"Two-fer" Tuesdays: Double My Order of Large Pokey Sticks!!

Okay, I lied. Well, I didn't start out meaning to. The point is now, I have no intention of telling you about Howl-O-Scream because to be honest, it's been over two weeks ago and the idea of writing about it bores me so I can assure you that it would subsequently bore you as well. You probably already knew this but you don't have to agree with me.
So what's been going on with me lately? Oh wow, so much stuff! I'm so interesting, I keep myself up at night trying to get all the details out of myself. I talk my ears off. Fortunately for you (or unfortunately, as this could get really long), I've kept it all off the blog until now. So here's what's been up with me and I'll try to keep it short. If I don't, as I've said before, don't get your FTL's in a wad.

First off...there was Howl-O-Scream. No, I'm still not going to tell you about it, I'm just using it to try to get the timeline straight in my head. This is all you get: it was fun. It was frappin' cold. It was long. I was tired afterwards. I'll probably go again next year, just wearing every bit of fleece I can get my hands on.

Immediately after that, there was Halloween. Fun stuff. I stocked up on six bags of teeth-rotting candy at Target on my lunch break that day and came home that night where I spent an hour and a half on my porch with Dad, shoving it at Harry Potters, Princesses, various dead and/or dying characters, and the occasional Winny the Pooh. Screams echoed periodically from my sister and her husband's house across the street where Craig, dressed in a black hooded robe with a green day-glo skull mask on, fooled teenagers into thinking he was a dummy and then jumped out at them, resulting in gleeful screams and spurts of urine. It was great and i ignored more than one small trick-or-treater as I laughed at him.

The weekend after that, I got sick. My head literally split open and I tried most of the weekend to keep the contents confined to the couch in the den. I took a total of approximately twelve ibuprofin, an excedrin migraine, and half a suped-up tylenol over the course of two days to help with the throbbing. In all my innate stubbornness, I still went in to work on monday, though movement caused my eyes to tear up in a less than endearing way. My boss took one look at me around ten o'clock, pronounced that I looked "bad", and sent me home. Guilt and stubbornness reared their ugly heads again the next morning when I again staggered down I-40 and into my office. Once again, my boss attempted to send me home but I forced a twitchy smile and assured her I was okay, stabbing intermittantly at my keyboard between throbs. Around one, I gave up and called the doctor to make an appointment and left. The doctor drew blood and pronounced me to have a "virus". No virus in particular, just a virus. Therefore, no meds. Yaay. I was therefore forced to continue my self-medication of ibuprofin and excessive drooling. I guess it was effective because I never lost consciousness.

Last thursday, while still manning my post on the couch, I received a call from Carrie at the David Letterman show. Yep, you read right. No, they didn't want me as a guest. About a month ago, I'd signed up for tickets and it just so happened that one of the dates I entered worked out for them and they were going to give me tickets if i could correctly answer a trivia question. All this was left on my cell phone voice mail as the excessive drooling inhibited my reaction time to such things as a ringing phone. I was so excited, I immediately called Dad, who I'd signed up to get my other ticket and go with me. He also was excited. Long story short, we called the chick back, answered the trivia question correctly, as any true Dave fan would, and were told to call back the next day to claim the tickets after we made our travel arrangements. This is where we hit the snag. Another long story short, we quickly discovered through mine and Craig's online frantic research and Dad's conversations with our travel agent, that we couldn't get up to NYC any cheaper (at the time) than seven hundred bucks apiece. Free tickets my bum! We, therefore, decided to forego the trip, much to both of our disappointment. I thought about crying but had lost so much of hydration through drooling that I couldn't. That made me sadder. What I learned from this experience, however, is to save up for just such an instance, make it a priority to travel to the places I want to go, and start my campaign right away to replace Biff on the Late Show. I don't know how I'll go about it but I have no doubt that I'll eventually succeed. I'm comin' for ya, Dave!!

Four days later, airline tickets were down substantially. I don't know who to be mad at.

(I just have to insert here that I have the best boyfriend in the world. Jeffrey, you rock! I won't embarass him by explaining here exactly why he rocks but he knows why.)

This past weekend, I drove down to Caswell to visit Yam. I left around 10:45 Saturday morning and made crazy time as I arrived in Wilmington at exactly 12:00. I hope Dad's not reading this. After hugging Hoagie at the gate and talking his ear off for five minutes, I drove in to Yam's house where I spent the afternoon chatting and watching Aaron Hinton yell sporadically at the television. I guess I should explain that the Carolina game was on. To escape the testosterone and hostile outbursts, I walked with yam over to the PX to vist Marlene who lives on the island and works at the PX on weekends. She's great. I got to know her my first summer at Caswell when I joined forces with her during the week and she's one of those people that never fails to make me laugh. Eventually, I returned to Yam's house where Aaron was still yelling at the television. The game ended not long after, however, and the three of us (Yam, Aaron, and I) went to eat dinner at Provision. Crab. Cake. Burger. That's all I wanted and it was so good. We spent an hour or so talking at Port City Java later before returning to camp at which time I left and set out for a visit with Nathan in Wilmington. I picked him up and we visited the downtown Port City Java (hey, you can't get enough chai), my favorite PCJ, and I had a great time just hanging out with him. He's one of the best people I know to discuss music with. I don't know why I don't tend to trust his taste in new bands because we have basically the same taste in music. I guess it's just my way of being pissy that he "found" the band first. Love you Nate!

As for this week, i'm back at work and happy to be functioning as a normal member of the working world, away from my couch and the mind-numbing influences of soap operas.

I just found out some sad news today, though. Ri-Ra Pub here in downtown raleigh has changed ownership and is no longer Ri-Ra. In the email informing me of the change, there was a link to the website of the new restaurant. Out of sheer hope and curiosity, I clicked on the link and was immediately plunked onto a website that looked like a little help from Hooters would make it more classy. There were midriff-baring chicks holding those plastic baskets of wings and pitchers of beer in each hand, advertisements for beer specials for monday night football, and a "Ladies Night" banner which, disturbingly and annoyingly, contained the pictures of two nearly-nude women, soaked through and wearing white bikinis. Somebody needs to inform them that this is not what "Ladies Night" means. You're not going to induce (most) women to come to your bar with pictures of other semi-nude women. That's "Mens Night" guys. MENS night. If you're going to keep up with the theme of "Tacky", then slap up a oily, over-muscular guy on the banner. In other words, I was so disappointed with the prospect of this replacement of my beloved Ri-Ra, I almost cried again. I didn't though, as I'm still a little dehydrated. Let's take a moment to stop and bow our heads in silence on behalf of dear Raleigh and the loss it has suffered. Ri-Ra will continue on, bringing joy to the citizens and visitors of Charlotte and five other cities of our great nation, but I belive that this is a loss that Raleigh will not soon recover from.

Ri-Ra, you will be missed.

Have a great afternoon all. I promise to return shortly to torment you all. I hope you haven't gotten used to the peace and quiet.