Cue obnoxious squealing

My womens are visiting this weekend. 

I am so excited I could die. 

One of them is six months pregnant and the other is getting married in June. I've spent a fair amount of time in the last several months being sad about how I am missing all the good stuff. I don't know what G's favorite pregnancy snack is. I don't know if wedding planning is making L nuts.* I don't even know what they will be for Halloween!

Oh god it is gonna be so awesome to see them. I plan to spend several hours a day staring at G's preggars belly and asking her invasive questions about her pregnancy, followed by asking L embarrassing questions about her honeymoon lingerie plans. Then we will get pedicures. 

Friday needs to GET. HERE. 

*We are bad phone talkers. The time difference doesn't help. 

Vacation interlude

You know how some people go on vacation and schedule guest posts from their awesome bloggy friends so that people don't lose interest in their blogs while they are gone?

Well. I go on vacation and while on vacation I guest post on other people's blogs while ignoring my own blog just as much as I normally do. It's a special skill I have. I like to call it "doing things backwards."

Which is to say: I'm over at Jehara today writing about a book you should read. Also, oral sex.

You should probably check it out.*

*Sorry I can't link to the specific post because I am scheduling this in advance and will be riding a whale when the post on Jehara actually goes live. Look for a post on August 29th. 

Newsflash: Weekends are awesome*

Guys. I finally figured out how to have weekends.

After our hike D$ and I went out separately with friends. I met up with D$ and his new best-buddy later quite late in the night and let them buy me drinks while they got wasted and happy. The next day D and I lazed around the house and snuggled.

The weekend after that I: went on a long walk with my oldest (as in longest-knowing, not as in grey-haired) friend. Got dressed up in D$'s favorite green dress to go with D$ and the same new best-buddy to a Portland Timbers game. Drank microbrews and screamed cheers about my city. Found myself post-soccer game at a very strange party in a very posh apartment. Ate lots of free expensive cheese. Went out t0 breakfast and watched Bridesmaids with a dear friend. Shook, stomped my feet and laughed until tears rolled down my eyes.**

Then there was last weekend. D$ and I drove from forest to river to desert to visit our friend A in the very small town where he lives. A said you have to approach the town like a Study Abroad experience, and we did. The first night we went to a members-only "business men's club" with a stuffed bison head over the bar. We also went to a bar where - I shit you not - the short, blond, gap-toothed waitress was wearing a Merlotte's t-shirt. In the morning we drove to the Walmart to get bullets, targets and Coors Light (I am absolutely not kidding about this) and then drove out to federal land and I bruised my arm shooting a real-deal Remington shotgun. I hit one target and was damn proud of it. That afternoon we happened upon cheap tickets to the Sasquatch music festival and drank beer in the sun to the tunes of Iron and Wine and Death Cab for Cutie. I learned that MDMA = Ecstasy, and, no, strange young lady, my husband does not have any so please don't ask him again. I also learned that I'm not as curmudgeonly as I thought I was*** but I'm still not so hot about the combination of outhouses + hundreds of drunk people. The next day I hiked in caves and rode on the back of a motorcycle and then D$ drove us home to the kitties and a freezer full of Popsicles.


I did not spend these weekends cleaning**** or doing laundry or grocery shopping. I did not spend these weekends helping my parents or cleaning my car. I did fun things, with my husband and with my friends. And you know what? I didn't die from not being super-ready for the work week.

Have you guys been having weekends like this all along? How did I just figure out that it is okay to have fun on the weekend and not use it for errands and cleaning?

Also, what should I do next weekend? I'm thinking after last-weekend's escapades I should balance it out with a poetry reading, pedicure, maybe an art show.

Oh wait - actually next weekend I'm running my very first-ever 5k (in a costume) and then watching as my husband and my father drunkenly play bass drums in my favorite parade of the year.

Catch me if you can, y'all.


*If my step-brother MK were here he'd take one look at the subject of this post and say (in his best Ace Ventura voice), "Thhhhank you, Captain Obvious!"
**GO SEE THAT MOVIE. RIGHT NOW. Stop reading this post. Go!
***Although I cannot even TELL YOU how much I hated the skinny white girls and boys wearing fake "native American headdress" shit. I seriously wanted to slap them. How in the world do they now know how offensive and weird that is? 
****All right, fine, on Monday I did break down and vacuum the carpets a little and go grocery shopping and get food made for the week. But that was only a few hours of the day and the rest of it was fun, I promise. Plus, D$ helped.

Did I mention that I stayed in a PYRAMID?

 Photo by me, from chaise lounge, one hand on mimosa

I wouldn't necessarily recommend going to Vegas in the middle of a really stressful time with your husband.

I wouldn't necessarily not recommend it, either. That is, as long as you are surrounded by your hilarious, no-nonsense friends who help you understand that getting gussied and letting handsome British men buy you drinks is totally awesome and acceptable... and then make sure you get your drunk ass back in bed next to your sister.

Las Vegas is a terrible and wonderful place and I had a great time.

That is all I will say about that.

Bone: picked

The meeting went pretty well. I was dead exhausted when I got to work so I pumped myself up by listening to Irish pop punk* (primarily this song).**

My hands were shaking during the whole meeting and I relied upon a ridiculous page of notes in order to ensure I completely said my piece, but I did  say my piece. I said it without being aggressive or mean, and I communicated that I also cared about Young Guy's needs. For his part,  Young Guy was very receptive. He hadn't realized that I was frustrated, which at least tells me that I wasn't being as aggressive and negative as I felt (this is a good thing). I felt heard and acknowledged and we figured out how to ensure that our discussions meet both of our needs in the future. Work went really well the rest of the day and I'm hoping that we're over the hump.

Whew.


Now I am off to Seattle to visit two of my very best lady friends on the planet. I am so, so ready for some female energy I might explode with joy.



 In fact, I gotta run: off to pack my cutest outfits*** and hit the road.

Me, snorkeling on our honeymoon and waving you goodbye as I head off for Sea-town

*What can I say? It was St. Paddy's day and I love a good theme.
**I forgot to note in my last post that we start work at 7 am so a 8 am meeting was not a cruel tactic on my part.
***Last night I asked D: What are some of my cutest outfits? I want to bring cute clothes. D's response (in a wrangled voice): I don't know! I can't think of these things on the fly! 

So I shot a 9 mm handgun this weekend.


WHAT??


I know.

Backstory: My good friend Z's step-mother died of breast cancer a few months ago. I've known Z since high school and I know that we share a common attribute: anger as a kneejerk reaction to grief. When I heard the news one of the first sentences out of my mouth was (after the requisite condolences) was, "Well...wanna so shoot some shit?"

He did. So we did.

For all our bravado leading up to this weekend we were both totally nervous, which surprised us both. When we walked in we tried really hard to look nonchalant. Then, as we stood in line and tried to look cool we overheard a bearded employee very seriously tell the father and son in front of us, "Now, you're gonna wanna use the restroom before you shoot this gun." Z and I turned to each other and stared wide-eyed without speaking. Should we go to the bathroom? Did we dare? I decided we'd be okay, mostly because I didn't want to call attention to myself by running to the bathroom and crying and/or throwing up.

A very nice and very tiny woman greeted us with a smile when we got to the counter.

"Non-member?" She asked cheerily.

"How did you know?" I asked.

"The huge smiles on your faces." She responded with a friendly laugh.

"Oh," I thought, "What a very nice woman! This isn't so scary at all!" Then as she handed me the application form I realized that she had a hook for a hand. As I handed her my drivers licence I suppressed the desire to wonder if she had shot her hand off and reconsidered my decision not to use the restroom.

Once we'd waived away our rights to sue if we shot our faces off another nice man helped us pick out our gun. We told him we had never shot a gun before and he gave us approximately 20 seconds of safety lessons, including such tips as "point the gun downrange," and "don't walk in the line of fire." We were smart enough to ask how to load the gun otherwise he wouldn't have shown us. Then we picked out two of the more-offensive shadowy figures to shoot at (Tactical Encounters 4 and 5), put on our eye protection and were on our way.

I'm so bad-ass I match the shooting range

I'm not gonna lie, folks: it was totally awesome. A crack shot I am not but I did hit Tactical Encounter No. 4 in his jaunty beret several times (I was aiming for his right eye, but whatever). I got Tactical Encounter No. 5 right in his jugular.

This is before I shot the shit out of No. 4's beret.

We went through two boxes of ammo, taking turns loading and firing the full clip. When we turned in the gun and our shell casings we still had the shit-eating grins on our faces but the fear was edged out a little by pride and wonder. Nice Hook-Hand lady asked us cheerily if we'd had a good time. "YES," we responded.


Then we got hotcakes and skillet breakfasts.