After a stressful day of chit chat and ignoring the necessary organization of the junk I've crapped up my mom's house with... I had sushi with Dad and Lil Bro. There was much less trauma inflicted during this dinner. Well, on me at least. Lil Bro was still reeling from the info revealed to him last night while Dad and I just laughed at him for it. The night was pretty uneventful overall though...

The sushi chef was perturbed with Dad's attempts at 'enjoying sushi correctly' according to some posh article from NY...

I was perturbed with his attempt to get me to speak Japanese with the chef and his insistence that I must know how to speak fluently because I lived in Japan...

Lil Bro was honing his OCD skills...

but the food was good and it was on Dad's card... that always makes any food taste taste better...

I'll take it as a good night.

Posted by: Princess Cat at 03:33 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 165 words, total size 1 kb.

I spent most of last night putting a box of pictures in some semblance of chronological order and then into photo albums for better storage...and it was a horrible experience...

I have an entirely new perspective on my awkward early teens and how it came to be that I had no real friends to speak of... and it is even worse than the way I have remembered it all these years.

In my mind, I was just a loner & an outsider trying to break into established cliques as the new kid...

These pics show it was far more than that... I was three times the size most girls my age... both taller and an obese child... skin as pale as milk... clothing meant for women decades older than myself that would have been unattractive and terribly out of fashion for a woman of any age or size... hair without even a remote hint of organization or understanding of good looks... huge ugly glasses that cut into my cheeks when I smiled... If you looked at most of these pics and didn't know a thing more about me, you'd say I was the neighborhood window licker... with a permanent seat on the short bus...

Part of me wants to burn the pictures and another part of me wants to just sit on the floor and cry... the voice in my head is screaming 'why didn't anyone tell me?!?' Children are mean to one another... especially when someone isn't 'normal'... I know first hand...

I suppose I should just be happy that I was an ugly duckling that grew out of it...but some days when I look in the mirror, I still see the duckling...

Being in LA is depressing...

Posted by: Princess Cat at 02:04 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 293 words, total size 2 kb.

1 Hey. Look on the bright side. At least you are good looking now. It could have been the opposite. I was always a handsome, ladies man when I was younger. Now I am the fat old ugly duckling with glasses.

Posted by: assrot at July 19, 2005 07:35 AM (ARCEn)

2 .. girls with glasses rock...

Posted by: Eric at July 19, 2005 09:53 AM (YlwMq)

3 Look at te bright side, at least you became hot. Me, I got to stay ugly and stupid. And your comments refuse to remember my personal info. My life is a fucking nightmare. Please kill me.

Posted by: skippystalin at July 19, 2005 10:11 AM (ruCNe)

4 Was it Red Skelton that said he loved going on dates with girls with glasses? You just lean over and hhhhhhhhhh...(presto, fogged up glasses).

Posted by: Ogre at July 19, 2005 10:28 AM (/k+l4)

5 You must post a hot or not photo...let the readers decide....

Posted by: ArmyWifeToddlerMom at July 19, 2005 05:23 PM (glIjR)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

Lil Bro came over to mom's house for dinner tonight...it quickly became one of the most scarring moments of my young adult life... Examples?

... Lil Bro has size issues with condoms... EW!

... Lil Bro takes after my dad... shudder

... Dad wasn't known to give a subpar performance... hibblie jibblie

You see? TMI...way too much TMI! So now I have to go poke out my ear drums with Q-tips and scratch out my mind's eye with a dull knife...

Posted by: Princess Cat at 12:08 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 89 words, total size 1 kb.

"Is that what people do with their blogs?" mom asked me this morning. I just laughed...

Before running errands this afternoon I sat giggling at a few of my favorite blogs but their content made mom turn her head sideways rather quizzically. People writing about dreams, classmates, and neighbors just didn't quite appeal to her. Milbloggers don't hold her attention and geeky talk is just over her head. She doesn't understand what a blogmeet is, she's concerned a fellow blogger may kill me (if I meet him/her in real life), and she doesn't understand why people would take the time to write all of this stuff down...

Because we like to, dear mother...because we want to share our thoughts or information, because we saw something super cool, because we want to promote tourism in our neck of the woods, or maybe because we can be free on the internet from the confinement life sometimes offers...

but most of all, it's still because we like to...

But, unconvinced of the satisfaction a blog can bring, she still thinks it's because we have too much time on our hands...

Posted by: Princess Cat at 07:19 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 191 words, total size 1 kb.

I've been sorting through boxes of my things over the past two days and I have discovered I am a much worse pack rat than I ever previously admitted. First off, the boxes seem to be more like bottomless pits. Second, I have no idea why I have some of this stuff...

...notes from college classes I took in '99 and '00... that I still must check to make sure there is nothing uber useful in them (completely ignoring the fact that I haven't needed in the last 5 yrs...)

...unfinished holiday projects from grade school... that I am somehow telling myself I will finish and then put on a garage sale... (what?)

...more keychains than the number of keys I have ever had in my life... that I'm pretty sure I can part with... (as long as I don't look at them a second time... )

...half used coloring books... that I am sort of sure I can part with... (but I am sad to see my wonderful handy work going away... )

...and the most bizzare... a mold of my upper teeth... Yep, that's right...a dentist quality model of my upper teeth... weird...

Back to the salt mines though...the trash pile isn't big enough yet...

Posted by: Princess Cat at 10:23 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 213 words, total size 1 kb.

Ok, so family time is a little weird now that we're all making an effort to learn how to get along as individual adults...

Dad now 'pretends' he doesn't know what I'm talking about when Lil Bro and I mention the word beaver...

Mom asks me if her thong is showing & if I'd go bra shopping with her...

and still kids say the funniest things...as I was telling Lil Bro about my visit with SWG & Wife and their respective accents I was terrified I would accidentally repeat and offend them with, he jumped in with..."but that's perfect for you...you're Scottish and you're into that hick thing..." Apparently a cowboy hat, country music, and a few uncultured dates here and there makes me 'into that hick thing'...hehehe

Ah...family time...nothing else like it in the world...

Posted by: Princess Cat at 03:10 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 140 words, total size 1 kb.

As we were leaving the Dodger game tonight (and dodging traffic on our way back to the car) I crossed paths with a big black truck given a hefty lift...an obvious dune junkie...with lots of badass paraphernalia...and a big set of black balls hanging off the back...

It was the funniest thing I saw all night...

So, does your ride got balls?

Posted by: Princess Cat at 03:30 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 66 words, total size 1 kb.

I don't own a laptop and probably would have left it at home even if I did...airport security gives me enough trouble as it is... they are apparently sketched out by my efficient packing methods that enable me to cram far more than you'd believe I could into a carry on bag. And somehow doing a chemical swab on it tells them I'm not carrying an efficiently packed bomb...or something...

Anyway...

At 38,000 feet, I was glad I finally listened to that little voice in my head and packed a small pad of paper and a pen. It's old fashioned, I know...but the urge to blog strikes at its will, not our own...and I was ready this time.

In a plane full of unusually loud and chatty passengers (and a set of screaming triplets), I was surprisingly un-annoyed. Instead I was awed...that I went against my better economic sense and my rationalization that it wasn't that important and bought batteries for my CD player (yes, I know, I'm behind the times...you don't see a pattern here?) Was it by chance that I easily and un-begrudgingly paid $5 for 4 batteries that have allowed me to slip into my own cocoon of peace? Or was there something more at work? Did my subconscious predict a late flight would yield more annoyances than my usual flights?

I was amazed and thankful for batteries last night... in an oddly wholesome kind of way...

Posted by: Princess Cat at 02:25 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 242 words, total size 1 kb.

I've landed at LAX, been completely sketched out by the rundown state of terminal 3 and the variety of third world countries that appear to be fighting for sovereign control, and braved mom's driving...I only almost died twice...so it was a good night on the freeways...

Kitty was happy to see me and promptly got fur all over my shirt...which is ok because he's old and cute and I never get to see him.

But now I'm going to bed...

Posted by: Princess Cat at 03:37 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 86 words, total size 1 kb.

For the first time in a VERY long time I was damn near packed and ready to head to the airport last night, almost 24 hours before I even need to be in line for security. I haven't stressed out and stayed up all night, or even lost a wink of sleep...What is this world coming to?

With all my extra time I have been trying to tidy up the house a little. Doing the dishes I've neglected, tossing the trash that will stink when I get back in two weeks, and trying to clean out the fridge. Sounds fun, right?

Though, I talked to Dad and Lil Bro for a while too. Lil Bro is trying to get cleared to go back to work after his fall on Tuesday morning and Dad is running around like a wild man with company visitors in town and the sudden death of a close coworker's father. I'm avoiding Mom for the time being. She's very stressed out about work and the airport always makes that worse. It was important to her that she pick me up instead of depending on my Dad so she will be picking me up tonight ... and I think that's about all I can take of her for today. I love her but she is hard to take in sudden and/or large doses.

I generally dread going to LA because there are so many bad memories there, so much sadness, and an overwhelming sense of failure. I don't have any high school friends left to speak of either. On top of all that, I am going there this trip to sort through the remaining contents of the life I used to have in San Diego and I still miss so terribly.

But I am hopeful that things will be different this time. Tomorrow night, Dad, Lil Bro & GF, and I will go to a Dodgers game together...something we have never done before. We generally don't do more than have dinner together and don't make each other that important. In fact, Lil Bro has never trusted me to even meet any of his romantic interests before. So...I'm ready to go...and waiting to see what the next week has to offer.

Posted by: Princess Cat at 03:30 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 379 words, total size 2 kb.

...I haven't got one...do you? I do however have a pretty good, albeit brief, trackrecord when it comes to playing Texas Hold 'Em.

The first time I played was about a year and a half ago. The boys loaned me chips so I could play (it was only nickle, dime, quarter) and I had a little help from one of the wives. In less than two hours the boys were so tired of playing against a newb that just wouldn't give up and lose, they ended up just calling the game. I took my chips, paid back what I had borrowed, and walked away with $11.

A few weeks ago I joined my roommate for a small tournament he hosts at our place every couple of weeks. This time there were just four of us playing with a $10 buy in. I was so rusty on poker they had to tell me the hands and write down their hierarchy. We played 2 hands no bets, cards up...just to get me reaquainted. In a matter of an hour I managed to become the chip leader while taking out my roommate and one of the other guys. Ultimately I lost to the last guy but I walked away without losing a penny. Not bad for a newb against 3 experienced players that assumed they'd be robbing me of my $10, easy.

Muwahahaha...Nothing makes a girl's day like sending the boys home pouting...

Posted by: Princess Cat at 09:02 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 244 words, total size 1 kb.

In just about a week I will be returning home. Seeing the parents for a week first but knowing I'm going home to this makes the torture family time in LA more bearable.

Granted, it will be a very short visit...but being home is being home...and I'll take what I can get.

Posted by: Princess Cat at 05:25 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 56 words, total size 1 kb.

Today just isn't working out to be a very happy day here in the land of the Princess...

1) I was again up WAY too early...and out of the house by 6am... Which is especially not fun in my current state of temporary illness. At least I got a little more sleep later though.

2) Drama...I'm just going to leave it at that.

3) A thunderstorm is on its way so Shiela will be out of service until it passes. I just can't risk what migh happen to her with all the power fluctuations we get when it rains.

4) I have to pack. Packing is the bane of my existance. I know it means I get to go somewhere fun but I hate packing. But I leave for Cali tomorrow...so I have no choice but to pack... dammit...

I'll be back later - hopefully in a better mood...

UPDATE: I guess there's just something in the cards today...trying to get a bowl out of the cupboard for lunch I ended up breaking one of my roommate's dishes on the counter. Guess I'll be avoiding any major stunts today...

Posted by: Princess Cat at 02:05 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 191 words, total size 1 kb.

Last night I got a somewhat disturbing voicemail from my dad...seems Lil Bro was at work yesterday and just passed out for no good reason.* He hit his head on a filing cabinet, chipped a tooth, and put a big gash in his forehead. At the hospital his blood pressure was only 95/50...and he's 6'3"...

I had a similar episode happen to me when I was in college. I've had dizzy spells for years but this time I actually passed out in the shower. I came within inches of hitting my head on the sink as I fell out of the shower and ended up with massive bruises all over the left side of my body. I was scared shitless...but the guy I was dating didn't think I needed to go to the hospital. I had seen a neurologist before that but he couldn't explain what was making me nearly pass out and remain so weak. Despite continued dizziness, I haven't passed out since then.

Hopefully docs can find an answer to what made Lil Bro go down...otherwise I think we are both destined to have it happen again. I am worried about him though...he has never experienced this before and can't yet recognize the warning signs enough to keep himself from getting hurt. Please keep him in your thoughts and pray they can figure this out before he gets seriously injured.

*I haven't asked about if he had eaten, but I assume I would have been told if that was a contributing factor.

Posted by: Princess Cat at 07:40 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 262 words, total size 1 kb.

Blackfive is bringing to our attention today the blood shortage facing our medical centers and the quality of patient care.

He's a smart man...so go do what he says...find a donation center most convenient to you and use it! Because when it comes right down to it, giving up a pint of your juice could mean the difference between life and death to someone else.

Who knows...you might even meet someone cute at the cookies & juice table... what's hotter than a cutie helping others? Ok, maybe a cutie taking a nap with you cuz the lack of blood made you sleepy...

Wait...Why are you still reading? GO!!

Posted by: Princess Cat at 07:14 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 116 words, total size 1 kb.

As I was reading FHM this morning (hey, sometimes a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do) I found the Food Network's perky little Rachel Ray in a tiny little pic in one of their letters sections. WHAAA? Rachel Ray posed for FHM? You betcha! And as their article says, she's a veteran of their pages.

Interestingly enough though, you can't find her pictures on the FHM website. If you search for her there, you won't find her. Several sites have links to what used to be her page but the FHM website claims it isn't there. Not to worry...this guy was kind enough to have copies of the spread instead of broken links. Enjoy boys...

And if you can stand to see her with more clothes on and talking (I know that's asking a lot) you can see her on one of three Food Network shows: 30 Minute Meals, $40 a Day, Inside Dish...

Actually, don't tell anybody, but I mute her too... so go for it! No sense in you boys having to listen to her talk if she's going to insist on being clothed on her TV shows...

Posted by: Princess Cat at 02:01 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 196 words, total size 1 kb.

I'm thinking about changing the quotes on the sidebar to things people have to say about me ... anyone have anything they'd like to say?

Posted by: Princess Cat at 08:36 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 27 words, total size 1 kb.

Posted by: Princess Cat at 06:27 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
Post contains 13 words, total size 1 kb.

You heard me...get out and stay out!

That's precisely how I feel about dogs. Am I a dog hater? Am I more of a cat person? No - I love dogs ... outside. I had a wonderful German Shepard as a kid. She had a fenced yard and a dog house...and that's where she belonged. She grew a thick coat in the winter and loved to play in the snow. In the summer she had plenty of shade and water. She was never without something to entertain her...including my brother and me...she was never neglected on our watch.

But, as much as I loved her, there was no good reason her, or any other dog, to live inside. The oils in their skin and coat are damaging to fabric (not to mention nasty smelling), they become emotionally needy by being so closely attached to their owners, they can't be left for an entire day without worry of 'accidents' or boredom...I could go on and on...

If you don't live in a place where your dog can live outside...maybe you shouldn't have a dog. How fair is it that you leave it cooped up all day while you go about your business? And don't get me started on people that take their dog everywhere they go... CUT THE CORD!

If your 'dog' is too scrawny or meek to be outside, you don't have a dog. You have a rat with a short tail and presumably more fur. Get a real dog.

Build a fence, build a doghouse with your kids, put your dog outside, and take back your house.

Posted by: Princess Cat at 11:58 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 274 words, total size 1 kb.

As long as I can remember I have had pets. But in college I could never have any that lived with me...apartments never allowed for a cat or a dog. For my 22nd birthday I got a fish tank. It satisfied me for a while but fish are hard to play with. I still really wanted a pet I could interact with. One of my managers had a lovebird that she wanted to get rid of so I took it off her hands.

Big mistake... Birds SUCK... No matter how cute they seem in the store I will never own one ever again...unless I can stick him in a room far far away from where I spend the majority of my time...

Anyhow, this bird ended up being called Little Fucker because he never shut up and if you let him out to fly around the apartment, he shit on everything. Not cool.

First of all, it was a single lovebird. They are supposed to be kept in pairs but no way in hell was I spending money on another bird when I didn't even know if I would like the first one.

Second, she had it in a tweety bird cage. Apparently lovebirds go a little insane in round cages...according to some book I read. So I found a large, square cage that someone was giving away and gave it a new home.

He didn't seem to care about these improvements, his toys, or his food. He ended up being cool for only four forms of entertainment... 1) he 'sang along' to Pink Floyd, 2) he danced in the sink when the water was running, 3) it was pretty funny to watch the cat chase him and tackle him to the ground,* 4) he would hump the shit out of one of his toys...which was funny except it had a bell on it...

Little Fucker ended up going home with a semi-psycho bird infatuated couple for about $50. I sold the cage to another family for $90. So, minus what I spent on the bird's stuff, I probably made at least $100 off the sucker.

But I tell you what...I'll have a whole house full of birds before I even think about letting a live snake into my house...

*My mom's indoor, de-clawed cat came to stay with me for a month and never actually hurt the bird.

Posted by: Princess Cat at 07:52 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 405 words, total size 2 kb.