Monthly Archives: September 2009

Intra-City Road Trip

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Meet Gabby.

Last weekend I spent my Saturday with Gabby.  She, as a new licensed driver, told me a few weeks ago that she wanted to take a day and drive around Fort Worth.  I think a lot of teens don’t think about the fact that they don’t know exactly how to get from Point A to Point B in their cities until all the sudden they’re out on their own, calling mom to say, “UM, I KNOW WE HAVE LIVED HERE FOR 15 YEARS, BUT WHERE IS THE GROCERY STORE?”  Gabby, though highly capable of finding her local grocery store, wanted to take her knowledge of her surrounding area to the next level by doing an Intra-City Road Trip.  We talked about a few ideas, then she and her dad highlighted our route on a massive map of Fort Worth.  Here’s a mini photo essay of our Saturday On The Town.

Everyone knows that any road trip worth its salt needs good food.  Whereas usually that entails making sure you hit Whataburger while the taquitos are still being served, when you’re doing it Intra-City Style, you can afford to go with slightly more time consuming choices.  Gabby effectively piloted us to one of Fort Worth’s most famous Hot Spots, Joe T. Garcia’s.  We sat on the massive, fantastically beautiful patio and ate until we almost burst. Then we kept eating.  Then I had a margarita!  Horray for Gabby driving!

Next stop: The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.  Gabby is super casual/cool.  See how she has the ticket poking out of her back pocket in a trendy but nonchalant manner?  She doesn’t have to try to be cool.  She just is.

The elevator at The Modern is highly reflective.

I got to see some of my favorite pieces at The Modern:

Like The Miniature Old Lady made by the former puppet maker who has on fantastically teeny but realistic looking everything. Including PANTY HOSE.  Teeny little panty hose.

And the Donkey.  Also uber, uber cute.

And the ladder to nowhere.  I had to brace myself against the door frame to take this picture because of the low light/no flash/no tri-pod situation I was in.  That’s when we found out that apparently door-frame leaning/wall touching is against the rules, too. Learned.

And the series of black and white portraits documenting 4 sisters over 30+ years.

And, of course, the walls.  Sounds silly maybe, but the architecture/ design/ building materials are some of my favorite things to scope out at The Modern.  Someday when Zack and I build a house together, I would love to have poured concrete walls like these.

There are some things at the Modern that Gabby does not consider to be awesome.  Here are two of those things:

#1.) Andy Warhol.  Look at that face!  Gabby is not impressed.

#2.) Random fluorescent light fixture at a 45 degree angle bolted to the wall.  Gabby’s hand gesture here means, “This is not art.”

We did not break any rules.

#3.) Lots of candy poured out on the floor.  It’s not against the rules to touch this ‘piece of art.’  It might, however, be against the rules to dig your toes into it and/or attack it with your teeth as if you are King Kong and the candy is New York City.  Gabby and I don’t ever break rules, though.

After we wrapped up our time at the Modern, we ventured Northwest to the Fort Worth Stockyards.  That’s when Gabby introduced me to The Maze.

Apparently everyone who has ever seen The Amazing Race knows that there is a giant maze in the Fort Worth Stockyards.  I had no idea, though.  Despite the fact that I’m not really that into mazes, I let Gabby coax me into giving it a try.  We took turns chasing each other into dead ends for about the first 10 minutes.  Then, sometime after we found the second letter (the goal is to find M-A-Z-E, then the exit), it got awesomely fun.  We kind of figured out what we were doing, and we finished the Maze in WAY WAY less time than I expected.  If I’d have been in there by myself, I’d have totally slithered under the bottoms of the walls to the greater out-of-doors because mazes?  Not usually my thing.  I’m not even good at paper mazes when I have a pencil and a lot of time.  I really didn’t think that I’d enjoy being trapped like a rodent for EVER AND EVER AMEN inside of a lot of wooden dead ends.  But that right there, my friends, that’s why being friends with Gabby is pretty awesome.  Because sometimes I do things with Gabby that I would never-ever-ever do (not in a million years) on my own (or with anyone else for that matter).  And usually, when I agree to do those never-ever things with Gabby, by the end, I’m so glad that I did.

14 Reasons My Tuesday Sucked

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1.) I got up at an hour during which the clock still read 5:XX.  FIVE. I did that because 2.) I needed to be at work extra early because I was bailing out for a few hours to 3.) go to the gynecologist.  There are three reasons right there.  And OH IF IT ONLY STOPPED THERE.  But it doesn’t.  4.) I left work to drive to the gyno and it started raining the moment I stepped foot outside.  5.) It continued to rain the entire way there, and raining hard, only to stop the moment that I stepped foot inside the office. 5b.) I forgot my umbrella. Of course.

Once I was in the gyno, 6.) I got a pap smear.  Awesome!  Then, during the breast exam, I pointed out this weird skin spot that I have had on my shoulder for the last year to my doctor.  I fully expected him to say, “Sarah, that is a zit.”  7.) Instead, he said, “Well, I guess that could be cancer.  We’ll go ahead and remove that while you’re here.”  Double awesome.  My shoulder (and its weird skin spot) was subsequently numbed, cylindrically sliced and lopped off with swift efficiency. (Admittedly, the swiftness and the numbness were all bright points in this otherwise bleak day.  Had the dr. removed a skin spot from my shoulder poorly or without numbing medicine, that would have been cause for a much, much angrier post.)  While I was at the office, I also got a shot.  The doc recommended that I go ahead and get the “One Less” vaccine.  Nevermind that I’m married and happy and not planning on having sex with anyone but my husband for the rest of my life, I decided to go ahead and get it anyway.  I guess it never hurts to protect myself from worst case scenarios, right?  Besides.  I don’t mind shots.  And my insurance pays for it totally.  And it’s just one shot, right?  That’s where point #8 comes in.  8.) Gardasil is not just one shot.  It is 3 shots administered over 6 months, each vaccine being “increasingly more painful than the last as your body builds immunity against the viruses.”  Also, Gardasil requires that you sit still for 15 minutes after administration of the shot because people have noticed a lot of “fainting and dizziness” immediately following the shot.  My routine visit to the Gyno turned into a 3-hour marathon visit in which I was poked and prodded and lopped and scraped.  Bonkers visit to the doctor.

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9.) Then I went back to work.

10.) Then I left work to go to the district headquarters for an afternoon of training.  This wouldn’t have been so bad except every single thing that they taught me was straight off of a “how to guide” that is located on the district’s help website.  They literally read the “how to” to us, out loud, pausing to teach us things like “how to create a folder on your C: drive, and how to re-name that folder.” I wanted to gouge my eyes out for each one of the 4-hours that I sat in that room learning absolutely nothing.  That training deserves to be Point #11, too.  It was that bad.  Two bullet points bad.  In fact, I’ll even say 12.) the instructor for the class thinks she’s Jim Carrey.  But she’s not.  That’s worthy of another point right there.

13.) LUCKY THIRTEEN.  I got home from work and decided that I was going to do the first run of my new training program. Even though this training program doesn’t call for the 5-minute warm-up walk that the other program called for, I did one anyway.  I’m kind of addicted to the 5-minute warm up walk.  During our (Scout and me) warm up walk on Tuesday, I crossed a street.  There happens to be a red-light at this particular intersection, and I happened to have a green-light in the direction I was crossing.  However, as every one of you knows, it’s legal in the state of Texas (and maybe in the whole US?) to turn Right on Red.  And there was a lady in a white Ford Mustang to decided to do exactly that.  Only, that lady did not look for pedestrian traffic when she decided to turn right at that particular red light.  So that’s how THIRTEEN.) I GOT HIT BY A CAR.

Granted, she didn’t hit me very hard.  She had been at a complete stop at the red light when I started to walk across the cross walk.  I was looking forward and walking when I felt some heat/air blowing on my leg, I looked left and then she ran into me.  She couldn’t have been going any faster than an Idle-Crawl, but nevertheless, it was enough to scare the total shit out of me.  I immediately threw both of my hands on her hood, whirling my body 90 degrees to the left to face her.  She, a middle aged blonde lady, was so flabbergasted that she had just run into me, that she couldn’t even move.  I, on the other hand, was just totally pissed.  I launched into “Big Arms,” with the fervor of a New York Mobster, yelling at her through her windshield.  I can’t remember what I actually said, but I was surprised with the lack of profanity.  Retrospectively, a proper response might have been something like, “WHAT THE EFFING EFF ARE YOU DOING YOU SON OF A B TWO BIT @#*& WE*(&#  SE*(&S*&)( SD WITH UGLY W*(#)&!!!!”  Instead I think I said something really eloquent and memorable like, “WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?” After yelling at her (or, as she heard it, mouthing words at her), I just continued walking.  I thought about stopping and writing down all her information and all that crap.  But I didn’t.  I was too annoyed, and really, she didn’t hit me that hard.  It’s cool.

So then, Scout and I rounded the ’5-minute’ corner, and we started to run.  I could see in the distance a girl jogging towards us with a dog.  I tightened my grip on Scout’s leash so that she wouldn’t try to go play with the other dog.  I secretly hoped to myself that the person running towards me would do the same thing.  As I got closer to her, it became apparent that 14.) her dog wasn’t on a leash at all.  The very moment I pieced all that together, the dog looked up and saw us coming towards him.  And that’s when the dog took off at lightening speeds.  Towards me.  Barking and snarling his teeth.  The dog lunged at me and I instinctively did what any kind and loving dog owner would do.  I physically shoved Scout between me and the other dog.  Scout actively engaged the other dog in some ferocious barking and fighting, occasionally glancing up towards me with looks of, “REALLY? WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO ME?”  All of this has happened in about .2 seconds, of course, and in the mean time, I’m standing in the middle of a neighborhood street with my foot cocked back and ready to kick the LIVING CRAP out of some dog if it gets bored with Scout and tries to come at me.  After a few seconds of this, the dog’s owner comes and calls the dog off of Scout.  I pick up where her dog left off, snarling and barking at her.  Livid that she would walk her (obviously angry) dog in this (usually) pedestrian-friendly area without a leash, I grit my teeth together as I growl at her that she needs to keep her damn dog on a leash while she’s walking.  I’d tell you if she looked smug or apologetic, but I can’t remember because I was so FREAKED OUT TO THE MAX that I had almost just been eaten alive by a dog.  I leaned down and hugged Scout for taking the brunt of that one for me.  She was like, “It’s cool, thanks for taking the brunt of the car hit for me.”  And I was like, “Hey, no biggie.”

The Boringest Most Technical Post EVAR.

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As most of you know, I  started the Couch to 5K program.  Because sometimes I use this blog as nothing but a place on Teh Internetz where I can go back and look at my accomplishments, I am going to post this here terribly boring post that nobody in their right minds (except all you crazy running nuts out there) will want to read ever.

If you’re paying special attention to the dates, you’ll note that when I first started this program, I wasn’t very faithful in following it.  There are two 1-month+ gaps in the time continuum for which I make no apologies.  I didn’t, however, backtrack.  When I picked back up with the program, I was always able to start exactly where I left off.  I credit this mostly to the fact that all of the large month-long breaks that I took from the program were in the early stages, not to the fact that I am a running godess, because really.  I probably shouldn’t brag about being able to “jump right back in” to a program when that meant “still being able to run 90 whole seconds at a time.” Regardless of the delays, I finished it. I’m incredibly proud of myself.  I have the next program all lined up and ready to go. I’ll tell you guys about it soon.

Here’s how to read this data:
Date: Week #/ Run #: (Distance) in (time) (notes, usually regarding pace, victories or failures)

05-04-09: 1/1: 2.2 miles in 28:00 (roughly)
05-06-09: 1/2: 1.92 miles in 25:03
05-09-09: 1/3: 2.03 miles in 25:03

05-14-09: 2/1: 2.06 miles in 25:43
06-05-09: 2/2: 2.31 miles in 31:47
06-07-09: 2/3: 2.18 miles in 29:21

07-21-09: 3/1: 2.54 miles in 35:42 (90, 3, 90, 2, 1)
07-23-09: 3/2: 2.25 miles in 29:24 (3, 90, 3, 3!)
07-25-09: 3/3: 1.88 miles in 26:47

07-28-09: 4/1: 2.15 in 27:05
07-30-09: 4/2: 2.19 in 27:14
08-01-09: 4/3: 2.36 in 27.39 (11.06 min/mile pace!)

08-03-09: 5/1: 2.36 in 25:43 (10:45 min/mile pace)
08-05-09: 5/2: 2.28 in 28:04 (12.30 min/mile pace)
08-13-09: 5/(2.5): 2.62 in 29:45 (half step: 5 min warmup, 10 minute run, 3 minute walk, 12 minute run with fast last 3 minutes), 6 minute power-walk home (35 total minutes)
8-15-09: 5/3: 2.03 miles in 25 minutes (GPS dropped out)

08-18-09: 6/1: 2.2 miles in 28:00 (5/10/3/10)
08-20-09: 6/2: 2.84 miles in 34:00 (self invented: 5 minute warm up walk /10 minute run /4 minute walk /15 minute run)
08-22-09: 6/3: 2.49 miles in 27:40 (5 warm up, 23:40 run)

08-24-09: 7/1: 2.54 miles in 27:52 (+.31 miles during the 5:00 warm up walk)
08-28-09: 7/2: 2.50 miles in 27:12 (+ 5:00 warm up walk) (10.52 min/mile)
08-30-09: 7/3: 2.16 miles in 26:29 (fail run + panic attack.)

09-01-09: 8/1: 2.91 miles in 33:27 (+.31 miles during the 5:00 warm up walk) pace: 11:30
09-03-09: 8/2: 2.80 miles in 31:33 (+5 min warm up walk, pace 11:17 min/mile)
09-06-09: 8/3: 2.80 miles in 31:01 (+5 min warm up walk, pace 11:05 min/mile)

09-15-09: 9/1: 3.10 miles in 37:15 (+5 min warm up walk, pace 12:01 min/mile)
09-17-09: 9/2: 3.10 miles in 33:14 (+5 min warm up walk, pace 10:44 min/mile) (best pace)
09-20-09: 9/3: 3.10 miles in (+ 5 min warm up walk, pace 10:71 min/mile, 1st mile @ 9:59* best mile time evar)

Out of Breath

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As we rounded the street corner leading into minute 8 of our run Zack asked, “What are you going to do tomorrow at work while there are no kids there?”  Gasping for air, I started to slowly formulate an answer for him.  It was difficult; the amount of preemptive exhaustion I was feeling at that moment, both from the run and from my Friday To Do list, was outrageous.

“Well,” I started, “first I guess I’m going to finish sending the records I need to send out.” The way I was gasping for breath between each word made it sound like I was the star actress in a Steven Speilberg death scene.  I went on to (boringly) explain to Zack every single item that was on my work to-do list for Friday–a list that could easily keep me busy for an entire interruption-free week.

Instead of being surprised by my workload or impressed by my instant To-Do List recall abilities, Zack simply looked at me as we were running along the sidewalk and said, “I guess I should just ask you ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions, huh?”

Exploding Sewage Systems, Round Two.

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Ever since Last Thanksgiving I’ve had terrible flashbacks every time I take a shower at Matt and Sarah1′s house.  I know that I was not directly responsible for the septic system backup and subsequent sewage spilling that happened on that fateful Thursday morning; nevertheless, seeing water pile up in someone’s hallway immediately after you take a shower is not a feeling of terror that easily passes.  Over and above the regular terror that such an occasion would induce, the Thanksgiving Morning Shower was also the first shower I’d ever taken at Matt and Sarah1′s house.  So you see, it was a double whammy.  That shower had both a.) the glory of the first impression and b.) the honor of being the most horrifically memorable shower I will have or ever will take in my life.

I mention this only because I spent this past weekend hanging out at Matt and Sarah1′s house.  They ditched town early on Saturday morning to go to Austin and soak in some wildflowers, tequila and alone time. (In that order.) Because I am both a.) The Best Tia EVAR and b.) Not busy on weekends, I was elected Queen Babysitter Of The Weekend.  (Mostly, it was because of b.) Retrospectively, I probably should have been a little more freaked out about the weekend than I was.  I’ve never been in charge of someone else’s children for that amount of time before. And I’ve certainly never been the sole responsible entity for the feeding, sleeping, CAR SEAT INSTALLING*, dressing, general well-being and care of two children before, much less two children under the age of three.  Still, when Matt called to see if I would watch the girls I agreed immediately.  That’s not true.  First I asked him if it was okay if I watched the girls at their house. (Reasons: a: the girls are really attached to their sleeping facilities, and b: They have bigger TVs than we do. And secret reason c: Mother-in-law, aka Grammy, lives in the same neighborhood as Matt and Sarah1, and let’s face it.  I wanted to make sure that I had backups handy.  Just in case.) Then, when he said, “Of course you can come here.” I said “Then of course I will watch them.  If you pay me in wine**.”

Despite all of my “never been in charge of the kids before” feelings and my “Oh my gosh, I can’t find any more diapers, I hope Kate doesn’t pee through those last two before Matt and Sarah1 come home on Sunday” moments, I survived most of the weekend without any trauma.  The girls were good, they ate the food that I (OKAY, WE. GRAMMY HELPED A LOT) made for them.  They didn’t even fight with each other, and neither one of them complained about the fact that they were watching the same (terrible) episode of Dora The Explorer over and over again.  I guess little children have weak-sauce short term memories?  Or they are just so enchanted by the flashing lights that they don’t care that they KNOW WHERE DORA GOES, CAN WE PLEASE WATCH SOMETHING ELSE ALREADY OH MY GOD. THEY USE THE LANTERN IN THE CAVE, WHEN DOES GLEE COME ON AGAIN?  MY PALATE IS STARVED FOR SOME SOPHISTICATED HUMOR, PEOPLE.

Ahem. Anyway.

The worst part of the whole weekend was, hands down, the moment that I stepped out of shower on Saturday.  I hadn’t thought about The Thanksgiving From Hell in months, and then WHAM. I was standing in the shower, reaching for the towel, and I experienced what can only be called a Sobering Flashback.  Immediately after said flashback, I damn-near had a panic attack.  Water dripping down my legs and pooling on the floor, I stood terrified that I was going to walk back to the guest room and find the hallway covered in 2″ of standing sewage.  Luckily for me, that didn’t happen.  Nevermind a brief power outage and Abbie shoving Kate off the couch with her feet once, the weekend was truly flawless.

Today, however, my fear of Sewage System Malfunction was realized in a new, fantastically innovative way.  Every single toilet in the West Hall at the school where I work exploded (overflowed) this morning, sending feces, urine, used toilet paper and inches and inches of sewage water flowing into every single one of the classrooms on the first floor of the school.  To say that the rest of the day was a veritable shit-storm of chaos would be both too literal and too understated for my taste.  So I won’t say that.  I’ll just say that there have been now been two too many times in my short life when I’ve seen Real Events that could be filed under the tags “SEWAGE ATTACKS,” and/or “WHEN GOOD TOILETS GO BAD.”

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*Car Seat Installing sucks.

**They paid up.

Scenes From Life, v. Dad.0

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My Dad and I talk on the phone almost every day.  Though Dad and I have always been quite close, this daily talk on the phone has been something of a recent development.  While I was working at my last job, my Dad became aware that I was a.) always in the same place, b.) usually bored with nothing to do and c.) not at all offended when he finished his story then said, “THAT’S ALL, BYE.”  As a result of these three points, Dad began to call me whenever he had something (anything!) to say.  Whether he was amused at something funny my little brother had done or said, or if he was upset about new laws education laws in California, he seemed to always have some information to dole on any set of ears willing to listen.  And again. I was bored.  And stationary.

Alas, even though I’m not at that job anymore, the habit has persisted.  When something big happens in my life dad is always the second person I call, (right after Zack), and usually the person who will give me the outrageous Sanguine reaction for which I am searching.  (Zack, God love him, has always been my anchor.)  Now that I’m busy all day at work, Dad usually calls me at about 3:40 to give me his daily update.  Here’s a glimpse of our conversation today.

Me: “All this rain is totally killing my running routine.”
Dad: “See, that’s the difference between you and your brother. It doesn’t stop him.”
Me: “Boo’s been running?!”
Dad: “No, Boo and his friends played 3 hours of sand volleyball yesterday in the rain and the mud, sliding around.  Then they found some public pool and hopped the fence and jumped in to clean themselves off.”
Me: “Ugh.  I feel sorry for the poor schmuck that has to clean out that pool filter.  They couldn’t have found a river or something?”
Dad: <laughing> “See? You’re such an old adult now.  That was exactly my reaction, too, but it’s the adult reaction.”
Me: “I’ve just resigned to it.  I’m old.  I have old people reactions to things.  It’s okay.”
Dad: “Yeah. Your Uncle David (Mom’s brother) popped by last night, and we were trying to decide what to do for the next Third Saturday.  I suggested that perhaps we could get the group together to do some tours of some old folk’s homes.  You know, get a jump start on our next leg** in life.”
Me: “Yeah, I’m old, but I’m not nursing home old.  You’re on your own on that one.”

*Mom has a fantastically large family, and because not one day exists in this world when all of them can get together at one time, they have smaller get-together pretty often.  “The Third Saturday” is their Standing Sibling Date.  They get together and do things like eat, play cards, go to the Stockyards, etc.  It’s almost Brady-Bunch-ish, really, but it’s also super super cute.
**My parents are very spry 50-somethings who are years away from retirement, much less retirement living.  I feel that factoid is necessary in order to make my dad’s comment funny instead of DEPRESSING AS HELL.  Just a little FYI.

On The DART

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A few weekends I decided to transport myself around the DFW by train instead of by car. It’s a very different experience to travel that way, paying attention to the time and counting minutes to make sure that you arrive at a place in time to catch a train. When I have to be somewhere specific or when I have limited amounts of time, it stresses me out to take the train. This particular Saturday, though, I had an entire day to kill and an itch in my trigger finger. It was really peaceful, in the strangest of ways, to see Dallas and Fort Worth from such a different perspective.

Somewhere along the Dallas leg of my journey, this guy sat down in front of me. Though the tattered look of his hat might it seem like he’s homeless, I don’t think he was. He had with him several kinds of tools, including a large shovel, and a fully-stocked frame backpack. I imagine this guy was doing some kind of a Hike-Across-America thing. Perhaps he was coming home from (or going to join up with) one of the National Park Trail renovation crews that are peppered across the United States. Who knows for sure. All I know is that I spend the rest of my day dreaming up different destinations for this guy. I would have given up a lot to have had a peek at his moleskin notebook’s secret pocket. I envisioned I would find hidden inside the pocket a roughly worn map littered with ink dots denoting cities he was coming from or going to during the ever-so-hot month of August. Perhaps there would have been a special mark, maybe in red ink, for the city he was in when his trusty straw hat tried to fall apart on him. Maybe he was even on a train in that red ink colored town when he fished the dental floss out of his backpack and sewed his hat back together again.

A Brief Interruption from Debbie Downer

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Zack went out of town this weekend on a climbing trip with a couple of his buddies. After many, many months of not doing anything outdoorsy, he finally broke down and took some vacation time so he could go soak up some sun while lying on rocks. Like a lizard.

Though I was invited to come along on this rock climbing adventure, I, as you can tell, opted not to spend my Labor Day weekend hanging out in a tent with three other boys. Instead I’m here in the DFW, driving around to visit various friends and family members. Yesterday I had breakfast with one group of friends, lunch with another, then dinner with my parents. I’ve been all over the place.

All of these people always ask about my dear husband, and I always tell them that he’s on a camping/climbing trip this weekend! Out! Having fun with the boys! Out of cell phone range! And they always reply, “Oh?! Wow! What’s it like to have a weekend all to yourself?”

Then I say, “Um, Zack works every single weekend, so this weekend to myself? It’s exactly like every other weekend of my life, except I don’t have another warm body in bed with me.”

Wa-waaaaaah. (Embed Fail => Link)

Surviving The World Guest Post Outtakes:

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Over a year ago, I bumbled across a blog “photocomic” called Surviving the World.  The then new-ish website made me laugh really hard.  At the time I worked an office job that left me with unreasonable amounts of free time on my hands.  I proceeded to use a lot of that free-time flipping through Dante Shepherd’s comics.  I learned a few important things life lessons that day.  Right off the bat, I learned that I really am not the only person that loathes all memories of my high school years.  As I sat at my desk, cracking up at comic after comic, my Cubicle Neighbor, Libby, turned to me and asked me what was so funny.  Not long after that, I learned that jokes about medieval weaponry require a very particular knowledge base in order to be funny.  After I read the joke about Trebuchets, I laughed so hard I fell out of my chair.  After I read that joke to Libby, she looked at me like, “What is that? Like a type of Nut?”

Today, as I’m sure all of you know by now, Dante is featuring me (and my dad, actually) in his Guest Lecture series.  I was so thrilled to be asked by Dante that I came up with quite a few ideas and let him pick the one he wanted to run.  So as to not let my hard work go to waste, I figured I’d post the Guest Lectures that got benched here on my site.

Out Take #1 – On How To Lock Your Bike:

There surely is an incorrect way to go about it.

Out Take #2 – A Situational Guide Regarding The Gravity of Proper Blinker Usage:

It should be noted here:  The reason the above comic wasn’t chosen was because it takes too long to ‘get it.’  I realize that it requires more than 5 seconds of your time, but come on. It’s totally worth it.  Haven’t you ever wanted to shake your fist (with or without one finger pointing skyward) at some asshole darting in and out of traffic on a congested highway who still has the audacity to SIGNAL HIS 4,000 MILE PER HOUR LANE CHANGES THAT ALMOST RUN YOU OFF THE ROAD?  Like, hey! I almost just side swiped you TO DEATH, but LOOK. I’M USING MY BLINKER.  I’M A NICE GUY AFTER ALL, SEE?

Not that I, you know, have like Road Rage or anything.

On Deadlines Increasing Productivity

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Zack and I almost never eat out.  We grocery shop once every week or two, stock up on massive amounts of groceries and then we eat said groceries.  We eat breakfast here, take lunches to our respective jobs, and eat dinner at home together.  We’re weird, right?  We usually go to the grocery store together, too.  Partly, we go to the store together cause we like each other and it’s an excuse to go hang out together.  The other reason we usually go to the store together is because, despite the fact that Zack and I eat at home all the time, we do not eat the same foods.

Zack has 5 meals that he can and will prepare for himself to eat. (1. Cereal, 2. cheddar cheese wrapped in a tortilla, microwaved, 3.) peanut butter sandwich, 4.) turkey sandwich with provolone and miracle whip on the chunkiest wheat bread possible, and 5.) DiGiorno’s frozen pepperoni pizza.)  He eats these meals on a consistent basis. (UNDERSTATEMENT OF THE YEAR.) I probably rotate through about 15 meals that I’ll make for myself depending on what season of eating I’m in.  Then I have, oh, 30 so meals I can make for dinner when I make dinner.  Also, I can generally follow a recipe and end up with a good, edible product.  Needless to say, none of the things that I eat have anything to do with the ingredients that are in Zack’s Fav Five.  So we go to the store together because if I go alone, I have to guess his current levels of tortilla reserves and apparently, that’s not a talent in which I am skilled.

OK. So. All that to say, the other day we were unloading all the bags and bags of groceries in the kitchen, when Zack commented that perhaps we had a lot of veggies in the fridge that were not going to be good for very much longer.  Zack, man who doesn’t eat vegetables unless I hide, bury or salsa-ize them, was basically telling me that I wasn’t eating my half of the groceries.  I think what he actually said was, “Yes, you do eat a lot of fruit.  It’s the vegetables that we usually wind up throwing away.”  (Yes, so what if I was bragging on my ability to eat a crap tons of peaches. That’s not the point. The point is that I have to quote Zack directly or I have to hear about my inaccuracies for weeks.)

The next day when I came home from work, I went straight to the kitchen.  I yanked every single form of plant life out of the fridge and started assessing the situation.  Thirty-five thousand potatoes, 1 onion, some cilantro and 6 ears of corn.  Then some magic happened.  I turned into, for one evening, the kind of woman who simultaneously makes 42 meals out of nothing at all.  Zack came home from work (3 hours later) whilst I was still in the middle of my cooking fury.  I shouted my hello to him as he walked into the house.  He changed out of his work clothes and then approached me with a cautious step and a look of timidity on his face.  ”Are you okay?” he asked.  I said that yes, I was fine, why?  ”Well,” he said, “I just didn’t know if this was you cooking or if it was a ‘I had a terrible day and (instead of manic-cleaning the house) now I’m dumping all of my furious energy into this meal’ cooking.”

Admittedly, those two things can be easily mistaken for each other.  Even when happy, I’m kind of a blur in the kitchen.

That’s when I told him that I was really just cooking cause I got called out on letting all the vegetables rot in the fridge.  He was like, “Oh, I didn’t mean to make you, I mean, It’s just, Sorry! I didn’t mean to call you out!”  And I was like, “It’s okay! Really! I needed to do some cooking, I’ve been meaning to for weeks.  This way I’ll have some food to take for my lunches and stuff.  Sometimes you just need a deadline, you know?”

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And that, my friends, brings us to my point:  I’ve been meaning to re-design this site for a LONG time, and someone finally gave me a deadline.  Hope you guys enjoy the new look of SarahThe.com.  (And you’ll also take note that the address is now officially, sarahthe.com.  No more .wordpress necessary; I’m just sarahthe.com. [note: your sarahthe.wordpress.com links should still work, they'll just re-direct you to sarahthe.com.])  Tomorrow I’m going to be featured as the Guest Lecture on SurvivingtheWorld.net, so I spiffied up the place a bit for all the visitors.  I’m going to move the majority of my links to their own page, but I haven’t built it yet.  So if you’re one of my regular reads and your link went away, it’s not because I don’t love you anymore, it’s just because I’m too tired to finish everything tonight.  See you tomorrow.