vomit

Ok I got these for my car a while ago and was just looking at the container this morning while killing time.

I was looking to see what different surfaces they were ok to be used on when I found this really gross "note" on the  bottom of the instructions:

The more I think about it the more it seriously makes my skin crawl and makes me want to throw up.  The fact that they had to put it on there at all is scary, and raises so many questions.  What exactly would somebody think they should clean with these?  Their hair?  Their nails?  Their armpits?  omg i'm going to throw up now thinking about it again.

VOM

why does he lay here?

I bring him here to the lush sub tropics, he has the run of a beautiful home, and all of the outdoors, and this is where he chooses to sleep.

Why?!  How is this comfortable?!

Upon rethinking the whole attaching a camera to his head like the key west cat idea I realized that it would be an exercise in futility.  I would have to sit through a good 6 hours of video of the back of the air conditioner before I ever got any action, and even then it wouldn't be terribly exciting.  I think the most raucous he ever gets is when he's making his poops and pees and I don't think anybody wants to see that, though he seems to think so.

I think Jon is right, I need to stop trying to understand him.

I like this tree

Nothing else to say really, it's just a great tree.  So proportionate, and fills the space perfectly.  This is down some random channel in the middle of town.  I pass by here every time I am walking to or from the garage where my car is CONSTANTLY being fixed.  I always look at this tree and think, "that's a fine tree, the kind of tree you could set your watch to".

So this morning at 8:30 when I was walking home from the shop I decided it was time to take a picture and share it with you all.  I know you'll be getting to work soon, I feel for you.  I'm on my way to take spin class at the Y so just know that my thighs will be burning for you.

putting on the ritz

My sister's friend Anne came to town with her family for her and my sisters birthdays.  They stayed at the Ritz here in town, which meant that my sister and I got to visit them and take advantage of the amenities.

Well, first I had to park here at South Lido Park and walk along the hotels before I got to the Ritz, not like that was anything hard to do.

You probably are thinking that I spent the rest of the day lounging and sipping pina coladas right?  Wrong.  Well, partially wrong, there were definitely pina coladas, so many pina coladas, but not very much lounging.  Anne and Lee's son Tripp assumed, as most children do, that I would be more interested in building sand castles and playing marco polo than lounging on a beach chair.  And he was right.

Here's our sand castle:

We had grand plans of extending it and building a whole town but the tide came in too quickly so this was about the most we got done.  In case you can't tell, that's a wicked awesome mote around our castle which is covered in white, purple, and orange shells.  My favorite part of the sand castle building was a conversation between Tripp and me that went something like this;

     Me:  I don't really want to sit down now because it's getting late and the waters too cold for me to go in and rinse off now.

     Tripp: (thoughtfully)  Well, I'm sure if you get sandy you will figure out a way to rinse off.

     Me:  You know what, that's probably true, I can't argue with you.

     Tripp:  Yeah, I think it's time you toughen up.

And toughen up I had to, as the day only got bloodier for me.  Due to some unfair trickery during Marco Polo I totally wretched up my arm by diving directly in to the wall of the pool.  I also swallowed a giant gulp of public pool water which I tried not to be as horrified about as I actually was.  All I could think of was all those green juices and coconut waters going down the drain as I guzzled chlorine and urine.  Ew I don't even want to think about it now.

But that was the worst thing that happened to me all day, which makes for a pretty fantastic day.  I didn't even get kicked out of the restaurant for only having booty shorts to wear!

And check out this amazing sunset:

It's so beautiful and resort like that I kept forgetting I had driven here and that I live only 10 minutes away.  So fun to take a vacation in your own town.  I'm glad the fam came for Anne's birthday, it was such a fun excuse to party hearty on what would have been another humdrum saturday.  Happy Birthday Anne!

Answer: We Can Do That!!!

Finally!  I've been wondering where to take my game fish to be either run over by high speed auto traffic, or crucified.

I think I missed the question.

ew!

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The only keywords that anybody has searched and found my blog through this week was this phrase, "glitter scabs".

VOMIT.

I did a google search for glitter scabs and found nothing about my blog.  This was the only image I found that didn't repulse me so much I couldn't stand to look at it but I don't even know what it has to do with glitter scabs.  Just trust me you don't want to look at what my other options were.

Somehow I feel like this is related to Ariel.

classics

My brother found his old NES the other day so after dinner with our grandfather we went back to his place and played some old favorites.

The first game I wanted to play was Battletoads, which was everything I remembered it to be.

But the real glory was this game:

Which if you already know what it is, kudos to you.  If you don't know what game this is then I'm sorry for you, because it is truly one of the greatest games of its time.  You can wikipedia it here, it's called North and South.  It's basically like risk, where one player takes to side of the union and the other takes the side of the confederacy.  You move around the playing field capturing territories like a board game, but when you land on certain things it activates these mini game modes.  You either battle the opponent with cannons, infantry, and cavalry, or you attack/defend your fort or train.  It's very elaborate and pretty amazing.  Note the figures on the left side of the screen.  Those are the mexicans and the native americans, who periodically attack whomever is in their territory.

The point is this game is amazing and we stayed up really late playing it as I'm sure we will in the future.  I just wish there was a way to get this transferred to my wii.  Any hackers out there know any tricks?

chupacabra

Lately when I've been laying on the couch, I've heard a distinct rustling and shuffling coming from the corner of the room.  I finally investigated and found what I was most afraid of.

Why is he like this?

why florida is great

thank you jonathan for sharing this with me.  I will be investing in one of these for the detective very soon.

Laura, eat your heart out

i love her

haha

I took this picture last night when I was playing Donkey Kong because it made me laugh out loud (as it still does).  I knew I had taken a picture of something yesterday for a post but didn't see this until I plugged my phone in and transferred the picture to my computer.  I feel like I had something I wanted to say about it last night, but looking at it now in the light of day I think it speaks for itself.

How many times have I wanted to say those very words?

feeling bad

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I just want to officially go on the record as saying that I feel really bad about missing Andrew's birthday this year (and apparently also last year).

I was just thinking, "wow it sure seems like i've done a lot of birthday posts recently" and I realized that besides not even calling Andrew on his birthday, I didn't even do a post for him on the day he lies and says is his birthday on facbeook.

So Andrew, I hope that you forgive me.  If you want you can use this to make us equal from me defending you to Brittany and getting slapped across the face.

I was trying to think of a specific memory with Andrew that encapsulates my feelings about him but there are far too many to choose from.  Instead I want to relate to you all about how Andrew is one of those people in my life that I knew I was destined to be friends with before I ever was.  Kind of like how I feel about Mandy Moore.

See Andrew was the cool kid for pretty much all of middle school and high school, and not that I didn't have friends of my own, but due to scheduling Andrew and I never once had a class together in all 7 years that we went to school together.  It being a small school however, most of our friends were friends with the other, but our paths never crossed.  But I knew, in my heart of hearts, that if only I could get an audience with the Arthur Fonzarelli of Charleston, I could win him over.

And so it was, during those half days at the end of senior year, when the choices were to hang out with each other or Huge, and we chose each other.  I'm glad we did too, I can't imagine my life without Andy.  It's funny to think that we could have been friends all through school as well, but I think what makes our friendship so great is that we weren't.  We pretty much had the same upbringing, yet have completely different memories.  I like friendships like that, and I like friendships that I knew were destined to be before they happened.  I only have it happen every once in a while, so when it does I try to hold on to them.  And so far I've done an ok job with Andrew, we are still friends even though I repeatedly miss his birthday, make out with people in his car when he lets me borrow it, and leave incriminating paraphernalia in his pool house for his mother to find (LIES).  So thanks Andrew, for putting up with me, I'm glad we're friends.

Happy Belated Birthday!!!

happy birthday the goon!

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Today is my sister's birthday!!  Yay!!!  Except I of course spaced out and made a bunch of dumb appts for my car so I am going to have to run around madly this morning in hopes of getting everything done before lunch.

But while I'm cruising around I will definitely be listening to this in honor of my big sister.  Having a big sister that's more than a decade older than me means that some of my earliest memories of her are of her driving me around in her white renault (or was it a peugeot?) and listening to that cd.  I actually have that very cd in my car right now, on loan from my sister's collection, which makes it even better.  Of course it would be better if my sister were in the car with me, and if we could go to Starvin' Marvin' afterwards for candy and so people can ask her if I'm her son.

But sadly those days are behind us.  Instead I will hopefully be meeting the family for lunch on St. Armands, hopefully there will be pina coladas.

back to work tuesday

I know the rest of you went back to work yesterday, I hope I gave you enough to read/watch to make up for my absence.  This is where I was.

My biggest activities yesterday included "going to chic-fil-a" and "eating ice cream".  It also featured a wonderful afternoon walk on the beach, which is where I took the above picture.  That's looking at Longboat Key from Lido Beach, in case you were wondering.

But not all of us were enjoying a day of fun in the sun and carefree frolicking.  The detective seemed to be deep in a troubling case so he spent the day in his favorite concentration position:

He's so close to not having his face jammed in to a wall, why is this the place where he feels the most comfortable?  I just don't understand.

Maybe he's just thinking about how bad he's been and how he needs to stop running away from me when I am trying to pick him up and bring him inside.  But probably not.

I didn't want to laugh

but it is pretty good.  Kinda creepy, but still made me laugh.  Thanks Jon.

happy birthday big guy

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Replace "buffalo" with "Nathanael" and this was the warning we gave visitors to our apt.  Aww,  I miss those days.

Happy Birthday Nathanael, wherever you are.  May your spirit live on.

DO NOT APPROACH NATHANAEL

working hard?

This guy was snoozin' at the place where I (finally) got my seat covers put on my car.  He was so nice!  I didn't want to disturb him because he has a cast on his leg so I figured he was recovering but he did eventually wake up on his own and do a whole lot of rubbing his face on the floor and snuffling.  I love him.

I also took a picture of this disturbing display case at the shop:

I guess it's because they have driving gloves in there and those are supposed to model them?  But then why not have the gloves on the hands in the display case.  Is it like if I asked to see the gloves they would take them out and slip them on to the mannequin hands so I can see just how glamorous they are? Overall very confusing.

What wasn't confusing however was this picture that I found in a brochure of different cloth tops you can get for your Jeep:

Why did they need to put them in leopard print bandanas?!  I like that, it's the little details like that that make me trust a company.  If I had a Jeep I'd buy a top from them and then write them a nice letter saying that I was persuaded by the nice doggies they used in their advertisement.

But for now I'll have to settle for the car I have, which is pretty badass now that the seats are all covered up properly.  I just need somebody to ride in the passenger seat to help it mold on to the frame better.  Any takers?

love!

the OWN network makes me think of Meghan's mother, who has repeatedly encouraged meghan to watch it and I couldn't agree more.

Somebody on youtube commented on how the lady at the very end has zero reaction to his joke.  Haha, I can't stop laughing about her, but otherwise this clip is amazing.  I love how even though his questions are beyond brilliant Oprah answers them as if she's just been waiting for somebody to ask her.

this is also me

Leah Remini's face says it all.  Thank you Jon for making me watch this.

too soon

It's only presidents day weekend but it feels like memorial weekend already.  This morning I woke up super early, had coffee, did yoga, and was already lounging by the pool by 10:00am.  Scott was still on coffee so I decided, it being a holday weekend and all, that I could have another cup with a little irish in it.  And what goes perfectly with irish coffee on a sunday morning?  Cinnamon toast.

So it's 11:23 and i've got my holiday buzz going.  Next on the agenda will be bloody marys.  Updates to follow assuming I can peel myself off the pool floatie.

he's helping!

It was moving day today for my sister's friend Jacquie.  I offered to help, mostly because I wanted to spend some time with this handsome guy!  His name is Miller and he and Jacquie belong to each other.

I can't get over how adorable he is.  I really need to start taking videos too because he is pretty actively adorable, not just in photographs.

That first picture I took of him just standing there looking at me and smiling but then Jacquie started getting him to pose by tempting him with his favorite treat, carrots.  This is my favorite from the photo shoot:

mostly because you can see how fast his little tail was wagging.  So cute!!!!

Eventually he got his fill of eating carrots and running around wherever everyone needed to be placing some heavy furniture and whatnot and I discovered him laying in the middle of the room like this:

Haha!  How is that comfortable?!  I realized today that I think Miller needs to meet the Detective.  I think they would get along famously.

i made a mistake

I really should have bought this instead of the car I got!  Nobody told me that there was a baby blue crown victoria crop top with lifted suspension rollin' on 22's out there!

I wish I could have met the owner of this beauty, I have so many questions.

this is me

even if you're at work and don't have sound you still need to watch this video.  completely worth it.  Thank you Jojo for sharing it with me.

the life

I think I've realized my calling in life; to have and entertain guests.  Not that I haven't always enjoyed having friends stay with me, but having guests in Florida is 1000x more fun than having guests in nyc.

Besides the fact that your guests don't have to sleep in your bed with you when they visit in Florida, it's way more fun to do 'entertain your out of town guest' activities down here.  In nyc you basically do a lot of walking around and looking at things, with the occasional stop for a bite to eat or something to drink.  Down here it's taking a drive by the beach and getting out to walk for pleasure, or having a bite to eat at home by the pool, as we did yesterday.

Jon and I had grand plans of kayaking and botanic gardens that were quickly tossed out the window when Scott uncovered the pool.  This picture sums up how the rest of our day went, save for a brief respite to gorge ourselves on a hotdog cookout.

After our day of heavy eating, drinking, and sunning, we did the only thing that seemed appropriate to do.  We went to the dollar theater and saw Burlesque.  I've said it before and I'll say it again, I love Cher.  Neither Jon nor Scott had seen it yet so it was fun to hear their reactions to the different parts.  Well, Jon's anyways, Scott was pretty much entranced by Christina the entire time.

Upon getting home from the movie Scott passed out leaving Jon and I to play this in to the wee (no pun intended) hours of the morning.  I'm amazed we were able to get up this morning in time to do the last minute errands we needed to do before I took him to the airport.  I was sad to see him go, especially now that I know that Meghan's not going to be able to come down this weekend either.  Now it's back to the same old same old, which brings me to my original point.  If it hadn't been for Jon being here I doubt we would have had a cookout and I probably would have felt guilty about laying by the pool doing nothing all day, but since I was entertaining a guest it was like I was working.  Of course I did neglect my blog, which Dan was quick to point out, but it was all for a good cause.  And now I will have to go back to posting day after day with pictures of the sunset and my musings on time and space because I have nothing else going on in my life.

So come visit please!  We've still got grapefruits on the trees and the pool is starting to warm up, now is the time to plan your beach getaway!  

hooters and houses

I apologize for my slackness the past few days, ever since I contracted that awful stomach bug it took me a while to recoup.  I'm feeling much better now but Jon is in town visiting so we've been preoccupied driving around listening to this and laying by the pool.

Omg on a side note, while we were driving around yesterday we saw the saddest thing.  This guy was apparently completely oblivious to the stopped traffic in front of him and had rear ended a pick up truck in his fire engine red early 90's porsche 911.  The pick up truck looked unscathed, it's rear end was just lifted up in to the air, but then as we came around we saw the porsche with the hood all the way up to the window just shoved underneath it.  It was really terrible, there were ribbons of red paint curling off the hood, and i'm not sure which of the old guys standing on the side of the road was the driver but they both looked sad.  I don't blame them.

Anyways, I took Jon to eat lunch at Hooters where we saw this nice guy who's name was Simon.  Our waitress said that he gets pretty ballsy and they sometimes find him standing on the bar.  I like that.  I also liked that Jon noticed for the first time the Hooter's girl's footwear, as seen here:

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I personally think it's what takes them from sad and tragic to campy and fabulous.  They are so Camille Grammer back in the day.

I was glad I thought to take him here as it really is a great restaurant.  My car was in the shop getting the sound issues fixed (hence the driving around listening to mariah) which was why we were in the neighborhood of hooters to begin with.  But it was a good lunch followed by an afternoon drive down to Casey Key.

It's hard to describe how incredible it is to drive down some of these islands in Florida.  Jon kept trying to take pictures but then not being able to get everything in to one shot so he'd have to switch to video.  And some of the houses out there, ridiculous.

My favorite by far was this one though.  I literally stopped and went in reverse to show it to Jon because it made me laugh out loud:

It's like, "oh hey there, welcome home, let me open up my mouth and you can park your car right in there"

This is also a good example of the kind of opulence out there.  So the main road that goes down the island usually has houses on both sides but sometimes it narrows to the point that it's houses on one side and then their private beach and the ocean on the other.  A lot of the houses like this one have a mini garage and guest house on the beach side of the street that is designed to look like a mini version of the big house.  I want.  Especially one with a nice face on the side.

So now I feel better having posted, and can go enjoy my greyhound by the pool.  If anything interesting happens I'll be sure to report to you all immediately.

indeed

In case you're not familiar, this is my favorite graffiti in all of nyc.  It's on the lower east side and it makes me laugh every time I see it.

Sadly this is the only post I really have to do from my whole trip to ny, as most of the trip I spent sick in bed.  However, I did make it to Meghan's one night for tea and scrabble, which is when I snapped this photo, along with the ones following.

While the tea was steeping I was glancing through Meghan's bookshelves and stumbled upon this gem:

Apparently Meghan found it at a used bookstore and felt she had to own it.  This thing was massive, and is basically like a yearbook for criminals.  Every few pages it had a photo sheet with a handful of pictures, followed by several pages detailing who these criminals were and why they were so bad.

Here are my two favorites:

It was my understanding that swallowing a diamond would pretty much kill you as the diamond would shred your insides as it passes through you.  Perhaps that's why Mr. Woodward has such a dour expression on his face.

However he is no match for this charming lady:

I can't.  Every time I see this it makes me think of this:



I just wish I could see Bertha sing this song.

Anyways, that's all you get from my trip to new york.  I did have fun seeing Ashley and Laura and Dan, but after that day I spent the entire rest of the time sick in bed.  I did go out for gatorade at one point and had a man say, "excuse me, excuse me, young lady" which was nice, but that's about it.

At this point I'm just glad to be back home.  I'm feeling better though not 100%, just planning on taking it easy so I can be all better for Jon coming to visit this week.

my garden

It's pretty overwhelming to have gone from only being able to keep indoor plants to having a whole outdoor area in a tropical climate to play with.  Scott has graciously allowed me to have a couple corners of his yard and I've been playing with various flowers and fruiting plants.

Those purple and yellow flowers are my favorites that I have going in the flower box our front right now.  A close second are these beautiful blood red snap dragons:

If you've never had the pleasure of playing with a snapdragon then you are really missing out.

My other exciting plant that I have started in the backyard is a hanging strawberry bush.  I never even knew such a thing existed but I found them at the nursery last week and had to get one.  It's basically just a strawberry plant in a hanging basket, so I guess as the plant matures and starts to produce fruit, they dangle down from tendrils, just begging to be plucked and eaten.  At least that's how it will work in my imagination.  There is already a little mini strawberry and lots of flowers all over it so I am hopeful for the future.

After doing that post about the cocktail trees I got many a message from you guys saying how cool those sound and that I have to get one.  I do have the perfect place picked out in the yard but unfortunately those bad boys are a little too expensive for me.  Maybe I should start some kind of ''cocktail tree fund'' where you guys can donate to a good cause.  I'm sure that would go over real well.

In the meantime I will enjoy my flowers, and hopefully come summer, my strawberries.

I want all of these

I'm finally coming out of the sick haze I've been in for the past week so you'll have to excuse the lack of posts followed by a bunch of catch up posts.  You've no idea what i've been through the past few days, unless you were one of the few privy to know what happened to me at JFK.

Anyways, before I left for new york scott and I were strolling around St. Armand's Circle here in sarasota and I found this jewelry store.  This basically sums up the kind of people that live and shop in sarasota.

Needless to say I want a bejeweled elephant.  And check out the nice hermit crab and octopus!!

And I love the nacreous sting ray

and a bee necklace!!

I know it's the longest possible time until my birthday rolls around again but you all can keep any of these in mind to get me next year.  Especially this bejeweled crab.  

flawless

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why I need a celebrity bff

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The problem is that all of my friends are real people who have jobs they have to go to.  Here I am in nyc with nothing to do.  It's too cold to walk around and I don't have anybody to hang out with.

I guess that's why celebrities have entourages, so they always have somebody to hang out with.  I could get on board with having an entourage.  Or maybe just a few people on retainer to get coffee with me at times like this.

Blech.

ooh, ashley texted me yay!!!  I have friends again!!!!

backwards

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I'm at the airport waiting for my flight to nyc where I will spend a few days on a mini vacation before returning to my now real life in Florida.  This feels very unnatural.

The best part so far has been that I had to get body scanned at the Sarasota airport.  I haven't gotten scanned any of the times I've flown out of JFK, i've never gotten scanned at Burbank or LAX, I've never gotten scanned at Tampa, I didn't even think that Sarasota had full body scanners but apparently they do now, and I looked like a prime target.

After standing in the scanner I had to wait in a holding pen until the guy got the clear that I didn't have anything on me.  The TSA guy on duty was an older gentleman who was clearly just doing his job. At first he seemed surprised when I asked him if anybody was going to see me naked but after considering it for a moment replied with, "not hardly!" which made me laugh out loud.  Apparently he's seen the body scans and he'd like a little more detail.

Maybe I should get a job with the TSA.  I wouldn't mind a little T&A at work.

But anyways, my plane is about to board.  Next you hear from me I will be neck deep in snow.

foolproof

As I've mentioned, that bad bad cat has figured out how to escape the backyard and has been spotted roaming the neighborhood.  He also at some point in the past few days has lost his collar so now he's back on supervised outdoor time.

By supervising him I eventually figured out that this is how he's been escaping.  He goes from this window ledge to the fence and then over.  Thus I had the brilliant idea to put a bunch of shells up there to deter him.

He literally sat there the whole time that I methodically placed each shell pointy side up.  I think he was on to me, and was just waiting to see how far I would take it.  Once I finished with the shells I grabbed my camera to take the pic above.  Of course he was being so hilarious when I was taking this picture that I had to take some more.  A lot of the faces he's making are the faces he makes when he is making his poops and pees.  I know this because he feels the need to hang the front part of his body out of his enclosed litter box so that he can stand proudly like balto while the whole room admires him doing what he does best.

of course as soon as I finished with my little project and photo shoot and went back over to the deck to sit down I look over and see him jump right up there, knock all the shells off, then jump over the fence in to the front yard.

It's not just that he's bad a lot of the time, it's that he has to be so obnoxious about it.  How do you solve a problem like detective oliver benson?!