VAPS, drinking in congress, and occupying the state department

it's been a while since i've updated this and my life is so horribly busy that i've forgotten everything i've done this week. i'll start with powershift.

the caravan of hippies showed up at a broken down gas station on main street in blacksburg on friday around 10pm, and they followed amanda, sahil, sahil's friend who amanda kept misnaming, and i to amanda's apartment. we tried to figure out a solid plan for the night, but that kept changing, and i just wanted hookah. most people ended up leaving and dan, angela, bum chung and i all ran to kroger to pick up 48 pbr's and a bottle of wine. bum chung did some casual grocery shopping and double bagged his yogurt to all of our dismay. we went back to amanda's apartment and drinking and hookah commenced, lasting til about 1:30am when the rest of us decided to go to bed and bum chung went on a "personal excursion" which turned out badly. i won't get into details, but he ended up surviving the night. success.

next morning we woke up and went to powershift sessions, me and amanda made a trip to the farmer's market and to lauren's tailgate, then took some group powershift photos, then went back to squires to grab rebekah and head downtown. i made some lovely purchases and we headed back to amanda's to get ready for our fundraiser party. we couldn't find kara's address so we headed to owens to get some dinner, and i made a horrible shoe choice and ended up with very wet feet.

the party itself was wonderful and we made a little bit of money for the tar sands action legal fees. we headed back to amanda's after where the party mostly continued throughout some drama (amanda's roommates: i'm so sorry. i will send you a fruit basket of sorts.) and we drank more and smoked more hookah. in the morning i mostly wanted to die.

the rally went well as did the action, and finally we headed back home after stopping in harrisonburg for some salad.

monday and tuesday were mostly spent recovering from the weekend and feeling sick. on wednesday, rebekah and i got the opportunity to join appalachian voices in presenting the last mountain in the rayburn building of congress. i met dennis kucinich while i was drinking a boston lager (i can now cross that off my bucket list). in michael's words, "he's my favorite gremlin."

last night we occupied the state department from keeping corporate lobbyists from taking up all the spots for the hearing. though sleeping on a marble floor is not my preferential bed, i had a lot of fun, and it was all worth it when the woman who's spot i held to speak at the hearing came up to introduce herself with her mom, and they both hugged me and thanked me for sleeping there all night so she could speak.

i've caught a cold and i'm desperately hoping it doesn't turn out to be anything more than just a cold. i spent most of the day sleeping and dog sitting, which is also how i plan to spend the rest of the weekend.

tucker's trip to nova and more of life at george mason

i would like to start off by saying that i survived the ropes course. i was terrified, and mike had to coax me through most parts, but i made it through a whole course. the people behind me were getting annoyed that i was going so slow and kept reassuring me by saying "you're not going to die". then i found a cute puppy and bonded with the woman who owned her while mike did some harder courses. it was a successful evening.

today i went to class where i got my exam back (a- whattup) and watched a document on surrogate mothers and adoptive parents. my homework is to write an essay answering the question "is it possible for a child to have 5 parents?" and i am going to say yes it is, because i basically have 5 parents.

then i went to GMU where me and 4 other students did a presentation to a professor that we got arrested with's class about the tar sands action and why we commited civil disobedience. after that, jason bekah and i stopped by my house, grabbed some posters and tucker, and went to do some photo petitioning at nova.

tucker immediately peed and pooped all over nova which was embarassing but i guess necessary, and then he proceeded to eat most of nova's grass landscape. i apologize to whoever does the landscaping there. we got about 30 photos which i think was because people mostly thought tucker was cute, and made a couple friends who were interested in getting involved with the tar sands action and coming to the organizing for america office visit on thursday. we also met a professor who was awesome and wants to be our faculty advisor if we start an environmental action group which i think we're going to. so overall, sucessful day.

for future reference, i think having a dog with you while canvassing or petitioning is a very successful tactic. while most people stopped to pet the dog, we were like "so have you heard about the tar sands?" and they got roped in. i need to remember this for future endeavors and maybe find a better behaved dog to fill in for tucker.

now it's basically my bedtime because i didn't get to nap and i've been up since 8 and my body can't handle being awake for this many hours straight. i have a ballet vocab quiz tomorrow which kathleen was supposed to help me study for but she is at a hockey game with a friend (it's ok kathleen, don't worry, it's not like i love hockey or anything.) /passive-aggressiveness.

i am beyond excited for powershift this weekend. just saying.

needles in intestines (not mine, thankfully), and my mother's new found protesting.

first of all, i would like to point this out: http://bites.today.com/_news/2011/09/21/7876625-parents-call-for-boycott-of-ben-jerrys-schweddy-balls-flavor i don't find this offensive, and i find most things offensive.

yesterday was a busy day that involved no bleeding to death whatsoever, which was great. i woke up at 7am to an email that said "pay day!" which always puts a little extra spring in my step. my day started with a tar sands follow up meeting and some tabling for powershift at george mason, then i had work from 1-7 which was thrilling as always and involved a poor cat with a needle stuck in it's intestines. we had to send him away for surgery and i am thankful that even with all my heath problems, i have no needles in my intestines (that i know of as of right now). the day ended with some beer and going to bed earlyish, as most days end lately.

however, friday is almost always pizza night in our house, a tradition that my virginia family stole from my boston family, as me and popop used to always go to our cousin's house up the street for pizza night. the tradition has ended in boston as our cousins have moved to america's hat (canada) and i have moved to virginia, but my dad usually brings home pizza for dinner here. last night was the second week in a row that they put tomato sauce on my mother's white pizza, and she was outraged (rightfully so, who puts tomato sauce on a white pizza?) so she brought it back to the store and got her money back. i wish there was more yelling and chaining herself to the store involved, but i'll take what i can get. i have a feeling her newfound love for protesting is going to lead to bigger and better things, such as getting arrested with me in a future action. other excitement involved in pizza night included tucker opening a pizza box with his nose and licking the inside, to which my dad's only response was "smart dog".

today i was up again at 7 on my day off, because my sugar was low. i'm currently looking into getting onto a pancreas transplant list so i can just get rid of this whole diabetes situation all together. i'll update how that's going as soon as i find a list.

then i headed to george mason around 9:30 for an adventure to a rally in alexandria for moving planet day, which we missed most of because of our 3 hour metro commute. at this point, i was so exhausted that i decided to head home instead of continuing into dc for veg fest. i don't know how normal people make it through their day without taking a nap. i certainly can't do it. that's next on my agenda for the day.

tonight may include an outdoor ropes course with mike in maryland. if i don't update this blog ever again, it's because i met my demise there.

living the life of a mason student, + the new TLC show about me

i've now started essentially living the life of a george mason student, without going to george mason. i go to their EAG meetings, i am coordinating an EAG event in october, as well as coordinating lodging/travel logistics to powershift. i also signed up for the swing dance club. i'm thinking of purchasing a parking pass, because i think the majority of money the mason pond deck parking garage makes is off of me.

last night i dragged kathleen to the EAG meeting under the false pretenses that they would be screening 'the last mountain'. i didn't realize this was false, as it was on their calendar, and i was almost positive that at the last meeting, they said "next week we'll be watching the last mountain". upon our late arrival with bekah, we arrived short-breathed to find out it was just a regular EAG meeting with a discussion about mountain top removal. kathleen was furious as she had canceled a date to come see the movie.

i found out my mother was also at george mason, seeing a guest speaker who is the author of the current book her book club was reading. i also found out that her and the book club would be at brion's grille after the speaker. so naturally, kathleen and i decided to stalk her.

the night ended with me being drunk and my mother showing off pictures of me getting arrested to her book club. most were excited, but one of them was ashamed. pmcg told me later it was because "she's a republican".

i spent most of today bleeding from the nose and gums as well as coughing up blood. i got about an hour of work in there somewhere. then i got some type of IV treatment, and i am no longer bleeding which is convenient cause i have a lot to do tomorrow.

i'm planning to pitch a new reality series to TLC called 'the girl who got all the recessive genes'. it'll be a story of diabeties, bleeding, allergies, and adoption. the DVD cover will look something like this:

stolen cars, found cars, frank sinatra

current updates on family life:
-my aunt called to tell me that her husband's car was stolen. i asked if they keys were in the car, and she said "yes, but not in the ignition." when reporting the 'stolen' car to the police, she didn't know the license plate number, and they couldn't remember what color the car was. she texted me to tell me to "cancel the alert! the car was found!" twenty minutes later, and i called to ask who had stolen the car, and she replied with "no one". the car was parked two houses away where stephen had left it. she told me not to tell anyone about this because they're so embarassed so naturally i am blogging about it.

-actual text conversation between popop and i today about getting frank sinatra's cancerous growth removed.
popop: made the appointment for frank. september 29th at 8am. i pick him up at noon. then what do i do? i am not a cat nurse. i'll panic.
rosie: you just make sure he keeps quiet. don't let him run up and down the stairs and do laps around the third floor. just let him nap on your lap while you read the paper. they will send you home with discharge instructions like the many times you have brought me home form the hospital.
popop: yeah, sure, that's easy for you to say. you are a vets helper.
rosie: you can text me all day and ask me what to do.
popop: a cat can't tell you what's wrong. how long is the rehabilitation? i have things to do, places to go, people to see, mountains to climb and all sorts of other things to do like picking up sticks and that kind of stuff.

my family is a full out circus, minus the tents and elephants standing on one foot. 


other life updates:
-got a nova student ID today. creepiest photo to date. they didn't even capture my feathers in my hair.

-followed these two trucks home after stopping at bekah's after class to do some event organizing:

my life is such a zoo. 

switch day miracles

today is switch day, which anyone with a septic field may know of as the day you switch the septic field from the left to the right (this may not be accurate, as i have never done this, and i don't even know what a septic field is). in my house, this is basically a national holiday and my father makes sure it's on everybody's calendar. (i'm surprised we don't all take off work to partake in the switch day festivities.)

the last switch day was september 19th, 2010. i know this because my father made me get up to take photos of him performing the switch day duties at 6am:

i was awoken this morning at 6am to my father yelling happy switch day, and i think he was a little disapointed that i didn't get up to take pictures, again. been there, done that. so i slept in until 6:30, when my mother woke me up to tell me there was a switch day present downstairs for me.

i'm not sure how switch day translates to a macy's 50 dollar giftcard and 20% off, but i was definitely adopted by the best/weirdest parents in the world.

cute business cards and living the life of a pet sitter

about a month ago, i got an offer on pandora to order 250 free business cards. so i decided to order some, but there were spots on the card for "company name" and "website", so i decided to start a legitimate pet sitting business, as well as a legitimate business website (courtesy of the best brother in the world). the business cards feature an adorable chocolate lab, which is really the only reason i decided to get them in the first place, and the only reason i decided to start a business.

i can't handle all of the pet sitting job requests, so my sister kathleen agreed to be an employee of rosie's pet sitting. since i got back from boston a couple weeks ago, we've been pet sitting non-stop, and i was excited to finally get a break after i watched loki (the most adorable great dane in the world) for a week and he successfully ripped up all of his toys and dog beds and ate a toad and got in a dog fight, but today, somebody asked if i could watch their two german shepherds for a week and i never saw no to german shepherds. i'm mostly only upset about this because it means i don't have any free time to get arrested in protest of the tar sands this week, which i was trying to work into my schedule. priorities, priorities.

other things in my life lately have included drinking a lot of PBR now that i am 21, working a lot, and making people at work read chapters of the book i'm writing about my awkward life. i hardly have time to smoke hookah anymore (or update my blog.)

SUVs and salsa on the butter

not so many months ago, my new roommates/parents and i embarked on a car shopping adventure. while i was set on getting a jeep, they were set on a toyota camry, to fit the theme of the rest of our cars. after many long months, we finally compromised on a prius. it wasn't what i had in mind, but it is the exact same car as my sisters, and i found that funny enough to agree. last night, my new mom sprung the idea on me that my new dad needs to get an SUV for our undeserving demon dog, tucker. i find this just as appalling as the time they had a whole house humidifier installed because tucker was itchy. clearly the dog is their number one priority.

other festivities this weekend included michael coming home and our family going to peterson's for some delicious ice cream and a treacherous game of jenga, which michael lost.

also, i'm looking for a new family to adopt me because tonight at dinner, somebody (aka my new dad)  got salsa in the butter. i do not appreciate these two items co-mingling. (also, my new therapist has confirmed that i am in fact absolutely insane.)

yesterday amanda and i accompanied my aunt's school on a field trip to kings dominion. their school is closing, so the PTA used the last of their money to take grades 2-6 to the park for the day. amanda and i were assigned to two groups of third graders. we rode the bus there with them, and some of the kids instantly hated us for telling them to sit down and quiet down for most of the ride.

amanda got a group of three girls and i got a group of two girls and two boys, all of whom signed up as "extreme thrill riders". as this was true with my group, this could not be farther from the truth with amanda's group, and we immediately split off in the beginning when amanda's group wanted to go to the log flume, and mine wanted to go to the biggest roller coaster in the park.

i spent the morning riding crazy rides with my group and two other groups. they all made fun of me as i sat down and started shaking before each ride started. i met up with amanda at lunch, who wanted to die because her kids all started crying every time they tried to go on some sort of childrens ride. she convinced the librarian to take her group because they wanted to ride the cars over and over.

amanda joined my group, and after one ride, they all got in line to get dippin dots, and the other two moms with us told us to just go have fun and they'd take my kids. so we did. we went back to meet up with the school at 4:45, and my kids were of course not back yet, which caused the 3rd grade teacher to ask where they were, and i was just sort of like, uhh, i gave them away. awkward.

we did manage to ride one last ride with pmcg, and then we had to basically sprint back to meet up with the rest of the school since we were super late. i also sang a nice rendition of cee lo green's "fuck you" as drop zone was riding up the tower, since amanda made me go on it even though i was petrified.

hipster glasses and work out tapes

i spent this morning debating which glasses to get at kaiser for about an hour. popop said he'd pay for them, but i decided they were all far too expensive, so i was going to forgo my eye sight for a while. as i was leaving, i asked the kaiser man how much they'd be with my insurance, and he told me i had a 250 dollar allowance with 100 dollars off this month. so i debated some more, then went home to get amanda, and went back to try on more glasses. i almost got the ultimate hipster pair of raybans, see here but decided i probably don't want to be a hipster for the next two years. so i went with a much more professional look, see here. 

later in the day, i walked inside from the porch, and witnessed amanda working out to some excersize TV she had found on demand. so obviously i took a video. http://www.youtube.com/user/anditsparkled#p/a/u/1/s_YJuskVqcA

amongst other good videos: amanda trying to innocently play with loki. loki not so innocently playing back. http://www.youtube.com/user/anditsparkled#p/a/u/0/tozwIe84A5M (ps, cute pajamas.)

i would just like to note that i live in a house full of crazy and the world revolves around our terribly behaved dog, who my parents think is some type of present sent from god himself. pmcg's favorite activity in the world is to play "where's the goose", a game where she takes tucker's prized goose and hides it in another room, then tells him to go find him. he always finds the goose, and i have always thought this was an amazing feat for such a dumb dog, until i decided to play a round myself. i went into the kitchen and "hid" the goose in plain sight on a kitchen chair, then told tucker to go find it. he was unable to complete this task even though he walked by the chair at least 6 times. i even pointed to it. auntie got mad and told me that i have to hide it in the same place for him to find it, which is almost as dumb as the time she told me and amanda we could run away as long as we stayed in the backyard when we were like, 9.

anyway. quick recap of my day: amanda and i traveled to crystal city today to have lunch with uncle larry. we parked in the craziest parking lot of all time, which was actually more like a maze.

we then lounged by the luxurious pool real quick, which was so conveniently located on our floor of the parking garage.

we headed out of the parking garage and into the first starbucks we could find, and amanda told uncle larry to meet us there while i ordered a cool beverage. amanda then saw uncle larry walking down the street towards the starbucks, and yelled "DADDY!!!", as though she was suddenly transformed into a 10 year old, and sprinted out of starbucks. after being sufficiently embarassed, i followed her out and we embarked on a trip to a cafe. lunch itself was otherwise uneventful, except my sandwhich had mayonaise on it which i didn't find acceptable after asking for no mayonaise, but i treaded on.

later in the day, barbara and myself decided to take the dogs to burke lake. tucker was an embarassment as always and barbara seemed disgusted. she also talked a whole lot about how much she enjoyed mike's company on sunday.

i just went over to the bank to change my name, and the man there congratulated me on my marriage. i look like i'm 14, but i guess that's not uncommon in the south.

dog sitting for a great dane next weekend. i couldn't be more excited. i feel like i should be paying them to let me play with him all weekend.

uncle larry just sat me down to go over his family tree so i would know everything about his cousins that he invited over for memorial day. most of the family members were highlighted because they've been disowned from the family. i'm watching my back now because one wrong move and i could be next.

also, the entire family minus me is sitting downstairs watching america's funniest home videos and laughing extremely loudly. i'm in bed because amanda's home and she hates my guts so i'm distancing myself. i wouldn't be surprised if i am highlighted on that family tree sometime soon.

today was the weirdest day i've had all week. i worked kennel this morning, and i was surprisingly chipper though i only drank 3 cups of coffee. there were dogs galore and it was only me and lindsay. at 11, i went to lunch with my boss and then we proceeded to this old woman's house to pick up two of her cats to bring them into the clinic for nail trims because she's been in the hospital for eight months. she was crazy and exactly who i want to grow up to be. she talked about ocean city a lot, out of context, about how everyone's begging her to go up there but she needs to find somebody who will bring ultrasound equipment to her house asap. not sure why. capturing the cats was an issue, as one weighed well over 30 pounds, and the other one was slightly less morbidly obese at 23ish pounds. (speaking of overweight cats, frank sinatra is down to 17 pounds). one of them was hiding in a baby bassonette in the closet, which was never used for a baby, only the cats. finally we caught them and i got a real work out carrying them back to scott's car.

other than that, i'm looking into getting a job at pet airways.

i'm currently dogsitting for my cousin christina's dog, harley. she is easily the cutest dog ever and i am absolutely in love. we are attached and she has been following me everywhere. she has been staying at my house, and gabbie has been locked in the basement yet swatting at her nose under the basement door, and tucker has been acting extremely innapropriate, but that's nothing unusual. plan for after harley leaves is to find a dog to adopt asap without telling my new parents.

also, my name change is official. hi, i'm rosie mcgourty-herring. nice to meet you.

let me recap my night real quick: decided to wait until 10pm to start revising all my papers and putting my portfolio together, which was due today at 8am. i will never know how to not procrastinate. revised papers til 1am, but i wasn't tired, and i remembered that i had two ambiens left over from when i vowed never to take them again last april. so i found them and took one, and after 20 minutes i decided to print out my  blog and turn that in instead. realized this life decision meant it was bedtime. had the craziest dreams ever. woke up at 5:45am and continued to write during that i-still-shouldn't-be-operating-heavy-machinery state of mind. decided to forgo a shower which gave me that 'i've been up all night doing crystal meth' look. left for class at 7:15 forgetting that this was prime traffic time in northern virginia. got stuck in traffic on braddock road, parked and sprinted to class. surprise, surprise, my professor showed up a half hour late. i hate my life.

yesterday after i got out of work, me and my parents plus greg drove down to virginia tech which is about a 4 and a half hour drive. i surprisingly didn't kill greg on the way down, mostly because i slept almost the entire way. we got in a very heated debate over the red sox vs yankees during family dinner at a restauraunt, his only point being that the red sox suck because all the players look like lumberjacks. i vowed never to talk to him again but he made up for it a little bit at amanda's dance show because he texted me saying "taylor lautner, 5 oclock" and then pointed in the direction that 5 oclock was because i can't tell time.

the ride home was good, and by good i actually mean terrible. we stopped for dinner with kathleen in harrisonburg and pmcg complained about the place we went to that she picked not having anything for her to eat, then finally ordered a bowl of vegetarian chili. except they gave her beef chili and then she refused to say anything so i got up and was like, you bitches (in more family appropriate words) and they were like, osry.

then we got home and tucker acted like we had been gone for 49 days even though it was actually one.

i went to the red sox game in baltimore last night. i don't think the orioles fans appreciated my enthusiasm for the red sox, and there were a lot of them. the drunk guys to our right were chanting red sox suck at the top of the 9th, and i was like, clearly not because we're beating you 6-2.

i've been living in fear of the government watching me ever since i tried to GPS fbi headquarters to go there for fun. they're probably reading this. hey, government. hope you like my blog.

i also feel like i should note that i signed my name change papers on march 9th, almost two months ago, and dumbo jones hasn't done anything except send us a bill for 60 cents worth of photo copies and 100 dollars for "redrafting the papers" which probably means that he messed them up in the first place. worst lawyer ever.

last night we had matza pizza for dinner, so i think this jewish thing is going to work out. it was delicious.

this morning i woke up to find an easter basket with resees easter eggs and a wooden egg. this is the first time in years, since i was pretty sure the easter bunny died after my aunt moved and my grandfather didn't take over the easter bunny's civic duties.

my class is over pretty soon and i don't know what i want to do after. i'd prefer to quit everything and move to WV and chain myself to MTR sites everyday, but that's not very realistic. (or is it?)

have you ever had one of those nights where you were really thirsty so you drank 7 or 8 sigg bottles full of water and then proceeded to throw up for three hours straight? that's exactly the kind of night i'm having right now. 


a few things i'm upset about right now:
- mike never arranged a time to pick up gabbie and take her home with him. uncle larry and i decided while pmcg was gone to give her up from adoption, because she's been peeing on everything out of spite. i'm not okay with this. and also i want another dog and she's really holding me back. so i took a few minutes to make up an adoption sign for her. i think it's going to work out. 


-i posted a video of mike as justin beiber on greg's wall two days ago and haven't gotten a response from it.


-arthur didn't get to pie sarah palin in the face. 


other things in my life:
-my mom snuck me into a bar on saturday.
-my mom stalked this baby at the bridal shower on saturday and kept saying "i need to get my hands on that baby"...then stole her from my aunt once she spit up on her and wouldn't let her go the rest of the day.
powershift was wonderful and i'm happy to be part of such a beautiful movement. 

universe: 1

bad things about today:
- i stabbed myself in the hand with a needle while attempting to give myself insulin while i was still mostly asleep at 6:45am
-i spent most of my kennel shift suffering from the symptoms of a concussion, without the actual concussion
-got a blood nose on the drive home. my car is mostly covered in blood now. it looks like a murder scene.
-dropped my iphone and the entire screen looks like my windshield did that time in highschool that somebody cracked it. and no, of course i don't have insurance.
-we're out of ice cream.

good things about today:
-a coworker bought me resee's easter bunnies.
-kathleen has a job interview on monday.
-my computer isn't broken yet.
-my life still isn't as bad as the movie 'the happening'


universe: 1  rosie: 0

handicapped bathrooms and abc news

i didn't have to work kennel tonight because there's only two dogs, so i went over to kaiser in falls church to check in with beth, the endocrine nurse. i left, and i had to pee really bad, but i decided to just wait until i got home so i hopped on 66. i immediately hit traffic and my GPS said outloud "severe traffic ahead" and then had a recalculating fit. so i got off at the next exit, and spotted a mcdonalds, so i pulled into the parking lot. ABC news happened to be in the parking lot, filming tonight's news, and my family is now planning to watch tonight at ten in hopes to catch a shot of me sprinting into mcdonalds.

ran into mcdonalds, and there were signs everywhere that said only paying customers could use the bathroom, so i had to be real sneaky. i then ran into the handicapped stall, and when i came out, there was a lady in a wheelchair staring me down. i wanted to tell her i'm diabetic so i qualify for that stall, but i felt like it wasn't appropriate at the moment.

got stuck in traffic for an hour in a half on the way home. called popop to tell him the situation, and he was not even a little bit surprised. 

the cat has essentially began to stalk me, which has been really good. and by good i don't mean free cookies good. i mean having weasles instead of feet by which i mean not very good at all. (citation needed: michael herring, circa 2004). i keep my door closed while i'm not home so that tucker can't get in there and tear apart everything, but lately everytime i open my door, gabbie's climbs out of my closet, or is sitting in one of my dresser drawers, or is taking a bath in my bed.

today as i was walking across campus from class to the parking lot, i witnessed a straight up barbecue happening. complete with grills and hot dogs. i went over to ask what it was for, because i thought it was maybe a fundraiser, but they said it was "just for fun". then they began to throw hamburgers at a nearby tree. when mike got out of class an hour later he informed me that they had begun a hot dog eating contest. i'm heartbroken that i missed out on that gem.

then i came home to find a crab leg in my driveway. i went inside and found tucker looking awfully embarassed so i'm 99.9% positive he had something to do with it.

gabbie and i are no longer friends. last night she peed in the laundry room out of spite, and then earlier while i was petting her, she got up and bit me, and then continued to roll around in my bed and nuzzling all over me. bad move. one of my qualifications for friendship is not biting me. or peeing in the laundry room. whoever wants to claim her, send me your address. until then, there's a kitty condo with her name on it in the cat room at work.


i have jew class #2 tomorrow. i think at the end i'll ask how to convert, because 2 120 minute classes seems like an appropriate amount of time to wait. uncle larry will be thrilled.


also, tucker's got that musk that a dog can only have after playing in the yard in 90 degree weather. summer's definitely peeking it's head out..

today it was 80 degrees and i was stuck working all day, and now i have a research paper draft to write. i think this is god's way of saying "fuck you" for trying to become a jew. low blow, god.


tucker and uncle larry went to an adoption event on saturday for GRREAT. i was hoping uncle larry would either come home without tucker, or with another puppy, but i wasn't so lucky.


when i got home from work today, tucker started panting and biting my sleeves. i swear this is not a normal dog.


also, i feel like it's a little unfair that once it starts to get warm enough for me to sit on the porch and smoke hookah without wearing long underwear, a winter jacket, hats and mittens, and wishing i had a space heater, the bugs SWARM my front porch. i keep getting hit in the face with cicadas. a) it's not a cicada year. b) stupidest bugs ever. c) they better die when it gets cold and rainy tomorrow.

rainy days and tucker tackles

today has been a day for the books. on my way to class, i rear ended a mercedes benz on burke lake rd. when i told my new dad, he said "couldn't you have hit a cheaper car?" i have the worst luck in the entire world. i was surprisingly on time for class even though the owner of the mercedes made me stand in the rain with him explaining the inner-workings of the prius, because he was amazed that the engine turns off when you're not driving it.


when i got home the garage door wouldn't open, and it took me a lot of restraint to not call the garage door man and scream at him. the only reason i didn't is because the last time he came out to fix it, he told me there was nothing wrong with the garage door, told me to put some shoes on, and asked if we could smoke weed out of my hookah. then he criticized my aunt and uncle's parenting skills and said he would never let his 6 year old child smoke hookah. 


i called liberty mutual to make a claim and spent an hour on the phone with some guy named brian who had a heavy boston accent. he wanted me to commit to having my car fixed at one of their autoshops, and i kept telling him i would have my dad call and discuss with him because i can't even commit to a hair color, but he just kept pushing. i should have suggested him a future career in canvassing, because this guy was good.


also, i hardly got any info from the guy i hit, and by next week he's probably going to come up with a severe neck injury or something. i think i'm going to move back to massachusetts because virginia has been horrible for my driving record. 


later in the dsay i saw tucker eating something suspicious in the yard, so i went out to make sure he wasn't eating what i thought he was eating. he saw me coming and immediately burried it, and then ran over to me and tackled me to the ground. i managed to punch him in the face as i fell down in the mud. he got what he deserved.


also, started jew class last night. basically all i've learned so far is to "be fruitful and multiply", but uncle larry wanted me to ask how to convert before class even started. i'm down, as long as i get to start dating jews. 

please use my misfortunes as words of wisdom: never consent to a spinal tap. worst pain of my entire life.

i spent last night in urgent care where they were convinced that i was dying because i had a fever of 103.1. they immediately gave me two really powerful IV's of antibiotics (that took an hour and a half each) and a liter of IV fluids, then sent me over to a hospital to get a cat scan and a spinal tap because they were really concerned that i had meningitis. not what i consider an ideal night.

we got home at 9:30 and pmcg immediately left for work and me and gabbie spent the morning in bed.

today i've realized that my dog is a total asshole. if he was a person, he'd be that really annoying hyperactive kid in your fifth grade class that was bigger than everyone and couldn't read and jumped all over you all day long while you were just trying to do your math problems before recess. i just brought cassie over, the 14 year old dog that i'm currently watching while my neighbors are away. i thought it would be nice for all of us to sit on the front porch, so i put tucker's leash on to bring him out with us, and he started going absolutely batshit bonkers. it's as if a demon posesses him once he sees his leash. she starts shaking ferociously and foaming at the mouth and jumping all over me no matter how many times i punch him in the face. i realized this idea was clearly not going to work when i brought tucker out onto the porch and he immediately knocked my hookah and three chairs over, so i brought him back inside and banished him to the backyard. cassie didn't understand what the two of us were doing on the front porch, so i brought her back inside, but gabbie's on the prowl so i couldn't leave her in there alone, so i just put her in the backyard as well. for some reason cassie is THE only thing gabbie isn't afraid of, probably because she's 14 and can't put up a fight. tucker: 1. rosie: 0.

today i woke up with a kidney infection. the doctor can't see me til three, and i had to bring in amanda's car for an oil change at 11:18, so i went over to toyota. there was much confusion because they had scheduled the oil change for my car accidently, but finally it was settled and the guy asked us to please not buy matching cars ever again. they told me something was recalled on amanda's car so i had to wait 2 hours for it to be done, so i sat down and tried to connect to the wifi, which failed. so i decided to take a walk, and crossing the highway proved to be trecherous. finally i made it to bombay bistro where i sat outside and stole their internet because as a general rule for myself, i don't go anywhere that has "bistro" in the name. i walked back to toyota an hour early and the prius was sitting in the parking lot, done. so i peaced out of there and got more bloodwork done.

i'm thinking of getting tucker a grooming appointment for next week for him to get a lion cut and not telling my family about it. 

my entire family is an absolute circus. my mom/aunt has been running around in the yard with her moon journal and making green whoopie pies all night, and asking me to steal sugar from the neighbors who i'm dog sitting for. my uncle/dad is still celebrating buzzard day, which was yesterday apparently. i called my grandfather to tell him how weird my new parents are but he was too busy pouring spaghetti sauce down the toilet to talk to me. i'm beginning to think i'm the most sane person in this family and that says a lot because i've been preparing tucker fake chicken caesar salad wraps and feeding him banana peppers under the table for days. (i don't think he likes them because he started running away from me after the first few.)

also, we got a new heat pump. i mostly only know this because when i came home from class yesterday, i sat down at the kitchen table and started to tell tucker about my day and noticed the heat pump men laughing at me down the stairs.

i'm currently house sitting for my next door neighbors. the poor dog is 15 years old and both deaf and blind and when i went over this morning, i thought for sure she was dead because she didn't even notice that i came in the door and didn't move until i went over and poked her. however, we have the same outlook on life because when i went over to walk her in the rain tonight, she refused to go outside and peed on the back steps. something i also tend to do when it's raining outside.


i had a tornado drill during class today, except there was much confusion because my teacher didn't know about it and it was kind of awkward when this little asian woman ran by the door screaming "tornado drill!". we followed her into some other classroom where people were hiding under desks, and somebody yelled at me for bringing my iced coffee with me and not taking the drill seriously, but if there was a legitimate tornado, i would obviously bring my iced coffee with me. i then sat underneath a desk and tweeted because there was free wifi.


then i took a 5 hour nap because i had to get up at 5:15 am to drive my neighbors to the airport. i also skipped getting my blood work done today because i don't really want to know if my platelets are low or not. who needs platelets? that shit can wait til tomorrow.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_2xAhvtiqQ

dumbo jones and his dumbo brigade

today has been a day that should definitely be a chapter in the book about my awkward life. i worked kennel this morning and was so excited when i was chosen to make a starbucks run. i usually live for these kinds of days. today, however, when i ordered becca's oatmeal, i was asked what kind of toppings i wanted on it. i have never eaten oatmeal in my life, thus i don't know what type of things people put in it, so i responded with "all of them". the starbucks man, who by the way was extremely scary and unfriendly and had everything on his face pierced, said "you can't have all of them", which seemed unfair to me because they only offered fruit, nuts, or maple sugar. so i chose fruit, and when i gave the oatmeal to becca, she looked like she wanted to punch me in the face. i retreated to the kitchen to drink my iced coffee (or more like chug my iced coffee), and becca came in there to inform me that she had called starbucks to yell at the man, and i had to go back to retrieve the nuts and maple sugar because there was no way she was going to eat the oatmeal without it. walking back into starbucks to be greeted unfriendily by the scary man was the hardest thing i've ever had to do.


i got home from work at 11 and decided instead of taking a nap today, i was going to get shit done. i called kaiser to yell at them for repeatedly calling me every day to tell me that i missed my appointment, because i didn't. i also told them that i wasn't going to fax them my blood work because they did the blood tests themselves and they had the results. i'm too embarassed to ever go back there again.


then i called the law offices of dumbo jones, as my uncle/dad refers to him , who is the lawyer that did my adoption (and took 3 months to file the papers), and told him i would like to come in to sign my name change papers in front of a notary. so i went over there at 1pm, just like i had told them. obviously i was late because there was traffic on main street, where i took a picture of 3 construction men who were standing around with shovels, and then had to drive away real fast because they saw me taking the picture and i thought for sure they were going to hit my car with their shovels. i got to dumbo jone's office at 1:05, and they had no idea who i was. finally, the receptionist said "oh, you're the adopted girl." i told him yes i was the adopted girl, and i am very sensitive about it and don't appreciate that nickname, even though i actually am not sensitive about it and i tell everybody i know that i got adopted, and that's a great nickname, but who does that? finally the notary came out, and she was not very friendly. i looked over the papers and corrected dumbo jones spelling errors, which he didn't appreciate, but i don't appreciate having a lawyer that makes spelling errors in court orders. i signed the papers and she made me a copy which i planned to frame before i lost it (i think it's probably in the elevator somewhere). i hope somebody doesn't steal my new identity.

woke up from a text from my grandfather today that said:     i got up early today, showered, ate brft and decided i would do something other than hang around with frank so i thought i'd go to MFA. looked it up on the internet to get directions, parking, etc. and it said the MFA was closed today. guess why: OBAMA. he is going today so i can't. think he'll get my vote? (yes)


i then suggested that he go to the aquarium and his response was "not in the mood for fish."

i judge you based on the size of your dog and your coffee order. i just feel like i should put that out there. 

friday night's alright for fighting

tucker and i took a trip to burke lake today. tucker caused a scene in my driveway after i opened the backseat to let him in. he jumped into the front seat, so i closed the backseat and went around to the drivers side door to find that he had locked himself in, with the keys on the passenger seat. if only he knew turning on the car was so easy as pressing the "on" button. i thanked god a little bit that he didn't know the inner workings of the prius, and didn't know this button existed. (god, i promise to be a devout catholic for now on.)


after getting the spare key and getting tucker locked into the back seatbelt, we were on our merry little way. it amazes me that even while tucker's harness is buckled in to the back, he manages to get all the way up to the front seat. after almost safely getting to burke lake, and taking some insulin while driving (me, not the dog), we made it to the parking lot.


i opened the back door and tucker jumped out, still buckled into the seatbelt. this created some problems as he got stuck midway and sort of hung out the door a little bit. i unbuckled him and he bolted, bringing me with him. i dragged him back to the car so we could close the door and lock the car, and re-adjusted his collar for maximum control. tucker yet again took off for the path, taking an old asian man down with him. (dear asian man: i am so sorry.)


we started down the path and tucker immediately saw his first target: a small white toy poodle. he crouched down, in his i'm-about-to-pounce-on-some-prey stance, and i positioned my legs in a fashion that a person holding the ropes for somebody rock climbing would use. the ugly little poodle passed, and i managed to restrain tucker back, so the poodle will live to see another day.


his next target was a tiny little yorkie. i hate yorkies, but i put my opinions aside and feel sympathetic for whatever tucker has his eye on, because only disaster is in it's forseeable future (except for the toy poodle, that thing was gross). the yorkie's owner was a middle aged woman who thought she was 22, in a juicy velour track suit (in a disgusting hue of pink), carrying her coach purse, and wearing flip flops. this woman was clearly not in it for the long haul around burke lake. tucker crouched, and this time i was so distracted by the yorkie's owner, that i lunged forward a good 4 feet when tucker leaped. he tackled the yorkie, and i grabbed his collar to pull him away (in the meantime dropping my iphone in a pile of leaves), and the woman grabbed her stupid little dog and gave me a death glare while simultaneously taking off for the parking lot. i don't really feel bad about this one.


the rest of the trip was mostly uneventful, with tucker pulling so much that we had to stop every few feet for him to calm down and fix his collar before starting back up again. we turned around about a 1/4 of the way around because i was sick of his bullshit. 

when it rains, it pours.

somehow, even though i now have healthcare, the healthcare system is continuing to ruin my life. after paying my 30 dollar copay, the endocrinologist switched my insulin, and told me kaiser will not pay for insulin pens, so i have to use vials of insulin and syringes. i'm sorry, but did we time warp back to the year 2003? i think this is a actually posibility because of the fact that pink is still on the radio. 

the vials of insulin need to be refridgerated at all times. WHO CARRIES A REFRIGERATOR WITH THEM? this is absurd. 

i also had to pay 80 dollars for insulin. what's the point of even having healthcare? 

Also, today I went to safeway. It's not my usual food retailer of choice, but it was closest and we needed tissues and butter. For some reason, Safeway chooses to put the firewood and condoms right next to eachother. The only butter I could find was butter sculpted into a Christmas tree. It was 25 percent off, but also two months old. I didn't purchase it.

Highschool drama

It's been far too long since ive posted here, because I'm computerless still, but now I have an iphonE which sortof makes up for things. I do have to say that I'm amaed that the world is in a state where we can watch Netflix on our phones. I thought that was propaganda until I found out today that it's legitimate.

Tonight I worked kennel and listened to this girl who's no longer in highschool talk about all her highschool drama. You're in college. Girl please.

My aunt/mom left for Mexico last week and we haven't heard from her since. My uncle/dad thinks she's probably drunk at the hotel bar and can't remember her phone number. I hope she brings back tequila.

buster brown

lately my life has consisted of series of events gone wrong. last weekend, i found out that my blackberry doesn't like water. in the middle of last week, i found out that my laptop doesn't like getting thrown off my bed in a fit of confusion. today i found out that telemarketers don't like when you answer the phone and call them by the name of the state that comes up on the caller ID (such as, are you there, montana?). i also found out that you should NEVER call best buy unless you're prepared to wait on hold for an hour just to have your credit card declined for no viable reason.

today my nextdoor neighbor barbara and i found a stray dog in the yard. he was a boxer, and looked like he weighed about 30 pounds and that he hadn't eaten in 4 months. i immediately fell in love and we named him buster brown, because he was brown and white. we fed him and gave him some water, but all of this took place in the yard because we thought he might have rabies or something. then i called the clinic and told them i had a new dog, who looked very sick, and we got in the car and were on our way to the clinic when the owner's dog sitter called my phone and told me he belonged to them. i was very displeased with this, mostly because i wanted to keep the dog, but also because i had definitely given those neighbors a petsitting flyer and i was a little pissed off that they think this lady who loses their dog could petsit better than me. i brought him back to his home, and the 70 year old house sitter told me that his name was rex, and he was 14 years old and suffering from lung cancer and only had a couple months left to live. rex did not want to get out of my car at all, and actually started to bite this old lady as she tried to pull him out, and i was going to suggest he just stays at my house for the week, but then i remembered that i don't want anyone else to have to experience tucker. so finally i had to lift him out of the car and carry him into the house. i went back home to report this to barbara, and she said "oh, the neighbors who sing in a barber shop quartet?" and i told her yes, and she said that they probably should have at least gave us a starbucks giftcard. so neighbors, if you read this, you probably owe us a starbucks giftcard.