How did this happen?

The neighbor who lives below me, who if you've been reading this blog for a while you would know I have no particular affection for, seems to have somehow obtained a karaoke machine. She is not a good singer. Oy.

Mystery Injury

I was cleaning the apartment this morning, maybe a little more thouroughly than usually in anticipation of a visitor who will be here tomorrow, when suddenly the top joint of the middle finger on my left hand started to hurt. It puffed up and turned blue. I don't recall hitting or hurting it. It just suddenly did that on it's own, it seems. Now it's purple and still puffy. It feels like I bruised it, but I have no idea how. Maybe this means I shouldn't clean anymore.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying... oh wait, never mind

Like I'm really ever going to stop worrying. Right.
Anyway, working on worrying less now, which sets me up to be able to worry about how I'm not working hard enough on reducing the amount of energy I spend worrying. ;)
Girls nights out are always a good way to relax and Sis and I managed to have one last night. We went down to the Barley Pub to see our buddies in Hot Rod Fury play. I hadn't been to the Barley Pub since they renovated. It's still basically the same woody, pubby atmosphere as before, but the ventilation system has been greatly improved. Despite it's totally hippyishness at times, I like the Barley Pub. They only serve beer and wine, no hard liquor, so it's always pretty mellow. I was in the mood for a stout but didn't want to go with the same old Guinness (nothing wrong with Guinness, mind you, just sometimes you want to try something else) and asked the bartender what other stouts they had that he could recommend. He told us they also have Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout. Sis wondered aloud if it was one of those put you on your ass kind of libations and he said no, actually it has a 5.2% alcohol content, about the same as a regular beer. It's a nice stout-- tasty, not too heavy, and not a put you on your ass kind of libation. I liked it so much I had two.
So, why am I writing all about the beer when I really went out for the music? Because the music was, unfortunately, not the high point. The pairing of bands was... weird, and it didn't work out very well. Hot Rod Fury played about four songs and were done. Most of the crowd (and our friends) left with them. I still had half a beer to finish and kind of regretted having ordered it because it meant I had to sit through more of the second band. It's a shame to chug a fine brew, so I sipped and chatted with Sis and some lingering friends who also had beers to finish, but the music eventually drove us away and we left and were home by 10:45. Our plan had been to go out from 9 to 11 and we didn't even fulfill that. Anyway, it was enough. It was fun and relaxing, even if I did have to wash my jacket this morning to get the cigarette smoke smell out.

What To Do...

My boyfriend is still sick. He has been very sick for over a week with tonsilitis. I don't feel like I know how to be a good girlfriend or partner in this kind of situation. I don't know how to make him get better faster. He doesn't seem to like or want to be overly doted upon and my doting skills aren't all that hot anyway. Smothering isn't good but neither is coldness or indifference. Sometimes maybe just having someone there to be with you can make things less bad, but I have some commitments that mean I can't be there all the time. I feel like I should be able to make it all better, but maybe that's a mom-ish way of thinking and not how it always works all the time anyway.

So Pop!

I get this kick ass new computer, and this is what I do with it the most-- take goofy pictures with funkyy effects in Photo Booth. I feel so.. Warholian. Has my 15 minutes of fame started? ;)

1970s Mac and Cheese Quest

When I was a kid my mother used to make the best macaroni and cheese in the world. I used to sneak down to the kitchen and eat it cold for breakfast and sometimes even picked off cold hunks of it straight out of the fridge.
I only made it once or twice myself, probably when I was in high school or college. Now my mom has a variety of food allergies and no longer eats anything containing dairy or gluten, so I know she hasn't made her macaroni and cheese for a very long time. I'd ask her for the recipe but I think she's probably forgotten it and/or would shudder at the thought of having to think of and recite the list of now-offensive ingredients. I know she used elbow macaroni. The final product was topped with crushed Ritz crackers and baked in the oven in a big 11 x 15 inch rectangular casserole dish. Cheeze Whiz and Veveeta were involved.
Today at Walmart I happened upon the mother load of Cheeze Whiz and Velveeta on the shelf right next to the macaroni. I've got Ritz crackers in the cabinet. I'm not sure how all the pieces fit together, but sometime soon I will be attempting to recreate that splendorous flavor of my youth. If anyone has any hints or knows the recipe I'm talking about, please let me know. I don't think it's one mom dreamt up by herself.

Spring What?

So yeah, spring break. This is my spring break so far-- wake up on Monday morning, shower, wake the girl, make her lunch, get dressed for work, bring girl to school, drive to my dad's office and work in Quickbooks in a cubical next to the fax machine from 8:30 to 11:30. After that I got to drive out to my dad's farm and pick up my brother in law and drive him back to Dover since he had to return a car he had been borrowing. By the time I got back home and had some lunch I had about 20 minutes before I went to get my girl at school. Day two of vacation was pretty much the same except I went to my uncle's store and worked there entering invoices and figuring out which bills to pay first. At least the afternoon was some fun. After I got the girl from school we went to the indoor pool and swam during the free swim time. It was the first time I swam since last summer. I really ought to do that more often.
Day three of break looks to feature getting homework done, possibly some shopping and taking in a school band concert at the middle school in the evening. Guess I'm setting my sights on summer time for some real vacation time.

Duped? Not Really

This afternoon I went to my dad's office to meet up with him and my sister so we could all go out to lunch and celebrate sis' birthday. In honor of her day, which she insisted was still our day since we tend to combine our closely situated birthdays into a week long cause for celebration, she got to chose the restaurant and came up with the excellent idea of going to The Metro in Portsmouth. I hadn't been there in ages, but it's such a great place and one of the first and certainly one of the longest standing fine dining establishments in Portsmouth. The weather was cloudy, wet and raw which made the classic, dark wood paneled atmosphere of The Metro seem perfectly cozy. They have a great lunch menu and the service is very good as well.
I had been planning on going home after lunch to catch up on some laundry and some homework for my paralegal classes. As of the end of classes this morning, I am on spring break from the university for the next week. I still have to study for paralegal classes and go work at my uncle's store, but I've been tossing around ideas about what I'd like to do with my extra free time next week. Little did I suspect that instead going home to putter, I would be going back to the office with Dad and sis and working there for the rest of the afternoon, gaining myself yet another part-time job in the process. Sis works fulltime as a bookkeeper for dad and she also does the bookkeeping for some of his other business ventures on a freelance basis. This all grew out of her starting out by helping my uncle with his bookkeeping last year. When she left to go work fulltime for Dad, I inherited the job with my uncle. Now I seem to have inherited some of the freelance work from Dad. It's not a bad thing. It's income. Income is good. It's not all that tough. I just need to be accurate and make sure the numbers all work out. I'm learning about the family businesses and what they entail. And yet, it has nothing to do with anything I've been educated to do. It doesn't really fit into my long range vision of my life, other than that it keeps me from being really poor instead of kind of poor. It is helping out my family when they need assistance. Sis is drowning in too much work, Dad needs the stuff taken care of and I am able to help. Something about it all just seems a little weird. I mean, I just went there to meet up for lunch, not to be recruited as a hired hand. Could be worse; at least I get paid for it.
Still, all those years going as far, far away as possible and then I come back and within a few years, boom! Here I am, back more into the thick of it than I ever was before.

Get Over It

Today is apparently Get Over It Day. It is also my sister's birthday. There's a whole long list of things I should probably get over, but since I'm a beginner at this I'll just start with a few. I'm going to get over the fact that our latest band formation was so stupidly short lived as to barely count. Anyway, I got to miss out on the thankfully brief drama portion of things and we still have the drummer on board in theory, so all is not lost. And I will try to at least partially get over the endlessly continuing legal bullshit with my ex. I'm certainly over him. Just wish I could wrap up the rest of it now. (yeah, wrap it up and dispose of in a toxic safe container.)

Philosophizing

Feelings are like farts. If you hold them in for too long they make your stomach hurt and grow more potent. If you let them out it feels good, although it might stink things up for a bit. If you let them out at the wrong time and place, you may be embarrassed. When you're at home and relaxing with your family you shouldn't worry too much about it, unless it's dinner time or something. If someone really loves you and is your friend they won't mind.

Jinxed

I should've known writing about it would jinx it. Appears the band situation has been put on indefinite hold. Oh well. Easy come, easy go.

Here's Some News

Life is just really weird sometimes. It seems that I have a new band. We don't have a name but we've practiced two weeks in a row and agree that we are a band, so we're a band. The crazy thing is who else is in the band. It's me, my sis, Jim T of Electric Cave and many bands that he has been kicked out of fame, and Wimpy who was originally in The Queers and is now in The Jabbers and sometimes also the Drunken Cholos. If you're not up on your punk rock knowledge that's probably not going to mean much to you. If you are, it's friggin crazy to think that's who I'm playing with now. Except it isn't because those guys have been around here forever too and we all have things in common. We all played ice hockey. Three of us went to Portsmouth High (different years). Wimpy was the drummer for the first band my sister was ever in. Jim and Wimpy have known each other for years. I've known Jim for years and sort of known Wimpy for years. We've been talking about playing together for months but it didn't happen for so long that I thought it wouldn't ever happen. I even tried to back out of it the first time it was scheduled to happen because I felt I wouldn't be playing well enough to do it and I didn't feel worthy, or something.
Anyway, it's cool. We're having fun. I laugh myself to tears at least once a practice. I got to jam with Joe King (Joe Queer, whatever you want to call him) last night because he was at the studio when we were there to practice. I still don't know what to make of it. Part of me is saying "Holy shit! I can't believe this!". And another part of me is thinking this is a shit load of fun and I'm comfortable and not nearly as intimidated as I'd imagine I would be.