Temptation

Here it is in one little word - iPhone.

Seriously... How did I live without one? And more importantly, who will do my laundry while I am too distracted by my phone?

It is so beautiful in it's little purple case...

I think I could be a tech-geek! But probably not. After all I am still resisting cable...

Alumination

You know the advertisement section of facebook - over on the right side of the home page where the powers that be try to guess who you may or may not be friends with just because you have a friend or two in common? Well, I've noticed the same name popping up over and over again. YHS Alumini.

The more high school people I become facebook friends with, the more pushy facebook gets that I should, in fact, also be friends with YHS Alumini. We have 12 friends in common. I'm not sure who it is that started this page, but there are 2,317 people who are currently facebook friends with YHS Alumini.

It would, in theory, be a nice way to touch base and maybe re-find some old friends. However... I'm not quite sure what an Alumini is. It sounds like something you wrap your fish in before you put it on the grill. Or maybe a secret society like the Illuminati. Or what a light bulb does to a dark room. It doesn't sound like high school graduates.

Do you think I should email this girl and let her know that the word is really alumni? Is it possible that she isn't aware? Or would I just be embarrassing her?

I mean... I get it... misspelling a word here or there... it's natural... but *come on* it is the *name* of the page! You are representing Yucaipa, home of chickens, skunks and flies. And, apparently, Alumini.

Conspiracy In The Beauty Aisle

I had an eye infection. If you've never had one, here's the gist of what happens... your eye hurts, you go to the doctor, you use antibiotic eye drops, you go without a contact lens for a week, and POW you're good to go again. Easy breezy beautiful.... right?

But hold up a second Cover Girl. That is not the end of the experience. You then have to dispose of all of your eye makeup and then repurchase new stuff. Because I'm a low maintenance girl, for me that is only three products: mascara, eyeshadow, and eyeliner. I went to replace these three products from the beauty-store-galore, Target expecting to pay around $35 total.

However... there seems to be a conspiracy in the beauty aisle because.... the eyeshadow I love... the one that looks perfect on my eyes... that makes me feel cute... is no longer. The product has, apparently, been discontinued. Why? No reason. My simple pack of three perfect colors has been replaced by a pack of ten colors - some of which should never be on an eyelid, each portion of which is tiny and crammed in tight next to the others. I'm not spending $11 on that.

*sigh*

I went on a hunt and tried to find, amongst the other brands, a shadow trio that was similar to what I had. I thought that I found one... but when I brought it home and used it it was horrid! It was... sparkly. Like my eyes were all a-glitter. Let me just advise... if you have ANY eye wrinkles what-so-ever... adding glittery eye shadow is like putting a big arrow straight to your crows feet. Plus, glitter is for crafts, not eyeshadow.

Back to Target, repeating this buy, try, be horrified... process. And as you can imagine this starts adding up financially!!!

Is this a conspiracy? Could it be that all of these makeup companies are in cahoots with each other and do this constant discontinuation of products intentionally so innocent people like me end up buying a lot of new stuff from various brands trying to find something that works?

Has this happened to you too? Because this is not the first time it has happened to me!!!

What's your thought... conspiracy... or do I just like products that are unpopular?

Why I Am Not A Celebrity

Do you know that baby shower game where you have to taste-test baby food and guess what type of food (and I use that term loosely) it is?

It is the worst baby shower game ever, right? Disgusting, I think, is the word that comes to mind. Truly gag-worthy. I cry a little when I see those label-removed mini jars come out.

So...

Can you imagine if someone told you that you had to eat 14 (FOURTEEN!!!) servings of baby food a day as a way to diet and lose a few pounds? For a part in a movie because you wanted to look just a wee bit extra toned. And you agreed to it. And then made it public knowledge. You're a lunatic, right?

Or... you're Jennifer Aniston. You know, the one that Brad Pitt divorced?

If this is what it takes to be a celebrity, count me out. Not that I have any desire what-so-ever to be a celebrity. But if I did, this would be a big red X on the negative side of the balance sheet next to the no privacy and having to wear makeup out on Saturday mornings. I mean really, is this what it takes? BABY FOOD???

It is just mind-boggling.

Toothpaste - Own It, Use It, Love It.

I listen to the radio in the morning while I get ready for work and every 30 minutes or so, between songs, there's a little celebrity gossip and amongst the normal trivial info about breakups and hookups there was a tidbit yesterday that made me gasp and choke.

Jessica Simpson does not brush her teeth every day.

I know... WHAT???? But seriously...

She said (and this is a sound bite taken from an interview on some show... maybe The View) that she doesn't like when her teeth feel slippery. She likes them to have a little something on them so they are not so slick. And she doesn't like them being so white.

That's when my gag turned into a laugh. Who doesn't want white and clean (aka slippery) feeling teeth? I mean, not the kind of white that glows in the dark, but the kind that toothpaste advertisers all put in their ads! Because the yellow-coffee-and-cigarette-stained-with-food-chunks-on-them teeth are not really high on anyone's list of sexy, are they?

And she validated her lack of tooth brushing by saying that she did use Listerine all the time and that she would... get this... use a towel to wipe her teeth off. What kind of towel fits into your mouth back to your molars? And who, when you were in kindergarten and learning all the songs about dental hygiene and brushing your teeth... who ever had the lesson on using a towel to wipe them off? I don't remember that. Disgusting. AND, no mention of toothpaste on the towel. I love toothpaste. Colgate, original. It is just the perfect amount of mintiness and you know I am a minty girl.

Anyway... back to Jessica "Hygiene-Queen" Simpson.... I am so glad I'm not her dentist. Or her boyfriend. Or her friend. Or her second cousin. Or anyone remotely close to her. Wow.

No wonder Tony Romo kept blowing football games when they were together and she would watch from the stands. He could smell her down on the field! Talk about a distraction...

After the Love

Driving home late last night I caught a glimpse of something sad in the alley. There, next to the dumpster, was a sure sign that the romance has disappeared for one of my neighbors.

There it was. A valentine's teddy bear, thrown away like garbage.

But not even like garbage... I mean garbage at least makes it into the trash can!!! The owner of this bear must've been so over the teddy-bear-giver that she couldn't even bother to lift the lid...and make the effort to get the discarded love-token actually into the dumpster. So there it sits... next to the dumpster. Beat up and dirtied, waiting for a dog to come by and pee on it.

It inspired me to write a poem... a haiku if you will... in honor of this sad site:

Next to the Dumpster

She must hate his guts

Tossed away with pure disdain

Teddy bear trash heap

Reality From The Road

I just spent 5 days driving from San Diego to St Louis and here are a few things I've learned from the experience:

1. Winds can be so bad that a semi truck can literally be bent in two by it in Arizona.

2. Storm chasers are real!!! I saw one - a very interesting vehicle looking like a home-made tank headed north in Kansas!

3. Men wear overalls in other parts of the country. I saw a lot of them. On men that were not wearing them for style or fashion points.

4. It is acceptable in Oklahoma to drive with a cigarette hanging from your mouth and a roll of toilet paper in your hand.

5. Dirt and Trucks go hand in hand. I saw so many red-dirk covered trucks out of Texas and Oklahoma it was insane. Not just a little dust, mind you, but full on mud and dirt covered in chunks all over the truck.

6. Miss America 1981 was born in Elk City, Oklahoma. It's true.

7. Kansas is "The Wheat State" and 1 Kansas farmer feeds 129 people.

8. Those California Cheese ads with the cows out grazing in the fields that are just soooo happy they're in California now - they are a big fat lie. The dairy farms in California (ahem, Land-o-Lakes in Hemet I'm talking to you) are big squares of dirt with a million cows per square inch. It's revolting. On the other hand... Angus beef in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas - huge spans of grassy fields dotted with cows here and there. Now THOSE are happy cows.

9. Phoenix has radar guns with cameras attached all over their freeways. So... either don't speed or wear a hat and glasses and pull the shade down.

10. Texas has some seriously fancy rest areas. You could practically live at one.

11. Toilet seat covers in public bathrooms - not something you find in every state! Gross, I know. So it is important to master the hover technique.

12. The most obnoxious baseball fan at a game will always sit right behind you screaming in a way that you think may damage you permanently. True in San Diego. True in Phoenix. True in Kansas City. I would like to find out if it is true in every single baseball stadium.

13. "Cracker Barrel" is code for "lots of butter."

14. Joe Mauer is huge. Ginormous. Billy Butler is not a small guy - and Joe next to him made him look like a little kid.

15. We are being ripped off in California for gas. $3.10 here is $2.62 in other parts of the country.

16. Speaking of country... if you like country music (and you know I do)... you are in luck driving cross-country! Most of the time there was a great country radio station available (or 5 or 6) even in the middle of nowhere! If you like other music... well... you may not be so lucky.

17. Garth Brooks is popular even though he has been retired... what... 10 years? He has a road named after him in Oklahoma. And a freeway exit. And he sings from the Jumbo Screen at the KC Royals games - "Friends In Low Places" a song that was played as the last song at my Jr. Prom. So... a long time ago.

18. Rudy's BBQ - get the brisket. Eat there whenever you see one. OH, and Braum's ice cream - get the black walnut. Eat there whenever you see one. Enough said.

19. New Mexico has a lot of trains. I saw 7 in one day. None made it into a photograph. Ha ha hahahah.... I'm so funny.

20. The Missouri River is wide... and kind of dirty looking.

Dent Art

There are a lot of fancy cars in the parking lot at work. A lot of regular cars too and one very vehicle that draws my attention like no other...

It's a minivan. White. Pretty basic. Tinted windows. Has an SDSU sticker on the back window.

And it has a big ol' dent on the left side rear behind the passenger door kind of over the back left tire.

It's a really odd place for a dent. I mean, it's not like he backed into something and smashed the car's tail light or something. It's not like he scratched the side of the door when he opened it too close to something. It's weird. It almost looks like a bowling ball was on a pendulum and swung into the side of the car to create the dent.

But more weird than the dent's location is that the dent has been... decorated... so to speak. There are four letters in gold stencil painting, like they were spray painted into the dent. Permanently, because they never go away even when it rains. D V N O see:

It's Dent Art. Seriously. DVNO. What do you think that means? It's so bizarre!!!

The driver, by the way, not so rough on the eyes, although he was probably in kindergarten when I was in high school... but I digress...

Guy with the Dent Art.... WHAT THE HECK? Stop by my office and let me know what the DVNO is all about! You take a plain white minivan to a whole new level.

A Letter To My Neighbor

Dear neighbor in my very urban neighborhood,

While I am a morning person, I prefer the soft sound of a cat quietly yawning at my feet as a wake up call and not the ear-splitting ridiculous call of your rooster just an alley away from my open bedroom window.

I know it is shocking, but I do not want to be awake at 5am on the weekends... or even on the weekdays for that matter, and your lovely bird seems to have the lungs of a giant, able to crow for several hours straight all morning!

Silly me, living in the heart of one of the biggest cities in the United States, I didn't realize that Normal Heights was prime farming land where a rooster would be necessary!!! The cement had me fooled.

Don't get me wrong, I love roosters. Seriously, I love to eat chicken. Fowl is my favorite meat and chicken is my favorite fowl and I consider roosters to be of the same yummy edible quality as regular old chickens. My big black cat, he loves chicken too. We are big time fans of chick-fil-a. Yum yum good.

Also, did you know that the freeway is a wee one block away from us? It would not be difficult to imagine how an escaped rooster could wander into traffic. So... be careful!!! Maybe you should send him away to your uncle's sister-in-law's cousin's nephew in... say... Jamul? Just to be on the safe side of course.

Sincerely,
Suzy

Lamb Butt

So I was shopping in the grocery store the other day. VONS - a regular store, not some funky-crazy-specialty store. Minding my business, in the dairy section, looking for a little "you can't believe it's not butter" butter, when I saw something shocking.

So shocking that I picked it up to look closer.

So shocking that I started laughing hysterically in the middle of the store.

So shocking that I ripped open my purse and yanked out my camera and took a picture.

What could be so shocking you ask?

Butter...

sculptures...

that's right.... SCULPTURES...

in the shape of a lamb!!!!! A LAMB!

Seriously. What are you going to do with this? Put it on the table for Easter? A little kid would cry over this when you hack off a little buttery lamb butt to put on your roll. Or worse, when you decapitate it to butter-up your mashed potatoes. Lamb shaped butter. Who thinks of these things? They're creepy, these lambed-shaped butter sculptures.

They are a baaaa-d thing.