AKA: The Lamest Post ever.

• Mr. Hot shaved my head today. Well, it wasn’t a shave so much as a clipping with the #2 guard on. I was so tired of the little wispy shit that passes for hair these days, that I finally called him on it. “C’mon, just cut it off, ‘cuz it’s just matting up - there’s not enough of it to comb.” So, yay. I have to say, I actually like it, but…damn. Y’know how they say you lose most of your heat through your head? True. Especially when you’re sitting in the living room and your preferred spot on the couch is in front of the air conditioning vent. I’m sitting here in a sweatshirt. I do, however, look better bald than Britney.

• It’s been misting all day. But not actually raining, y’know. More like it’s 100% humidity and every once in a while it tries to rain. So the sky spits for a while and then there’s just more humidity. It’s like swimming through air. But, hey, my hair is NOT frizzing. Snort.

• The store finally had the Minute Maid Light Limeade that is the perfect mixer for my citrus vodka. They’ve had it on sale for the past two weeks - and apparently everyone has figured out that it’s MY favorite. People. Step away from the Limeade. You do not want to face a limeade-less Hotfessional.

• I want to buy a camera. A big, honkin’, expensive, DSLR. I don’t know which one, and I can’t justify it, but I do. I want to be able to take close-ups of the birds that visit the bird bath. I want to be able to spy on the neighbors and record their comings and goings photograph the bunnies that play in the front yard.

• I’m kind of upset that I’m not at BlogHer. I’m reading all of these great posts about meeting other bloggers and drinking and eating and trading business cards and “break out sessions” where you go learn about good stuff. I want SWAG. I want to hug Mr. Lady. I want to share hotel rooms with my internet peeps.

• Mr. Hot is reading political posts to me. I’m trying not to crawl over to the other side of the couch and scratch his eyes out.

• The dog is laying spread-eagle next to me. His feet keep twitching. The girl-cat is on the top of the couch cushion. I bet if I tip the cushion a bit, she’d fall right onto Poopy the Puppy’s belly. Snort. Sometimes I’m just a sick person. But how funny would that be?

• Chris Cooper is an awesome actor. And it seems like he’s in every movie we see lately. Right now, Mr. Hot has “The Kingdom” on.

• The cats love the dog’s new food. They never touched his old stuff (plain old Kibbles ‘n Bits), but they love the new stuff. I can hear the boy cat in the kitchen crunching his way through another bowl.

• I have nothing for you all today.

—- Over and out. —-

I honestly don’t know which of these is the most painful:

• Sitting through a meeting rehashing something that you thought was agreed to months ago and then finding out, an hour into the meeting, that the other person didn’t understand the difference between “A” and “B”, and so now DOESN’T agree to anything. At all.
• Slamming your hand in the car door.
• Running out of vodka.
• An hour-long workout after taking two months off.

Can you guess which one of those four things I HAVEN’T faced today. No, seriously, y’all. There’s four very painful things up there. Guess which one hasn’t happened!

{{waiting}} {{waiting}} {{waiting}} {{waiting}} {{waiting}}

Okay! Who guessed that the Hotfessional has NOT slammed her hand in a car door?

ding ding ding ding ding!

You win.

Everything else? Yes.

Fuck a duck y’all.

I’ve been working with a team made up of process experts (kill.me.now.) since March. I “own” a document that covers this process from beginning to end - meaning I have to add/delete/change/spindle/mutilate the flowchart (remember those?) whenever someone from the team figures out that “X won’t work” or “Z can’t happen.”

This process is supposed to be completed/frozen/communicated/blessed/approved on Friday. I’ve spent the last three business days not reading blogs/not writing blogs/not twittering/not IM’ing/not spying on my neighbors, but working my ass off to get this thing finished. And I was almost there. I was soooooo close. I was moaning saying, “Yes! Yes! Yes! Don’t stop!”

And then, today, someone essentially said, “Five doesn’t equal five. Five really equals ten.” (Kinda like running out of batteries midstream having your three year old catch you in the act.)

And the rest of us were all, “Huh? But five DOES equal five. Five doesn’t equal ten. Five equaled five in April. And in May, and in June. What’s so fuckin’ different about July? Huh?”

So now, I have to change that mutha-effin’ document again - or jump out the window.

Which won’t kill me because I’m only on the second floor. That is, if I could open the window with the pain in my arms from the forty-twelve curls I did. Or if I could raise my leg high enough to get out onto the ledge after the seventy-eleven squats and lunges.

I can barely squat down to sit on the freakin’ toilet to, ehem, relieve myself. Which means I can’t drink beer or wine, because they make me have to pee. Every 10 minutes.

And I’m outta vodka.

—- Sigh. —-

Y’all? Yesterday I got 30 cortisone shots in my head. If you were to look at my scalp, you’d think I was a junkie with really fucked-up aim.

Today, Mr. Hot woke up with a stiff neck and the sniffles and he’s, um, a bit stuffed up in the general bowel region.

Who is moaning and groaning?

You get one guess. (Hint. It is not the author of this blog.)

Not to alienate the male readers of this site, but oh mah holy hell! There is a reason that men don’t have babies.

********lalalalala********

In other news, 24’s cute friend from West-by-gawd-Virginia is still here. He, however, is at work. WTF people? He told his dad, “I have to work from 5-9:30, but Cutie-pie will just stay downstairs and read.” Mr. Hot yelled down the stairs, “You don’t have to stay down there, we don’t bite.” She giggled, and I can hear the television, but, am I wrong to be a bit weirded out by this? You invite someone to come visit, and then you leave them to their own devices in someone else’s house while you leave for a few hours?

********lalalalala********

In other, other news, we went to Home Depot and the ONLY kind of string trimmer refill they didn’t have is the one we need. So we left, which was a good thing, because every time we got to Home Depot, I have to pee. Seriously. I knew one guy who said it happened to him every time he went into a record store. (Y’know, when you still had to GO places to buy music.) His theory was that it prevented him from spending money since they had no public restrooms - he couldn’t stay long. With me, though, it takes longer to FIND the restrooms in Home Depot than to drive home, so I guess it serves the same purpose. Home Depot is my personal holy grail. Although you wouldn’t know it to look at my house.

—- And in other, other, other news - Shortman made it to my parents’ house just fine and dandy, driving on the interstate for the first time, alone(!), and decided to spend the night. Which would generally lead one to believe there would be general debauchery going on here tonight. Except, yea, there’s that whole house guest thing. —-

Well, I don’t watch awards shows - too many commercials, too many things I don’t know about to have any interest in. But, in honor of the whole Broadway thing, let’s do:

Bullets over Hotway:

• Back to work today. Worst part? Getting up at 6:50 a.m. Best part? Um, okay, nothing. It sucked donkey balls.

• I’ve decided to stick primarily with Twitter. Maybe a little Plurk if I’m feeling especially hyperactive. I must think up-and-down instead of side-to-side. Mr. Hot seems to like that.

• Had my second appointment with girlfriend Dermatologist today. She’s happy with regrowth on the top and back of my head, not so much with the sides. I’m thinking ‘mohawk’. She’s thinking ‘15 cortisone shots in the left side, then 15 in the right’. I’m thinking ‘Vicodin with a vodka chaser.’

• Shortman is going to earn some money at MomandDad’s tomorrow, trimming trees and hauling branches. He’s never driven over there alone; it’ll be his first time on the interstate by himself. I’ll be the one in the fetal position under my desk tomorrow waiting for his “I made it safely” phone call - y’know, just in case you’re looking for me.

• My copies of “You’re Not the Only One” are supposed to arrive tomorrow. I’m keeping one, having some sort of contest with the other. Stay tuned!

• On my list of things to do:
  • Make Shortman an optometrist appointment
  • Make Shortman a dental appointment
  • Make Shortman a haircut appointment
  • Make Shortman’s Senior Picture appointment
  • Shoot self

• I absolutely, positively, must redo my Linked List of Lust page. No! Don’t go look. If you’re not there, you’ll be mad or maybe not.  I don’t want to know, though - I’m sensitive. I’ll tell you when its done. (Yes, Coast Rat, that means you!)

• I keep seeing a hummingbird out front. I think it’s a Broad-tailed Hummer. It seems to only show up when Mr. Hot is inside, though, so I think he thinks I’m seeing things. (Which, okay, may be true in other circumstances, but not this time.)

• We’re supposed to set record lows tomorrow night - in the 40s. Again, W.T.F. Mother Nature?

• 24 has a girl spending the night - she’s here from West-by-gawd-Virginia with her father who is attending some conference in the area. She’s a cutie - too bad she’s not his type. hee.

• I keep getting emails with the subject, “what a stupid face you have here, reereep”. I want to send Demitris Rajiv (seriously, who is this Greek Indian anyway?) an email back saying, “yea, and I bet you have a chipmunk penis.” But I don’t. I’m simply too classy and polite.

—- I so blame that last one on the drugs. —-

Some sort of update thing today, eh? And a meme that’s been floating around. And some other random shit. Will that work for you? Good, because that’s all I got.

• First up, Happy Birthday witchypoo! Go say hi to her and wish her many happy returns, eh?
• Go over here and cast your vote for the Rack. (Pssst. #27… they look hot don’t they?)
• See that button over on my sidebar that says “Verve”? Click on it or click here. Go exploring! I bet you can find some old friends and make some new ones.
• It’s actually hot here today. Hot and muggy and sticky and oh mah holy hell - thank goodness. Finally. My bare feet are grateful.  Mr. Hot turned on the air conditioner!  In June!
• If you’re interested in winning a copy of “I Will Not Be Broken” by Jerry White, come over to Hot Reviews Books. I’m going to have random.org pick a winner tomorrow @ Noon, Eastern time.
• I did NOT crawl over to the neighbors to measure property lines last night. I told Mr. Hot to “Stop looking at the driveway already, they’re going to suspect something!” And besides, I know he cuts grass past that spot anyway, so if they complain, I’m just going to tell them it’s payment for years of cutting grass. Ha ha, so there!
• One more day of school, then two half-days next week for Shortman. He’s already prepared us for his Chemistry grade. Sigh. I don’t need to say anymore, do I? Okay thanks.
• 24 is on his way to another interview. Again, I don’t need to say an… Thanks. Again. Sigh.

And now, here’s the meme that’s been making the rounds. Personally, I stole it from Badger, and you can feel free to steal it from me(me).

The usual shitte -

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

The Questions:

1. What is your first name? Ree (There were several pictures of Pioneer Woman on the first page, but I went with a different choice)
2. What is your favorite food? Right now, Spinach Salad. The picture also shows salmon. Yum.
3. What high school did you go to? Canton High (Michigan, not Ohio or Georgia)
4. What is your favorite color? Pine Green
5. Who is your celebrity crush? Cate Blanchett. I also want her to play me in the Hot Affair story.
6. Favorite drink? Expensive champagne. Which is why I usually stick with mid-shelf vodka.
7. Dream vacation? Prague
8. Favorite dessert? Banana Pudding (I know. It’s not even chocolate)
9. What you want to be when you grow up? A math teacher. Yes, I know on this one, too. Shush.
10. What do you love most in life? My son and his father.
11. One Word to describe you. Compassionate (Snort. Hush!!! I am. usually. when people aren’t asshats).
12. Your flickr name. Hotfessional. I swear. This is what came up - the graphic representation of the code on this here, my very own site. Well, that’s original if nothing else, right?

—- Ooooh, and I almost forgot. I’m “on vacation” next week. Which is a hella misnomer, because not going anyplace. I will, however, be getting ready for the garage sale. So far, my contribution to getting ready has been agreeing to let my car stay OUT of the garage and sorting through about 300 cross stitch charts. —-

Hey, y’all. I missed you! Really, I did, but I needed some time away from the keyboard - because the time I spend every day on the computer is not good for my ancient eyes OR my right hand. I need that right hand (and Mr. Hot needs that right hand) since I’m butt-useless with my left. I know that it’s not good when your wrist at the base of your thumb starts tingling and and your shoulders start burning when you spend eleventy-kazillion hours surfing working. And no one is offering to pay me big bucks for my life story yet I still have to earn a living doing my real job.

****lalalalalala****

Aaaaaanyway, Saturday we spent the day out at Milan Dragway watching “Night of Thunder” - which was actually “all freakin’ day and into the night” of Thunder. Broken up by loooooong stretches of watching this guy:

go up and down the track very, very slowly. Because, y’know, when those suckers crash - or blow up (as in “he done blowed up”) - it takes a very,very, looooooooong ass time to get all of that oil and all of those little pieces up off the track. Oh, and obviously, I forgot to take my camera - so you get a cell-picture. Shush. It’s not nice to make fun.

****lalalalalala****

On Sunday, Mr. Hot and I loaded up the bikes into the back of the truck, drove a little ways into town, and then unloaded the bikes and took off. Will someone please remind me next time that hills? Suck. And when you haven’t been on a proper bike ride in 2 years? Your hips scream and your knees threaten to break through the skin and run away to live life in the flatlands. Your, um, lady-bits say “Enough! We’re shutting down here. This is NOT our idea of fun. In fact, we can make sure you never feel that kind of fun again!” But, we made it about 10 miles.

Then we came home and I laid on the peninsula and died of pain took a nap.

****lalalalalala****

Yesterday, we were invited to the neighbor’s house for a cookout. No, NOT the neighbors that I spy on every day between 7:30 and 5. Those are the “across the street” neighbors. These are the “on the right” neighbors. It was a nice, sedate crowd (y’all? if, at 45, you’re the youngest one of the bunch AND the only one who actually drank a glass of wine - it’s a nearly comatose level of sedate) - but it was nice to be included, and we did learn a thing or two.

First, the main drag (Michigan Avenue) is NOT referred to as Michigan Avenue around here. It’s “12″. As in “U.S. 12″. Now, I grew up in the area - only about 10 miles east of here - just a mile north of Michigan Avenue. It’s always been Michigan Avenue. Apparently, though, there’s some invisible dividing line where Michigan Avenue is no longer called that. It’s called 12. I thought maybe it was only a quirk of these neighbors and their friends, except that today, a complete stranger called Mr. Hot about a mower we’re selling. “Oh, yea, you’re out there off of 12, ain’tcha?”. Luckily we knew what the hell he was talking about. Two days ago, we would have had no fuckin’ clue.

Second, the “on the right” neighbors actually know the “across the street” neighbors. “The Husband” and “The Wife” have lived here a long time, apparently. Before their kids were born anyway, and they’re in Middle School now. I know I got sidetracked with the Hot Affair and all, but y’all? too freakin’ weird is what the whole thing is.

According to “On the Right” neighbors, The Husband lives in the house with the kids. But when I sit my butt down in my chair in the mornings, it’s her car that’s there. So, they must have some sort of arrangement where she comes over and takes the kids to school and then picks them up at least 1/2 the week. (Dudes, sound familiar? Oh Mah Holy Hell! It’s the reverse Mr. Hot and Ex-Mrs. Hot!) I haven’t figured out the whole Not The Husband thing, but I haven’t seen him since the 12th, so either they aren’t using this house as a getaway anymore or it really was a plumber fixing a broken toilet.

Sigh. I guess I shouldn’t quit my day job to become a private investigator, eh?

****lalalalalala****

Here’s what happens, though, when you spend an entire weekend away from the computer and actually outside, though. Even when you’re 1/2 Lebanese. Even when you remember occasionally to put on sunscreen:

Mr. Lady and I weren’t even on the same side of the Mississippi and we are both paying the price for being outside for three straight days.

—- And we have a freeze warning for tonight. It was 84 yesterday, and tonight I’ll be covering the tomatoes. Whoever is pissing off Mother Nature, please stop? —-

I’ll be here today.  All.day.long.

I have a couple of things for y’all though.

1. Y’know those “who’s stalking me” plugins?  Is it backwards stalking?  Because even if the reader doesn’t comment, it still shows that they’ve been there?  If you don’t comment here, would you want your identity showing up there?  (No, that’s not entrapment - ha!)
2. Don’t forget - if you have a favorite gardening website, leave me a comment here or send me an email at ‘reereep[at]gmail[dot]com’.
3. Garage Sale hints.  Mr. Hot and I are embarking on our very first garage sale ever.  Leave me your best hints and warnings!  Because, y’know, oh mah holy hell.  We’ve got lots of junk crappe priceless extras that we need to get rid of.

—- And now I must go break up the argument that is happening - over someone’s inability to put a sandwich into a baggie…. Sigh —-