Now that I think of it, she does have very nice nails

Sunday morning I was in a rush to finish getting ready. I applied eye-liner and was confused to see that at the end of it I did NOT look sexy, but rather hung-over and possibly infectious. Turned out I was using the identically-packaged Mary Kay lipliner by mistake. Woops.

Only, as I was soon to learn, it could have been much worse. The woman who got up to teach the Relief Society lesson prefaced her talk with a plea for everyone to please make sure they weren't letting their (metaphorical) plates get too full, which could lead to disorganization and rushing and mistakes. Of which she proceeded to give a personal example.

She held up two small, nearly identical dropper-type bottles. The only difference was that one was slightly bigger than the other, and the caps were two different shades of green. As she held them up, she said, "Okay. This is a bottle of eye drops. And this . . . is nail glue."


I think you may know where I'm going with this.

While they were out of town last week, her husband asked her to grab the eye drops. She was in a hurry and got them from her bag, thinking, "That's a good idea, I could use some drops myself," and quickly squeezed a few drops into her eye.

Of course, she'd grabbed the nail glue. And yes, please take whatever time you need to grimace your own eyes shut at such a horrifying prospect. Fifteen minutes later she was in the ER waiting for a doctor to dig the dried glue out of her eyeballs and she was incredibly lucky not to have permanent damage.

So let's everybody take a moment to slow down, smell the flowers, and read the labels. The world will be a better place for it, I'm sure.

A few letters I've been meaning to post

Dear ClearPlay,

Our subscription to your service expired three months ago. Since that time, you have not created any new filters that would tempt us to come back. Instead of providing cleaner versions of the movies we want to see (read: the R and PG-13 ones), you have made the somewhat inexplicable choice to focus all your efforts on removing smut, profanity, and violence from PG and G-rated movies such as Ice Age: The Meltdown and Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience.

We no longer love you, and we want to find the people who want their G-rated movies edited and go hit them with bricks.

ps. Your website is down. Way to suck.


Dear library mommies,

When I tell you that a certain program/activity is meant for children of elementary-school age, I actually mean that. Please do not avoid eye contact with me while dragging in your toddlers, believing that they either have the motor skills of an 8-year-old or that you will just complete the activity FOR them. Because you're taking up all the seats meant for the actual real kids for whom this activity was intended. Way to go, there.


Dear American Educational Services (aka, people who own my student loan)

I am sorry that you chose to hire not one, but at least two technical customer service representatives who believe that www.mint.com is a web browser. And that when I emailed you about the additional security measures that were preventing Mint.com's financial software from being able to access my student loan information, your response was that I should try using Internet Explorer or Netscape.

Thanks for that. You are idiots. Also? Netscape? Seriously? Is it 1997 again and I just didn't notice?


Dear Mint.com,

I love you and want to have your babies, which I will even bear naturally in a birthing pool because that is just how much I love you.

Just a thought

Maybe this is just me being a cranky pants, but is anyone else tired of all the Michael Jackson coverage? Especially since there are other things going on in the world that actually, well, matter? (This is not to say that Michael Jackson's death does not matter to the people who were close to him, because of course it does, but it doesn't actually affect the rest of us in any tangible way.)

Here's my beef: To me, this whole media frenzy is not even about him. It's actually about guilt. You heard me. Now that Michael Jackson is suddenly dead, everyone wants to talk about him and play his songs and love him and make a huge stinking deal about the whole thing. Three weeks ago, no one was talking about Michael Jackson except to wonder if his tour was going to be a train wreck or not.

But now, NOW, it's a different story. So even though there are actual, ongoing things happening in the world that could use our attention (hello, Iran), all anybody wants to do is make themselves feel better about the part where they called him Wacko Jacko and thought he was a child molester for the last however many years. I can't blame the media for this, because they are a business and they run the stories that viewers will tune in for. And clearly, viewers seem to have an infinite capacity right now for Michael Jackson.

When someone's dead, though, it's kind of late for the love-fest. Heaven knows it's too late to do the recipient any good. Maybe guilt can occasionally be a useful feeling. Instead of trying to absolve ourselves of it with these huge misuses of our collective energy and attention for someone who is dead and can't actually benefit from them, maybe we can just say to ourselves, "Huh. Now that this person is gone, I find myself remembering all of the good associations and memories, rather than the bad. I will use this feeling to remind myself to show more appreciation, kindness, and understanding for the people who are still in my life."

Is it just me who's been thinking this?

4th of July HL/LL

Hope everyone's Independence Days were merry and bright.

Here were my highlights:

Watched Season 1 of 30 Rock on DVD. Man that's a funny show.

Went to a drive-in movie on Friday night. It doesn't get more American that that, I tell you. Considered finding a set of swings to go sing sad songs on ("Stranded at the drive-in . . . ") but instead just ate my Little Ceasar's pizza and Oreos while watching the movies.

Listened to NPR's Reading of the Declaration of Independence. Got teary-eyed.

Made an amazing corn/black bean/avocado/tomato/cilantro/garlic/lime salsa for the Family 4th of July Dinner in Provo

The Family 4oJD menu: Hot dogs, cheeseburgers with bacon & avocado, corn on the cob, salsa & chips, watermelon, cherries, lemonade, Canadian chocolate, and ice cream cones.

GH and I brought fireworks to light for the kiddies, including the piece de resistance--a firework that shot off 7 mortars 30 feet into the air, each of which released 5 parachuting figures from the sky. Blew. Their. Minds. Also? Beat that, all other aunties and uncles.

At church on Sunday there were two baby blessings, which meant that all the testimonies afterward were by members of said babies' families and were more babymonies than my-country-is-the-only-true-country-unlike-some-other-sucky-countries-I-will-now-mention-and-it's-also-Jesus'-favorite-so-neener-monies. Sorry, Mormon Child Bride.

I must also, however, include the lowlights:

The drive-in double-feature consisted of Year One and Land of the Lost. Both were lame, although Land of the Lost had some scatological humor that amused me greatly. Plus it was after midnight by that point, which may have had something to do with it.

After spending loads of time and love and fresh organic ingredients on it, I left the black bean salsa in my apartment. Because I am awesome. Grabbed more ingredients at the store so that Jen, Coolboy, & I could whip up another one superfast. (After I got done writhing around on the ground about how stupid I was to have forgotten the stupid thing.)

The Stadium of Fire fireworks sucked hard. GH timed it and they only lasted about 8 minutes. He now gets to feel smug and validated about L****'s claim to have the Best Firework Show in Utah. Uuugh. L**** is always claiming crap against Utah County that isn't true. (See the completely one-sided Cache vs Utah County feud that Utah Co isn't even aware of because that's how NOT rivals they are. )

Here's hoping everyone else had nice long weekends as well. And now it's back to the regular programming called Working with the Public (ie, the people who think that the words of "the library is now closed" is actually their cue to go lock themselves in the bathroom for the next 10 minutes. Because why go home and use your own bathroom when there's a dirty, smelly, disgusting public one right there? Of course, that's me assuming they're actually using the bathroom as intended. They're probably just stuffing books and DVDs into their clothing.)

I declare I don't know what the young men are about nowadays

Last night GH had his interview with a local television station. Thanks to your prayers/vibes/visualizations, it seemed to go well. Because there were so many applicants, they're doing a round of phone interviews first. Next week we should hear if there will be an in-person interview.

At some point during the conversation GH mentioned something he'd seen on the station's website. The interviewer was surprised and said, "You know, you are the first person I've talked to who has gone to our website. I'm going to make a note of that."

If that's the case, then the thank-you note GH put in the mail this morning should really blow his mind.

But seriously? None of the other applicants went on the website? Or, if they did, they didn't make sure to work that into the conversation somehow? I knew resumes were taking a hit, so I guess it makes sense that interview preparation has gone downhill as well. I mean, yay for other people's laziness making GH look even better by comparison, but it's still kind of sad, especially when so many people really, really need a job, are qualified for said job, but just aren't giving strong interviews.

And now I'm starting to think of all the really bad interviews I've been a part of. Thankfully, I was usually on the hiring and end, not on the "spectacularly blowing an interview" end. (Please not that I said usually, not always.) Methinks there should be a post about this . . .

They say clothes don't make the man

And they would be right.

However.

They still kinda do. Think of that scene in Pride and Prejudice where Mr. Darcy, Mr. Bingley, and Mr. Hurst walk home across the fields after a day of shooting innocent birds that they probably won't even eat. Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley stride along in full-length duster coats, which drape manfully out behind them. This is how you know they are cool. Mr. Hurst lacks the long coat, which is how you know he is dumpy and lame and drinks himself into a red-nosed stupor every night.


Ever since I have known him, GH has been strictly a t-shirt & hoodies kind of guy. When the mood strikes he'll don a polo. This works for him, and, as he pointed out to me one day, his t-shirts get more remarks and compliments when we're out in public than mine do. I maintain that it's not my fault there are a lot of geeks out there.

For a few months now I've been wanting to get him into a nice button-up cotton shirt. You know, the kind without a tie where you roll the sleeves up a bit and immediately look about 3 times hotter. (Amyjane and I used to refer to this phenomenon as Post-Church Dress Shirt. And believe me, gentlemen, there's power there.)

Over the weekend we stopped in Kohls to grab (and pay for) a new pair of Sunday pants for GH. On the way out, I spied some nice striped shirts on a clearance rack for 70% off and decided that today was the day. I grabbed one, took it up front, and bulldozed GH into taking it. To humor me, he wore it the next day for his mother's birthday dinner.

I pretty much could not take my eyes (or, fine, hands) off him for the rest of the night, he looked so good.

Check it out:

I know, right???

GH may not realize it yet, but that shirt is going to be getting a whole lot of brothers and sisters.

Update: I forgot to mention this before, but GH has a job interview today for a really cool job. So please, please cross fingers, say prayers, send good vibes, inform the universe, visualize success, etc. Thank you!

Why I haven't blogged yet this week

a. I am newly pregnant with triplets and have decided to start the bed rest early.
b. I got mauled by a bear in the Samurai Sushi parking lot on Girl's Day and have been in the hospital.
c. I foolishly agreed to take on a freelance editing project (like a fool) and so am spending every spare minute working on it.

Which do you think it is?

But yes, I made it home from Alaska safely, if not sanely. I think I'm getting too old for this redeye [stuff]. I was a complete zombie by the time I made it home, approximately 102 hours after I left my parents' house. But I guess I did have it easier than my b-in-law, who is driving a car down from Alaska this very minute through bear-infested lands. Please cross fingers that he doesn't get eaten.