only see the lights at the very top of the screen,” he replied, “I can see it fine.”

Ohh, so it’s just me, then. I am way down here while the screen is way up there. Maybe I should ask Willis to incorporate a tilt feature into those screens.

After treadmilling through the reflections, we go over to all the weight machines. These are the kinds of machines that Soloflex® claims to do all at once plus be a clothes hanger. On these weight machines there are a plethora of settings for height differences. You would think it would be hard to figure out what would be the best selection, but not for me. On every machine I have to use the settings for the smallest and shortest the machine can go — and even then some of them are still a bit large.

“You are too short,” the machine thinks at me.

I am only one inch shorter than the average woman! Do the fitness center machine moguls think that only men and Amazon women use their machines? Why must my 5′ 3″* frame be continually insulted?

When I am queen, I shall have custom fitness machines made to fit my height. They will make me feel very tall and I will be the happier for it. Better yet, my Shorty Machines™? will be in my own home so they will also double as clothes hangers.

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*on a good day

Yes I am up this late

To sum up the fine day that was October 2nd, 2004, I give you this quote:

“The only thing better than making 87,000 people happy,” said wide receiver Courtney Taylor, roughly quoting the capacity at Jordan-Hare Stadium, “is making 110,000 mad.”

WAR

DAMN

EAGLE

‘Nighties.

Error

Well, I do apologize for the lack of recent updates. What with Ivan barreling through, Jeanne skirting by, crazy hard drives, and major football action, I’ve been preoccupied.

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Ivan was fun. We spent a lot of that morning hiding in the second bathroom with the two cats while tornadoes whizzed by. Though animals are supposed to ‘know’ when bad weather is going on, my kitties missed the handout for that sixth sense. While Steven and I hunkered in the tub listening to the radio, Hermione was at the door, begging to go out so she could play. Renton was going nuts trying to catch the flashlight beam that was dancing on the ceiling. The next tornado warning, we had them both in their carriers.

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War Damn Eagle, by the by. My Tigers are ranked 8th (AP) and 9th (ESPN) nationally after delivering a last-minute win against LSWho. T’was an excellent game. You know it was an interesting game when you’re hoarse the next day. This Saturday — Rocky Top.

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I just wanted to be the good little Windows user and upgrade to Service Pack 2. It was all I wanted. Can’t be too hard, right? Just click and download, simple simple. Instead, I got a ‘failure to download’ message with a reference number, which sent me to a page full of vague explanations and even vaguer remedies. I wouldn’t have thought Windows would prompt the end user to mess with dll files, but that’s what they had me doing, to no avail.

Steven got home and brought in the big guns to fix a kernel problem. (Now I know to never, ever, ever, EVER mess with the load-up screen. It makes Windows feel violated). Of course, the kernel-changing program said it couldn’t fix the kernel because something had been changed on it, therefore rendering it non-original. Sooooooo (ready for this?) it couldn’t change the kernel back to it’s original state if it wasn’t in it’s original state to begin with.

At least that was it’s excuse.

I am still on my knees thanking the computer gods that I was able to get off my picture files and put them on Steven’s computer before we went kernel-harvesting. That’s the one good thing out of this story.

Okay, so bad hard drive means buy another one, so off to newegg.com we go. We purchase. We expect shipping today. We hook up the hard drive to Steven’s computer for shits and giggles. We drop our jaws, flabberghasted, as we see it working JUST FINE with Steven’s machine.

The mind boggles.

I’m still afraid of that hard drive so Steven is going to keep it for his computer, and I will still be getting my new one today. Maybe this time I will back up my photo files; I was exceptionally lucky with this last go.

I just wanted to be the good little Windows user and upgrade to Service Pack 2.

Clang, clang!

Hey . . . hey . . . hey . . . HEY! Guess what? It’s damn near GameDay! Tomorrow we play Mississippi State, which has acquired a fabulous new coach, so that makes for an interesting game. It’s in Starkville, though, so I’m not going (Dad says that city is aptly named). And just so you know, last week we beat Louisiana Monroe 31 to nothing. Wow, that’s the first time in three years we won our first game. It’s a good feeling.

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I’m trying to remember if anything interesting has been going on lately. If you saw my last post then you know what my favorite part of last Saturday was. That was definitely the highlight of the week. You know I love that Aubie.

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Both of the kitties have been well-behaved . . . until this morning. We woke up to the sound of loud goings-on in the bathroom. I stumbled in to find Renton killing my rubber duckie in the tub; he doesn’t take kindly to them, apparently. After I closed his bathroom access Hermione was ready for some good old-fashioned Renton-wrestling. Five o’clock in the morning means nothing to these chickens.

The sound of a metal cat food scoop hitting the kitty food canister, though . . . now that means something to ’em. It’s always a hoot to see the chickens slip and slide down the tile hall trying to be the first one to the bowl. Unfortunately, now they react like this whenever they hear any sort of metal clanging. It’s not as much of a hoot to see them slipping and sliding into the kitchen when I pick up a measuring cup to scoop flour.

What’s his name?!?!

AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE

AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE AUBIE

picture update

Everyone will be pleased to know that I have finally updated my crunthythoughts picture section. The lake pictures are under the ‘Friends’ section; now Hermione has her own section, too.

Now, Willis, you can quit bugging me about those silly pictures! Besides, once you see the photos, you’ll realize why I wasn’t in a rush to get them online (they’re all the same).

(Near GameDay!)

“She is such a Has-Been!”

Oh, my goodness, can it be, is it is it is it???

Yes, it is Close to GameDay!!! The season starts anew! Saturday, the 4th of September, Auburn goes against Louisiana-Monroe for the season opener. Unlike last year there are not huge pressuring expectations for us, so we all can just sit back and watch the Tigers kick ass for the next four months. Do you have your ticket? I’ve got m– oh, wait, uhhhh, I will have mine, uhh, once I buy one . . .

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Last Friday I did something I never thought I would ever do . . . I was an ultimate Has-Been for the day and went to visit my old high school. I don’t think it’s as bad if you wait six years and some change before you go cavorting back. Only Ken and I were able to go; Steven and everyone else was working or schooling. Maybe we all can get to a high school game later this season.

We got there about thirty minutes before school let out, and as soon as I walked through those doors it was like a time-warp. The first thing I noticed was the smell. There was just that unmistakable high school smell. The second thing that struck me was the door . . . right on my ass, ow. No, I’m kidding, but it would have been funny.

We first checked out the band room; I was hoping the symphonic band would be practicing, but alas, Bubbett (ye olde band director) was just giving the band the ‘Uniform’ speech. The first football game of the season was that evening so the entire band area was pandemonium: Bubbett speeching, band parents runninng around, kids having second thoughts about this whole ‘marching’ nonsense and how could they get out of this . . . you know, normal stuff. God, I miss it sometimes.

Bubbett was still going on so Ken and I decided to hunt out Mme. Byram, our French teacher, before the bell rang. It took forever to find her room; it was in the new addition of the building that I remember as a parking lot. It’s part of the neverending fight against trailer classrooms.

Mme. Byram was one of the cooler teachers because she assigned us projects that you would usually get in art class. It was right up my alley. Ken’s alley, though, tends to gutterball art projects. He told me about his fleur-de-lis project that he did in the last five minutes before it was due; Mme. Byram kept it to show her later classes what not to do. Ken’s quite proud of this (his mom isn’t, though).

We peeked through Mme. Byram’s door window . . . lo and behold, she was assigning the fleur-de-lis project right then and there! “Ohh, man, I bet she shows my shitty one,” whispered Ken.

A few minutes later, she dug out Ken’s project from the stack of posters. That was Ken’s cue — he knocked on the door.

Mme. Byram looked over, saw him, and screamed, “Oh, my God!” and started laughing. She let us in and explained to her students through the laughter that this was the artist of the asymmetrical fleur-de-lis that she was holding. Our arrival could not have been any better.

After we visited with her for a good bit, we went by to see Mrs. Thompson, our English teacher. By then, the bell had rung so there were no students to interrupt. She still had one of my art projects in her room: a paper maché albatross I whipped up once for The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. We were supposed to do a poster but I didn’t have any posterboard. Paper maché, though, was in great supply at my house. It was leftover from an Ethan Frome project of a few years past . . . I had good project classes during high school, come to think of it. Ahh, I’m rambling.

Anyway, yes, the albatross I made is still there, so I felt special. We then ran back by the band room again to see if we could catch Bubbett. It was the oddest thing — he has shaved off his moustache. Crazy. The bandroom was a-bustling, but the kids are younger than I remember being. This year is the biggest year for the band so far — 170 kids are involved. (Incredible!) Before we left, I got to see my marimba that I helped birth from the shipping box when I was just a wee freshman. My baby.

After that we were back on 280 heading back to Auburn. Mom thought I was crazy to go that far just to do something I swore I’d never do. Maybe I am a bit nuts; four hours in a car for one hour of reminiscing is a bit strange, but it’s also part of the fun. It was also amusing to do stuff I once chastized others for doing — it keeps everyone on their toes.

Besdies, that was six whole years ago; I don’t claim to be that same person anymore. She is more like a distant relative (or a skeleton in the closet, if you will). Going back and remembering what it was like in high school, what I was like in high school, makes me glad to know that I’m on the other side of that river now.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not forswearing all of my high school self. I kept the music by being part of the Auburn University Band for three years. I kept the fun projects by becoming a designer and getting paid to do what I love. I kept the friends by marrying my best one. I didn’t completely change in those six years since high school, I just kept the best parts with me.

100% Hilarious

Why do I end up with the cats that have fiber issues? I’m sure we all remember Renton’s escapades with sweaters and afghans. Now it seems Hermione has some termite in her family tree.

It started with the unfinished cat condo Steven and I built. Hermione’s first-pick spot is at the very tip-top. Renton would like the tip-top if his mountain lion bulk didn’t rock the boat so much. Did I mention Steven and I built this from scratch? If you saw it, you’d know.

The tip-top had some sharp, exposed wooden corners once upon a time, but Hermione has successfully rounded those down with her little kitty molars. Maybe she was just tired of being poked in the butt by them? Whatever the case, we’ve made a few attempts at ceasing this crazy habit before we found ourselves up to our ears in sawdust.

We tried to distract her with some rawhide doggy chews and kitty grass, but she didn’t go for that (Renton is the designated kitty lawnmower right now). What she did go for was our wicker hamper and the corner of the entertainment center, even though it is just nasty old Wal-Mart plywood. I wonder if she would enjoy some hamster-type balsa wood blocks.

In another attempt, we sprayed some of that No Kitty Bitter Apple Spray all over the corners. It wasn’t a little spray, either: we soaked ’em good. Apparently, though, Bitter Apple is Hermione’s favorite flavor. She snacked on those corners as soon as we were done hosing it down.

There is one more trick up our sleeve, however. I read somewhere that you can use tobasco sauce to keep cats from chewing on everything. I would imagine that this would stain sweaters and quilts, but who cares about an old piece of wood, right?

A quick search through the pantry revealed no tobasco sauce, but some rather potent mixture called 100% Pain that we picked up in Charleston. The title is absolutely correct, too: I barely touched my finger in it once to have a taste — immediately after I was having a taste of a humongous glass of milk. They ain’t kiddin’.

One might ask, are we really so evil that we’d apply that to something that Hermione is likely to chew on? Well, after last night’s romping escapades . . . you betcha!

She hasn’t had a gnaw yet; her preferred gnawing time is late afternoon and evening. If it is extremely amusing once she does, I’ll come back with an update. If it doesn’t work, we’ll outfit the entire apartment with Rubbermaid furniture.