smiling on foot

There are two things I’ve done three times in the past week and they are eating raviolis and driving to Marshfield.

Don’t you love raviolis?? I sure do. Do you like it better when they have cheese in them or beef? I had some over the weekend that had beef and spicey sausage inside and they were delicious. I was watching my sister’s house, dog and 13-year old while my sister and hubby went to Bar Harbor for a romantic weekend away. My sister lives in Marshfield right near the beach. I so rarely cook that I decided to make a carb-o-licious meal of my favorite things. Frankie (the 13-year old) and I went to the local Shaws with really nothing in mind, but I saw these raviolis near the deli and thought they looked yummy. I also bought a package of cheese ones… but it was like 4 different kinds of cheeses… so good. I also made a creamy garlic sauce, rice a roni with herbs, salad and POTATO SKINS. The pre-packaged food near the deli had these amazing potato skins with real potatoes and real hunks of bacon that made me say F-it-all and bought those too. We ate this meal both Sat. and Sun. nights.

I also ate raviolis last Friday night with Xtina at our fave: The Chat (pronounced “Shat” – short for Chateau). They fry their raviolis and call them “toasted” on the menu. Anyone that’s anyone knows to call these treats “toasted ravs” when ordering. We love going there and ordering the same meal: salad with parm. peppercorn dressing and toasted ravs w/meat sauce. Although these two ravioli experiences were excellent… my 3rd ravioli meal came from chef boyardee and was reduced fat – so naturally it sucked. I don’t recommend, but Mum was visiting with her sister and did not provide me a delicious meal that night. It was one of those super hot and humid days that makes cooking out of the question so a canned meal was adequate, but not very satisfying. Like my man, Meat Loaf says, 2 out of 3 ain’t bad. :)

Now on to my trips to Marshfield.

My sister teaches yoga every Tuesday night and during the summers, she teaches on the beach. It’s really so nice to be doing postures while gazing at the ocean and smelling that ocean air. However, I haven’t been to any of her classes this summer! I’m a bad sister. It takes about an hour to get to Marshfield from Quincy after work and I’d have to leave work at 5:15ish which almost never happens. But she tells me a few weeks ago that she’s trying a new dog yoga variation of her normal class… “doga” as it’s called. Needless to say, I made it a point to attend. I did not have a dog, but sat on my mat and did my own stretches while watching the show. There was some “human yoga” mixed in with the dog stuff too. I assisted with my sister’s dog when needed, but Frankie pretty much had the assistant job covered. I wish I brought my camera, but there will be another in Sept. I plan to borrow a dog (from my brother) and attend this class again. Everything went a lot smoother than I expected and my sister’s dog did her postures very well. The 4 dogs in the class did not do so good, but I think they liked the attention from their owners anyway. All proceeds went to the Fairy Dog Parents organization that gives help to dog owners who can’t afford their dog(s) anymore. I met some representatives of the organization who were very nice. The other dog owners were friendly too and I think everyone had fun with the “doga.”

Last night, I once again left work and headed south to good ol’ Marshfield. This time, it was not to see my sister or go to her house. Brace yourselves, Bloggos, because I went on an honest-to-God date. I haven’t been on a real date in a while. Partly because there hasn’t been any real prospects and partly because I get too suspicious of the men out there to really make any effort. But I recently came across a nice, young man on the internets and decided to give it a go. He is a south shore kid like myself and I have a  feeling that we have similar sensibilities. Marshfield is a halfway point for us since he lives in Plymouth and we both have a fair idea of what the town has to offer in terms of watering holes. We had some Chinese food and then went down the road to another bar where he knew the bartender. I woke up at 5:40 this morning with a beer headache. (I’m clearly out of practice.) Since this is an hour and 20 min. earlier than my usual wake up time, I am currently not looking forward to the day. The headache was such that I couldn’t go back to sleep so I got up and ate some cereal along with some Excedrin (2nd time this week – my stomach lining is slowing deteriorating as I type). It’s been a relaxing morning of lying in bed with my baby girl cat and watching all the Ted Kennedy stuff on TV. Dad says, “Well, I better go fill in for Teddy.” He thinks he looks like him and could pass as his double while Ted’s employees “do all the work for him.”  I told him this morning that being a senator requires more than Kennedy looks, but apparently this fact is not important. Dad’s also mentioned (repeatedly) in the past that he is the lost Kennedy brother. What a lunatic. :)

Here’s a side-by-side comparison for you to judge:

Brothers separated at birth? You decide.

I started to write out a big chronological blog entry detailing all activity from the few days my friends and I stayed at Ocean City, MD… but since so much time has passed, I’ve realized there’s only one thing that matters about the OC… the beach. It was heavenly and I must put special focus on it. But I will first give a little backstory leading up to when my eyes gazed upon the best beach I’ve ever been to…

Thursday evening, the 13th, I picked up AMR and Bykfam and we hit the road around 11:30 p.m. for an overnight trip to Ocean City, MD. We were meeting KDM for a sun-filled weekend that would include a concert from her bf Joe’s band, JunkFood. I would probably of never even heard of Ocean City if it weren’t for JunkFood’s planned gig at this location. AMR and I took turns driving down while Bykfam slept and watched Transformers 2 from his laptop in the backseat. I drank a bottle of 5-hour energy drink in addition to Dt. Mt. Dew and managed to stay awake all night. AMR did it on natural adrenaline accumulated from being on vacation. We arrived at around 8 a.m. and the hotel said to come back at noon to check in. Bykfam and AMR ate breakfast while I slept in the car. I woke up after 30 min. of sleeping in a hot car and ate a banana. We then went to the beach and upon laying my weary eyes on the ocean, a certain light went on that lit up my entire insides.

It’s important that I explain what happened here with as much detail as possible to fully convey how phenomenal these next moments were. Now I have been spiritually living in the House of Woe-is-me in a dark, lonely room. It’s like a dormitory for sad girls who have pity parties once a month in the common areas. When my eyes saw the smooth sand with no rocks, shells, seaweed or other things to hurt my feet and vast, blue ocean with fairly high waves… it was like someone pulled up the shades and opened the doors and windows to the dark haven that is my mind and let the sun and ocean air inside. Nay – it was like I parachuted out the window of the House of Woe-is-me and felt so free and happy to be alive! The lack of sleep or food was no matter as I dropped my bag and went straight for the most wonderful ocean water there ever was. It was warm, but cool enough to be refreshing. It was salty, but not as bad as Mass.’s heavy amount of ocean salt. And the waves were strong, but not as scary as the Vineyard.

We went right in and frolicked and laughed in the waves like people who hadn’t just stayed up all night driving. To spot us from afar, you would never guess that we are people who live 5 min. from the ocean and look at it all the time. But this ocean was different. We were on vacation and we were in love with the OC and nothing could’ve been better. The waves sucked us in and spit us out repeatedly and we were in awe of its power over us. When we were fully winded and could barely stand, we collapsed on the beach and soaked in the rays for about 3 hours. I lied there and felt like the luckiest girl. I even exclaimed from my towel that we were “so lucky” to be there. The weather was hot, sunny and clear and remained so for the whole weekend.

The rest of the vacation went smoothly. We went to the SEAcrets bar that is an outdoor drinking wonderland of palm trees, bars and DJ booths. You have to say it like SEEEEEEEEE- crets. Seacrets has shitty drinks, but the atmosphere is very on point for a beach vacation spot. They had a couple of bands too. The place was huge. We did the beach again the next day, but mini-golfed on the 3rd day. We saw Joe’s band, JunkFood, on Saturday night and AMR and I showed EVERYONE that WE were the biggest fans there. I almost had to beat up a couple of people to prove it, but it wasn’t really necessary so we kept the peace. The band put on a great show as usual and the dance floor was ridiculously packed by the end of the night. I ate one hockey puck burger and one gourmet delicious burger over the weekend. Bykfam had something called scrapple and it was gross. We also went to an all you can eat pizza buffet where I ended the meal with TWO pieces of chocolate cake. So if the diet wasn’t already out the window at the start of my vacation, it was truly a forgotten memory by the time we went to Maryland!

Top Ten Things I Learned on my August Vacation:

10. Julia Child lived in Cambridge, MA, after living in France and wasn’t really a professional chef or anything when she wrote her cookbook. Mum and I thought the movie was really good so you should go see it!
09. I will never go back to Fire and Ice… I’m just too old to be hassled with this ‘do it yourself’ crap. Plus, it felt like a combination of a college cafeteria and a 19+ night at the Palladium.
08. Be weary of bathing suits with plastic clasps… plastic doesn’t seem to hold up so good. Also, buying a new bathing suit in August is more of a challenge than you’d think.
07. Hearing that girls at the Fager’s Island bar in Ocean City were talking about how they liked my outfit is almost as thrilling as if it were a dude’s admiration (which there was none since I probably look like a giant grandmother compared to those Ocean City girls).
06. When I go away for a few days, my Little Girl cat-baby will put a toy in my bed.
05. While at the Cape, my brother told me that they smoke actual pot in the Easy Rider movie. (AMR and I viewed this recently and decided it was the worst movie ever.) This fact does not make me like the movie any more… it actually makes me like it less. Irresponsible potheads.
04. Charlaine Harris’s vampire stories are ten times more interesting and well-written than the Twilight books… but there’s something about the pace of the story-telling in Twilight that makes them more addicting. Regardless, I’m really enjoying this series of vampire books and recommend them if you’re into that sort of thing.
03. Ignore bad weather reports pertaining to Ocean City, MD. It’s beautiful and sunny every day! I’d recommend the location for a fun beach vacation for anyone who loves being a beach bum! Of course, the people did lean on the more trashy side – but I live on the south shore of MA so it felt just like home.
02. Kerri is a skee ball master. Bykfam is a mini golf master. I am the master of getting tan. And AMR is the master of sleeping in the backseat.
01. Angela hearts the Lord.

——- >Click here for all pics of my August vacation! < -------

I’m back from Vacation and it was every bit as wonderful as I anticipated. As with the implementation of the new catbox, my vacation can be described in 3 easy phases:

1) Cape Cod Weekend
2) Wey-cation
3) Ocean City Wonderland (Where Dreams Come True)

I will have to cover #3 in a separate post since there is just so much to say about this fantastic portion of my vacation.  I also need to upload my photos to kodakgallery some night this week. I don’t have many from Ocean City, MD, because my battery was nearly dead and I forgot my charger. AMR has some so maybe she’ll share with me for the bloggo before I do the Maryland post!

So before I did the Cape thing, it really started with a Friday night dinner with Xtina, her brother and her brother’s friends at Fire and Ice. It’s always nice to hang out with Xtina but with all the comings and goings involved with getting your food at Fire and Ice, I didn’t really get to talk with her for the first hour or so! The next day, my parents and I headed to the Cape for a few days. The three of us haven’t vacationed like this together in a long time and it was a very quiet and serene weekend. There was a family gathering that Saturday for my great aunt Ethel’s birthday and I saw some relatives that I haven’t been able to see all summer. The weather wasn’t super, but I did finish my Bible Salesman book (terrible!) and Mum and I saw the Julie & Julia movie (terrific!) together so that was nice.

On Monday, I came back to Weytown for an afternoon visit with HEKD and little Nathan… the baby actually didn’t scream all day as he usually does with me! Maybe he likes me better now. Here is a photo of him and his mama with the “breck girl” hair (as mum said – who knows about Breck hair products?)…

Nathan getting burped in my bedroom

The next few days of my Wey-cation included a brief beach visit where my bikini top broke, a consultation with a gum specialist at my dentist’s where I scheduled a “scaling” and other fun upcoming dental visits, a chiropractor visit that wrecked my neck, a fun restaurant week dinner with AMR, Xtina and HEKD and some shopping excursions to prep for MD. On a particularly cloudy/drizzly day, I convinced Mum to come with me on a Duck Tour of Boston. This was my 2nd and I love them so. I learn so much about my city in a fun way (and then forget it all a few days later). My sister, my niece and my niece’s friends wanted to come too so when we arrived at the Museum of Science, I was not really surprised that the next available tour for us would not be for 3 hours. We killed time by eating some ice cream treats and then saw an Omni Theater movie. I don’t think I can handle these Omni movies anymore. It made me extremely dizzy and nauseous… I’m getting worse motion sickness with age. But the movie itself, The Greatest Places, was very informative and beautifully filmed. The Duck Tour took the normal routes through the touristy sections of the city and I realized I’d be coming up on AMR’s office location soon. So I texted her and she sent this image back to me of our purple duck!

An AMR-eye view of our Purple Duck!

Later on in the tour, we spied AMR sitting on a bench near the north end chatting on the phone. We yelled and waved at each other and my sister asked to the driver, “Isn’t she beautiful?!!!” And the driver responded by announcing to the world on his microphone that there on the bench was the most beautiful girl in Boston. :)

The Most Beautiful Girl in Boston

WZLX does a fun bit every so often called “My town is better than your town.” I’ve been waiting ever so patiently for a Weymouth version and one morning at the beginning of August it finally happened! As an extra bonus, the opposing town was that of HEKD’s hometown of Melrose. Melrose never stood a chance! Our mayor was clearly very prepared and give a very good representation. I found the link on their web site for sharing. Click below to listen:

Weymouth Vs. Melrose

I just viewed this on another blog and wanted to share. Since I am 32 years young, I was raised by Sesame Street and have a long time connection to all of Jim Henson’s characters. My feelings on this video is a mixture of funny and blasphemous… mostly funny though. Enjoy!

While I wait for my iPod to sync up to all my latest podcasts and playlists… thought I’d do a quick check of the weather down in ol’ Ocean City, MD and lookie here… CLOUDS. So I’ll be leaving two days of clouds and rain to a couple more days of clouds and rain:

Ocean City, MD Forecast

Would you like to see what I’m leaving behind here in Weytown? I knew you would because I was sure curious:

Weymouth, MA Forecast

Yeah, I have had one sunny day this entire vacation thus far. AND on said sunny day, I went to the local beach and settled down and about an hour later, my bathing top broke and I needed to cut my beach visit short since I was in danger of exposing myself to the world. I think I have bad weather Karma. But I still have one piece of hope left that this cloudy/scattered t-storm nonsense is just a lie. But if it isn’t… well… I can sit on the beach on a cloudy day, no problem.

Okay, the iPod is all synced up, now it’s time for a wee nap before hitting the road with AMR and Bykfam for a 9-hour ride to Ocean City!

Have I mentioned that I saw the most impressive, most memorable, most phenomenal concerts of all time (minus that of Mr. Eric Clapton’s, of course)? No, I didn’t tell you? Well, let me tell you now that any sort of pre-vacation funk I was in last week was immediately lifted when I stood in Boston’s Fenway Park and thoroughly enjoyed the talents of Mr. Paul McCartney! When tickets became available a couple of months ago, I contemplated purchasing some but they were over 100 bucks and I never pay that much for tickets. Plus, I don’t know anyone who would pay that much and go with me either. (This is when a boyfriend would come in handy.) My co-worker friend, LW, has a great sister who purchased her a ticket for LW’s birthday and they were going with 2 other friends. I was so jealous. When it was the day before the first show, I kept hearing my favorite classic rock station talking all about the show and it was making me a little crazy. I was seriously thinking of just buying a ticket for myself and sitting alone in Fenway Park so I could see the dreamiest Beatle perform – a once in a lifetime opportunity for me, for sure. But to not enjoy it with anyone kind of makes it not worth it for me, so I did not buy that ticket. Good thing, though, because I received a text Wed. evening (the eve of the 2nd show) that one of LW’s attendees had bronchitis and would I like to buy her ticket for Thursday’s show! I was so happy that I barely slept that night.

The girls and I had a little pre-party in the outdoor seating at Game On before finding the “Roof Box” seats. (FYI, there is no direction in that park for anything called “roof box.” We must’ve asked 6 guys where to go before finding our seats.) Our seats were amongst a lot of older people and families so we chose to stand in the walkway above our seats, which worked well for dancing and swaying side to side through all the love songs. :)

That man is a machine… he went from the electric, to the acoustic, to the piano, to the ukulele… Basically, he never sang a song without simultaneously playing an instrument. It was overwhelming. Every song was played with perfection and we knew the words to almost all of them. He told stories as if he were on MTV’s Unplugged (of which he was indeed an Unplugged performer in 1991 and yours truly listens to the Paul McCartney Unplugged album quite frequently). He played a little ‘Foxy Lady’ for his old friend Jimi H., he played a beautiful love song for Linda, he performed ‘Here Today’ which was a song he wrote for John Lennon shortly after his passing and dedicated ‘Something’ to Mr. George Harrison, who wrote that song presumably for Pattie Boyd. There were many songs that inspired me to want to learn them on either piano or guitar. Here is the set list for the Boston shows:

Drive My Car
Jet
Only Mama Knows
Flaming Pie
Got to Get You Into My Life
Let Me Roll It/Foxy Lady
Highway
The Long and Winding Road
My Love
Blackbird
Here Today
Dance Tonight
Calico Skies
Mrs. Vanderbilt
Eleanor Rigby
See the Changes
Band on the Run
Back in the U.S.S.R.
I’m Down
Something
I’ve Got a Feeling
Paperback Writer
A Day in the Life / Give Peace a Chance
Let It Be
Live and Let Die
Hey Jude
Day Tripper
Lady Madonna
I Saw Her Standing There
Yesterday
Helter Skelter
Get Back
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band / The End

I took many photos of Sir Paul and the girls that night. Click here to view.

I also uploaded some video of ‘Here Today’ – which is the song he wrote for John Lennon. The words of this song are what he imagined he’d say to John if he had one more chance to speak with him:

I bought my cats a $35 cat box last week and I feel like this is a lot. But like every parent who has a child with a specific quirk or disability, I am sensitive to the needs of my cat daughter, who seems to have a serious urination issue. I was thinking I should capture her on video or photo when she urinates to fully explain her issue, but then thought better of it. No one wants to see that. (But if you do, let me know and I can make it happen.)

When Little Girl gets in the litter box, she’ll squat herself down for a pee just like any normal cat. Her tail will be straight in the air and her ears are down (most likely because I’m there watching and she is a modest cat). Just before the actual action of peeing takes place, two very odd things happen. First, her tail starts twitching like crazy and continues to twitch as long as urine is exiting her body. If the urine stream takes a momentary pause, the twitching also pauses. When the peeing resumes itself, the twitching starts up again too. Second, squatting no longer seems necessary and she suddenly positions her rear end high in the air so the urine can shoot horizontally to almost any target she desires. As one would expect, this second oddity poses a very serious problem when cat urine projects onto the floor and walls of my parents’ basement!

In their youth, both cat babies each had their own dome shaped cat box with a lid. But those boxes are small and Bandit’s giant self doesn’t fit comfortably in them. I also don’t like cleaning one cat box, never mind two. Mum offered up one of her bins to use for their cat box since it was big and the two of them could go pee side-by-side if they wished. When we learned of Little Girl’s unique urine affliction, we created a new cat box out of a tote. Yes, a clear plastic tote had the highest sides we could think of to protect the basement walls from Little Girl’s urine gun of stink.

A year has gone by and I have repeatedly lined the tote with big, black garbage bags and Mum even put cardboard in there to make the garbage bags fit better (I’d need a photo to better explain this elaborate setup, but you get the idea). We even laid garbage bags on the floor underneath the tote in the event Little Girl’s little bum muscles grew strong enough to shoot urine over the cardboard. Well, that day came this summer. I thought it was a fluke and changed the bags on the floor. But then it happened again and I decided we needed a new solution. I should note that I am not angry at Little Girl. She is an odd, odd cat and does so many things in her strange, little way. I am a loving cat parent, regardless of her various PITA quirks, and began shopping for a new cat box.

New Cat Box

And so I introduce the new cat box. The customer reviews on a popular pet web site say that it’s a good size for when you have multiple cats and one woman sited this cat box as a great solution for her cat who pees over the edge of every normal cat box out there. Perfect! I also like that it’s an actual cat box and not a giant tote… that would’ve be an eye sore for sure when we move out in the future.

The new cat box even has a cute little swinging door that helps keep stink inside. Now because my cats are especially feeble-minded, I had a feeling that mastering the swinging door could take some time. I decided to implement the new box in a 3-phase process.

Phase 1: The cat box hung out in the dining room where I coached them on how to use the swinging door. I tried to make it fun like it’s a new toy and gave lots of positive reinforcement when they could get in and out without my help. Bandit mastered it in a day, Little Girl took about 3 days.

Phase 2: The new cat box was put in the basement next to their old litter box/tote. I set it up with litter and let it be for a day. Someone used it in that time so I felt we were ready for Phase 3.

Phase 3: The giant tote is gone and the new cat box stands alone. I put one garbage bag on the floor beneath the new box just in case, but everything seems to be working out quite well. Here are some pictures of the first day of getting used to the swinging door:

It’s been a rough week or so for ol’ LK and I apologize for the delay in updating the bloggo. Stress has been hitting me all around and I just haven’t been feeling much like writing any posts. Everytime I think about writing something, the posts are highly negative and no one wants to be invited to any of my pity parties. I also don’t want to call people out since I’ve now gone public… but since I’ve received a comment from r*becca where she has shown her displeasure about the lack of updates… here is your highly negative, finger-pointing, woe-is-me post from yours truly. You can thank her at your convenience.

When I am sad or frustrated, I try to do what others say you should do and “work it off” at the gym. Does this even work? I’ve been running on faith that it does, but I’m really thinking that it only adds to my current disfavor with life. My poor body is not like most and doesn’t respond too well to the sort of exertion needed to compensate for “working off” anger, anxiety or general depression. I also find it hard when stressed to obtain that ‘umph’ needed to create that fervent, climb-the-stairs-like-Rocky kind of energy. Maybe I need to like exercise more.

For example, last Monday someone asked me what happened with a guy I had gone out on a “friend date” with a month or so ago and I told her “not much” and then she asked what happened with the apt. I looked at and I told her “it was a dump that I couldn’t afford.” The next day (that would be Tuesday for all of you who only half-read these posts), a different someone asked me why my last relationship didn’t work and I had to rehash it all and answer some questions that brought all the shit-tastic memories up to the forefront. Tuesday evening’s workout allowed me to be one with my depressing thoughts. How are people able to “work it off” with mere physical exercise when it’s clear that your life is so ultimately disappointing? If anything, these thoughts make me more listless or sluggish – like a Sloth. I bet the Sloth wishes for a better life like me – why else does he move so slow? I bet he lives with his parents. I wonder if the Sloth has friends who are all well-established with property, relationships and general contentment that he does not possess? If so, I think I’ve just decided that I was a Sloth in a past life. Regardless, I think I was able to rise above just enough Tuesday evening to still get a good workout and put it all behind me for the time being.

Then last Thursday my co-worker dinner companions completely forgot about me at the end of a difficult day (one of 5 politically-difficult and emotionally draining work days last week) and left for the restaurant without me. I decided to not show up by myself where they undoubtedly had already started ordering and instead brought my insignificant self to the gym to “work it off.” I got caught up with watching Van Hesling while on the PRECOR AMT 100i and figured it was okay to do 45 min. instead of my usual 30. I also did a series of arm and leg work on some weight lifting machines, which I rarely do. When I came home to my usual lonely dinner in the dark kitchen, my body was shaking and I couldn’t stop sweating. Clearly, I was trying to beat out the self-loathing inside and overdid it just enough to ruin my outside. Mum came downstairs to chat and then the phone rang. (It’s been busy at my house with her leg manipulation procedure, a broken dryer and her ex-boyfriend passing away.) While she talked on the phone I figured some piano playing might calm the aches and shaking. After an hour, I realized my face was as sweaty as when I first came home, my breathing was strained and my back was slowly snapping in half. I went to bed with no shower and woke up really sick on Friday. On Friday afternoon, I decided that salads every day may be contributing to the weakness I had been trying to overcome all morning. I needed something hearty to stick to my bones. So after weeks of nothing but healthy food, I ordered a meatball sub w/provolone and an order of french fries. By the afternoon, when I was receiving more work that would require me to stay until 7 p.m., my stomach was struggling with the task of digesting this abomination of a lunch. It was not pretty.

I haven’t been to the gym since, nor have I eaten any more volatile meals. Since I have crossed these things off my list of awful things to do to myself, Saturday evening I went back to some old standbys of drinking too much. Now that we have once again placed my self worth alongside the price of moldy fruit, it’s time to tackle life again – hopefully with a better disposition. So forget “working it off” at the gym, you need to lash out in acts of self destruction before feeling better. Trust me on this.

This Friday begins a wondrous vacation (or Wey-cation since I will mostly be hanging out in Weytown if the weather doesn’t cooperate). It’s the first time I will have taken a whole week off in about two years! I hope to take this weekend through Monday (maybe Tuesday) to spend at our family camp and gain some peaceful solace. Hopefully, I can see JBP and Mikey P. at some point during that time too. On Tuesday, I get to see a gum specialist that afternoon because apparently I need “scaling” in addition to surgery because I have gum disease. Yay for #5 gum pockets. Then a restaurant week dinner with some of my favorite girls that evening. I’m also going to fit in a day to see HEKD and the baby since it will be over 2 weeks since Nathan has screamed at me (far too long to go without that pleasure). Then Thursday evening, amr, bykfam and myself drive overnight to Ocean City, MD, for a fun-filled beach weekend with our Weytown honey, kdm. There will be rock ‘n’ roll, lying out in the sun and some boardwalk type attractions. All this fun seems an entire planet away from the dreary existence that is currently LK. But I guess this is what vacations are for… to escape to a different world that’s a whole lot better than real life.