smiling on foot

My trip to the ‘Cuse was a blast! But really, who thought it wouldn’t be? I haven’t had a chance to get my pics onto the internet yet (maybe tonight), but there are some good ones. RB is a great hostess and packed her party fridge with tons of beer and dt. mt. dew – even VIOLET dt. mt. dew. Who’s better than her? Our first night was game night, and once again our hostess, RB, successfully forced the game Catch Phrase onto her guests. I’ve decided that enough time has passed from when we lived together that I can let go of my hate for this game. I was just sick of it back then, but I think I can deal with a couple times a year now. See how emotionally mature I am? It was good to catch up with our hostess, SF, KW and the guy who ran 60 miles. Poor HEKD got the “Oh no” voice at least a hundred times that weekend (100 from me and 100 from her husband, easy). It just never gets old. I don’t know why, but it’s wicked funny every time. And if she gets mad at us for making fun of all her “Oh no’s,” then it’s even FUNNIER. :) Double D knows what I’m talkin’ about. Then the next day was “The Great New York State Fair.” HEKD and Double D’s baby Bateman was a good kid for Cath while we were at the fair. HEKD was amazed. We theorized that perhaps he sleeps better for people who don’t hover over him, pick at his head and change his clothes all night long. Hmm? (We love you, HEKD. You are a good sport to put up with us mean kids.)

Although the NY State Fair was indeed a great time, next year I have some improvements for myself to make it even better. 1) Wear shorts, not jeans – it was too hot for jeans as RB advised, but I ignored. What was I thinking?  2) Consume a breakfast, a small lunch and maybe even a Pepcid AC before arrival. My belly was starving when I wolfed down a delicious Hot Beef Sundae and two cups of chocolate milk. This was cause for some serious pain which seriously hindered my enjoyment for the first hour of the fair. 3) Wear inserts in my sneakers for added support. 4) A little related to #2: I need to really plan out what I’m going to eat and when. We passed so many items at night that I wanted, but felt I hadn’t had any “dinner” yet so I’d wait. My “dinner” ended up being a single baked potato while my “dessert” was a giant fried dough. You can get fried dough at any old fair – I wish I got something crazy and NY State Fair specific… like fried cheesecake or fried snickers. As you can tell, the food element was an obvious issue here which will be taken more seriously next year. I refuse to be disappointed in myself for two consecutive years! One of the best parts of the fair is the Indian Village. RB and I got in touch with our Native American heritage and purchased jewelry and learned about Sister Corn. The crafts in the Village ranged from kind of crappy jewelry to really amazing artistry. I should’ve done some Xmas shopping there for my Native American sister (my actual sister, not Sister Corn). We’ll put that on the list for next year too! All in all, a successful trip and I look forward to next year’s outing at the fair!

Click here for pics from the Labor Day Weekend Syracuse Trip of ‘09!

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

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.