Oh There's No Place Like Home

for the holidays.

This is the sight that will greet me tomorrow - yay!

Since I will be gone for awhile, here is my Christmas present to you all. Click here and enjoy. At first you're going to be all, "huh?" But just keep listening. You'll understand. I promise.

Merry Christmas, everybody!

IM Excerpt:

K-flix and Bea.

Kristen: so, wanna read something funny?
oooof course you do
[email from my dad]
Hi Girls,
Any clue what Mom might want for Christmas? Someone said that's coming up real soon... Maybe we can go on Saturday morning, or even Monday to do some looking......assuming you know what she might like. I had thought about a new snow shovel, you know, the one that's ergonomically designed especially for women, but then I got to thinking...that would be showing off to the neighbors to have her out there with the latest and greatest technology.
Counting the days...
Pops

Patrick: wow.
that's...
wow.
K: I love my dad. :-)
P: he's kidding.
right?
K: well of course
P: well, you don't know
K: where do you think my sarcasm CAME from?
P: the LORD?
K: [giggling uncontrollably in her office]

Awesome.

"Are You Two Sisters?"

"Are you twins?"

My sister and I get asked these two questions on pretty much a weekly basis. We always reply with "Yeah." and then "No. We get that a lot, though." It gets a little old because, yes, I suppose we do look kind of alike, but not nearly enough to be constantly mistaken for twins. Well, we were talking about all this with Annemarie and Carlos tonight and they said we should just start saying "No." As in "Nope. We're not related. We've never even met before." and see what people say.

I've decided we should take this one step further. I am going to buy a large medallion and split it in two. I will take one half and htd will take the other and we will carry them with us wherever we go. Then, the next time someone asks the inevitable question, we will play it off like we've never met. I will look over at htd, rapturous hope dawning on my face. I will pull my medallion half out of my pocket and ask with tremulous voice "...s-sister? Is...is it...you?" She will slowly draw her own medallion half out of her pocket and we will fit them together. When the two halves meet, a golden light will shine down from above, an otherworldly chorus will sound and we will fall, sobbing, into each others embrace as the original asker of the question looks on in wonder and/or annoyance.

End scene.

El Tigre

You were a good cat.

My dad just sent me a message saying our family's cat had to be put down today. Poor little guy. He'd been our cat for 16 years, ever since we found him up in a tree one day after coming home from elementary school. He lived on our screened in porch and had his very own kitty door so he could come and go as he pleased. He couldn't meow properly - he made this raspy, airy noise when he wanted your attention. He ruled the neighborhood cats.

My parents live on a little lake, and each summer Tiger would get sand burrs caught in his long gray hair. So we started getting him sheared each summer. He would be free of the matted sand burrs and his coat would grow back, long and fluffy, by the time winter rolled around. We called it our "Yearly Cat-Shearing," only half-joking that it made us sound preeeetty redneck. "You might be a redneck if you shave your cat every 4th of July." We did.

Whenever I visit home, I always go sit on the end of the dock and just look at the lake for awhile. Tiger would always saunter down from the porch and sit by me for a bit. I'm going to miss that.

"I Had Christmas Down In Africa"

This is great!

Seven Weird Things

Blogging subject courtesy: Jerilyno

So apparently I am supposed to tell you guys seven weird things about myself. Brace yourselves.

1. Food Disassembler Extraordinaire. This one is pretty self-explanatory. I take my food apart. I've done it since I was old enough to eat solid, take-apartable food. It's not even a conscious thing, really. If it has layers of any sort, they are taken apart and eaten separately. Except for sandwiches. I eat those like a normal person. Prime disassembling foods: 3 Musketeers bars (chocolate, then nougat). Lucky Charms (crunchy bits, then marshmallows). Vegetable Medley (one type of vegetable in its entirety before moving on to the next).

2. Matchy Matchy. Books within a series really need to match. No mixing paperbacks and hardcovers. No mixing old and new editions. Just nice, orderly sets of books.

3. ABC:DVD. I alphabetize my DVD collection. I also separate them by genre. Nothing crazy or anything. It goes: TV collections (in alphabetical order except for Friends, which is first (duh)), music DVDs, funky movie box sets, then the rest of the DVDs. See. Perfectly logical.

4. Naked Wrists. I have freakishly long arms. I don't own a shirt with sleeves that are the proper length. Annoying, yes (although the rise in popularity of 3/4 sleeve shirts has eased my laments a bit), but handy at times. Case in point: my gorilla arms allow me to reach most hard-to-reach things.

5. Frodo vs. Freud. I needed to take one psychology class to complete my Honor's Program requirements in undergrad. As my luck would have it, by the time I was able to register, the one and only honor's psychology class with any openings was Psychology: Study of The Lord of the Rings. I had never read the book. I had never taken a psychology class. Spring semester 2002 found me in a classroom with 7 Tolkien Fiends/Psychology Pfanatics debating and discussing the correlation between Jungian theory and Sam and Frodo's journey. Don't get me wrong - it's a great book. But, you know, sheesh.

6. Your Other Left. I know my left from my right. Just...sometimes I have to think about it. Shhhhut. It.

7. Baby Kangaroo Tribbiani. When I get flustered or nervous or angry, all the normal words fall out of my brain. I end up using big, SAT-ish words that I would never normally use in everyday speech. Words like accoutrements. It falls out of my mouth and in my head I'm all, "You giant nerd! Why didn't you just say 'stuff!'"

The end.

It's not really, but I'm afraid I may have scared you all away. Please tell me some of your weird quirks so I don't feel all alone. My eternal gratitude. (I must be nervous - why didn't I just say "thanks?") ;)

Reader Poll

Yep, that means you.

My cousin Cassie always comes up with these great random questions to spark interesting conversations. I am somewhat smalltalk-challenged (especially when conversing with people who are also not so much with the chit chat), so these come in handy during conversational lulls. Plus, you get to find out obscure things about your friends (if they play along). And also, it's just fun.

So, dear readers, today's question is:

If you could permanently remove five songs (no more, no less) from existence, which ones would you banish forever?

Cassie's picks:
These Hands - Jewel
Hey Ya - Outkast
Jack and Diane - John Mellencamp
Summer of '69 - Bryan Adams
Picture - Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow

My picks (off the top of my head):
Far Behind - Social Distortion
Who Will Save Your Soul - Jewel
Amazed - Lonestar
Baby Got Back - Sir Mix-a-Lot
Happy Birthday To You - Mildred and Patty Hill

Which songs would YOU get rid of?