Weekend Recap

Saturday, My sister and I went to the Borders in Sunset Hills for a book signing. My favorite St. Louis Post Dispatch columnist (Suburban Fringe) was signing his new self-published book "The Cat Ate My Nachos". It was supposed to be from 2-4 and we got there around 3, and his books were already sold out. The Borders sales person said she thought it was a new record for the store location. The author, Bob Rybarczyk , was still there even though the books were gone and he signed my sister's copy of his other book "Acoustic Kitty". We may have accidentally insulted him while discussing "Acoustic Kitty" with him. It's a great book with a interesting storyline and characters, but the main storyline involves animal testing and there are a few gruesome cat deaths in the book, so it was hard to dance around that topic and being honest without criticizing the book.

Then I went home and watched, "Lions and Lambs" (interesting, but didn't blow me away), "Taking Chance" (It was an hour and a half and I cried for an hour and 29 minutes), and "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian" (fun, as good as the previous one).

Sunday, I went to church with my sister. It was a Christian Mega Church and was an interesting experience. It started out nice and normal. There was a full band playing Christian Rock, a nice size choir, etc and we started singing to begin the service. This went on for about 20 minutes with a lot of ad-libbing, as part of the song, by the choir director. Then the pastor interrupted the singing because he had been inspired by the music and then went into a mini-sermon, then there was a mixture of songs and the pastor being inspired to heal people's emotional pains or rather calling on the miracle atmosphere that was created by the songs so that the angels could walk amongst us and heal the pain, and this went on for an hour and a half, with everyone standing the entire time, before my sister and I snuck out of there. I've never left a church service early like that, and I feel bad about it, especially because the majority of the people there seemed to be genuinely enthusiastic and whole hearted in what was going on, but as we were leaving, I'm pretty sure the associate pastor started "speaking in tongues" and that was enough for me.

Then I came home and watched "Gone Baby Gone" (Amazing movie, love Casey Affleck, totally deserved Oscar nominations, can't recommend it enough), before getting ready for my date. Jeff showed up, we went to Target to pick up my Valentine's Day gift, then dinner at El Maguey before going to see "Wolfman" (enjoyed it while I was watching it, thought it was stupid when I started thinking about it again later.). Then came home and set up my V-Day gift. It took an hour and a half. Would have taken 5 minutes if we had known to just turn it to Channel 3.

Valentine's Day

So, I can't say I put a lot of effort into Valentine's Day. I painted my nails and shaved my legs, and that's about it.

Since it was also Mardi Gras weekend in Soulard, I gave up my parking space to go get my sister and her friend and dropped them off at Mardi Gras. Traffic sucks and the people that attend Mardi Gras are real assholes. I miss living in Soulard during Mardi Gras because it was just easier overall.

My sister and I agreed that I would pick her up around 6:30. Around 5:30 my sister starts texting and calling because she's ready to go and I need to come get her. This pisses me off because I'm in the middle of getting ready for my date. She doesn't care about that and if I come get her it will mess up my plans for the evening. So, in a much nicer way, I tell her to suck it up and I'll come get her when I'm ready.

Needless to say, I'm stressed out by the time 6:30 rolls around, and the boyfriend finally shows up. Then we head out to pick up my sister and her friend. We get them, deliver them safely to their homes and then the Valentine's date finally begins.

We went to Outback Steakhouse and there was an hour and a half wait. Which isn't unexpected on a Saturday night, much less the Saturday closest to Valentine's Day.

We had just ordered our drinks, when one of the bar area "first come, first serve" tables opened up. At least I hope it was "first come, first serve". Otherwise, we're assholes. It wasn't the most romantic table, but we were both happy to just not have had to wait an hour and a half. Our waitress was great and the food was better than usual. So, other than having random strangers hanging around our table all night, it was a good meal.

Then we headed out to see "Valentine's Day". The weird thing was that the 9:30 movie was sold out, but the 9:50 movie only had about 30 people in the theatre. Oh, well.

I love romantic comedies, but I thought this movie sucked. Jeff hates romantic comedies and he didn't think it was that bad. He actually liked it.

After the movie, we headed home and I made him watch the Valentine's Day episode of "The Middle" on ABC.

I think the family on this show is what Jeff and I would be like if we were married with kids. Even the fight in the car during the episode reminded me of us. And to be honest, I think that if I ever have kids, they are more likely to be "the weird kids" rather than "the cool kids".

So, even though I didn't put a lot of planning or effort into Valentine's Day, it ended up being really good, but then again no matter what day of the year it is, it's usually a good time when you spend it with your guy.

Upcoming Mardi Gras/Valentines Day Weekend

I was getting ready this morning, wishing I had reason to take a sick day, but I felt fine, so I had to go to work. I realized as I was getting ready, that this time last year, I would have taken a PTO day tomorrow to get ready for our annual Mardi Gras party. But I don't live in Soulard anymore, so I'll be going to work. :( Then when I was driving to work, I have to drive through Soulard and the Parks Department was blocking one of the lanes of traffic putting up the metal crowd barriers in preparation for this weekend and that made me sad again.

My sister, who I used to live with in Soulard, is going to attend this year and asked me if I wanted to come. I said no, so she then asked me to be her cabbie driver. Saturday is also the day my boyfriend and I are planning to celebrate Valentine's Day, so now I get to pick up my drunk sister and her drunk friends in the middle of our date. I could have said no, but I would rather interrupt my date than have something happen to my sister, or her friends, that I could have prevented.

I'm thinking of trying to re-work our Valentine's plan anyway. My boyfriend normally doesn't work Sundays. For the past few years they have blacked out Mardi Gras on the schedule so that no one can take it off. This year they forgot to do that and approved a bunch of requests, then realized it was Mardi Gras and Valentine's Day and they needed to have extra staff instead of running short. So, they scheduled my boyfriend on Valentine's Day without asking him and then didn't post the schedule until a week out instead of the normal two weeks out. So that sucked. Then combine that with my piss-poor job of coming up with something fun to celebrate Valentine's Day. As a couple, we decided a long time ago that it would be my responsibility to plan all our dates, normally something fun comes up for Valentine's Day but this year nothing fell into my lap like the last few years, so we are doing the same dinner and a movie we do every week. I didn't even get a new outfit or manicure to try to make it look like I tried to make it somewhat special. I hate waiting for a table and we didn't make reservations anywhere on a Saturday night. Adding to my unnecessary whining and complaining, Saturday night is always busy anyway and because it's Valentine's weekend, it's going to be worse. Plus, I hate crowded movie theatres. So, I have a terrible attitude going into Valentine's Day. And, having a bad attitude makes me even madder because I try to combat the Anti-Valentine's crab-asses with sweetness and positive energy, and having a crappy attitude makes that harder.

So, I came up with a new plan this morning to try to move our celebration to another day. I normally love Valentine's Day, even though I've spent most of them single, so I hope it works out.

St. Barkus Day Parade

Saturday was a fun day. This is the first time in 5 years, that I haven't lived in Soulard where most of the Mardi Gras festivities take place in St. Louis. So, it was a little sad for me to learn how to get around the neighborhood and find parking just like everybody else, instead of just walking to where I wanted to go and have a bathroom that wasn't a Porta Potty. I hate Porta Potties.

We met up with my sister's friend Michelle near the Soulard Farmer's Market. Michelle is a foster dog mom, so she was there with her dog Vivienne (Vivi or Vivi-roo) and her foster puppy Francesca. She refers to her as "Little Girl Dog".

This is Little Girl Dog.

She'll be up for adoption at the Humane Society on Macklind next week. Michelle was carrying her in a computer bag like a Baby Bjorn. I don't think I ever heard her bark all afternoon. She doesn't really like mud, though. When we moved to an area with more space to watch the parade, the ground was pretty wet and muddy, but Michelle put a blanket down, sat down and let her dogs roam as far as they could on their leashes. Little Girl Dog stayed on the blanket and chewed on what she could from there. She's seems like a smart and cooperative dog who really likes to be petted.

Bogey, my sister's dog, is on the left. Vivi, Michelle's dog, is on the right.

Bogey has had a mixed bag of results during recent Dog Parades. He seems to like the adventure of getting out of the house and walking around with the humans, but he's never been a fan of loud noises or dogs sniffing his butt. He also gets humped a lot, so he's not really a dog's dog and likes to stay with the humans when he can. He did very well, except when the plane flew over and when we let him loose on the leash-free side of the dog park (he tried to hide in a Porta Potty). We headed to the Frenchtown Dog Park in Soulard after the parade. They had food, alcohol, and contest prizes. It's a really nice dog park that has one side that is leash-free and lets the dogs run wild and do their thing. The other side requires a leash, but it's a lot more calm and orderly, so Bogey preferred that side.

Vivi seemed to have a blast. She's very social with both humans and dogs, likes the adventures of trips like this and camping. She didn't mind hanging with her mom on the leash side of the park, but ran around like a wild child, when she had the chance, on the leash-free side. Viv had a good day.

Little Girl Dog was exhausted by this point so she cuddled up on top of her bag and went to sleep. Apparently, she didn't want to sleep on the wet ground. Then when it was time to go, she got put back in her Baby Bjorn where she fell asleep again pretty quickly.

Overall, it was a good day at The Dog Parade.

I'm in my mid 30's and I went on a field trip!

On Wednesday, I went on a field trip to the Missouri State Capital in Jefferson City to see our government in action. I was part of a group of about 40 people from my work. The license at my work is in the process of being revoked by one government group. The State Representative from our area is sponsoring legislation to prevent this government group from using financial reasons as a tool to take away our license. (The whole story behind the situation is actually very interesting, but I’m trying to not be too detailed in my blog when it comes to work.)

So my company paid for a charter bus to take enough people to fill the committee room to show support for the State Representative that was introducing the bill. The ride was smooth and comfortable. The company paid for Jimmy John’s sandwiches, chips, cookie, pickle and a bottle of water for each of us. That was really nice and tasty! It took about two hours, but the time flew by (Especially since I was watching old episodes of the BBC America show called “Skins” on my iPod). We arrived in Jefferson City, looked around the State Capital for awhile, both inside and out, and then made our way to the Ways and Means committee room.



One thing I found surprising was that we never went through a metal detector (I guess it is a sign of the times, that I was surprised.) The bus was parked at the back of the Capital and we entered through a side door, but if they had metal detectors at the front doors, what’s the point of that, if you don’t control the other entries to the building? Oh well, not my problem. We sat through the committee meeting which had a few bills to discuss before ours, and then it was our turn. Our State Representative introduced the bill, several people spoke in support and then they asked if anyone was opposed. One person spoke in opposition on behalf of the government group that is trying to take away our license. Then a committee member asked him several questions. And then it was over. We’ll find out in a few weeks if this bill will make it out of committee.

Then it was time to leave. We left the committee chamber and I get a phone call on my way out. I finish my call but I need to make a call before we get on the bus. I see everyone else going to the bathroom and I think that’s a good idea. So, I decide to make the phone call after I go to the bathroom. I’m juggling my purse, my bag, my coat, and my phone in the stall and I set my phone down on the toilet paper dispenser instead of putting it in my purse. I think as I set it down that I’m going to forget it. And that’s exactly what I did. I forgot about making the call because everyone was gone by the time my group left the bathroom. I took a group picture and then got on the bus.

When I finally remembered the call I was going to make, I thought that my phone was either in my purse or in my coat pocket which was stored in the overhead bin during the ride. We watched the Michael Jackson concert movie “This Is It” on the way back and it’s actually much better than I thought it would be. I’m not usually a fan of the “making of “ type of movies, but this was actually interesting and whatever you think of the man, he was very talented. We finally got home and I get my coat and purse and start looking for my phone to make a call and I realize it’s not in my purse or coat. Immediately, I remember that thought I had in the bathroom that I was going to leave my phone, and I know, in an instant, that is exactly where it’s at. I don’t have a home phone and I don’t have anyone’s phone number memorized, except my parent’s. I had no way of getting a hold of my boyfriend who I knew was going to call my phone like 8 times, trying to catch me that night. I had no way of alerting my sister that if she’s texting me, to not bother, and I can’t call my mom in case she called me wanting to tell me something. That sucked. Apparently, a security guard found the phone or got it handed to him by someone and he texted my mom (who is an emergency contact on my phone), but then she had no way of contacting me to tell me because, like I said, I don’t have a home phone.

So, as soon as I get to work the next day, Becki helps me start trying to call The Capital to see if they’ve found my phone, and after about 5 tries we get to the right spot and they do have it. We leave a message with the person in charge of Lost and Found items and wait for him to call. I go back to my office where my mom finally gets a hold of me and tells me a security guard called last night and has my phone. She has the phone number of the person I need to call. As soon as I get off the phone with her, I need to get on a conference call for work and I go to my computer to get the call-in info which I get and then dial-in, but my computer is telling me I’m being attacked by Trojan viruses and it won’t let me get to the internet, so I shut the computer down and re-start it, hoping it will magically be better, but that doesn’t work (surprise!). So, I’m on the phone, but I can’t access the power point presentation we’re supposed to follow along with. I don’t have my cell phone, my e-mail access has just failed and my phone is now tied up on a conference call. I was stuck in my office, unable to contact anyone for help. Fast forward an hour and a half and the conference call is finally over. Then the IT guy spend the next four hours fixing my computer. While, the IT guy is working on my computer, I’m upstairs, trying to square away the phone situation. We end up having to Fed Ex a Fed Ex package to the State Capital Police because they won’t take our Fed Ex account number and just Fed Ex the package to us. So, Thursday was a long day for me, but thanks to the help of Becki and Bruce, my computer is working great and my cell phone is hopefully in transit back to St. Louis.