Shark Week

Well.
Another year, another Shark Week has come and gone, taking a piece of my heart with it.
Truly a glorious time - I love me some shark-on-seal action.
Need I remind you about last year's love-fest with sharks?


However.



Is it just me, or are they showing pretty much the same thing year after year?
I came across this funny comic.
For those of you lazy bastards who can't be bothered to click the link, the author sums up the following Shark Week programs:

Ultimate Air Jaws: Sharks can jump out of the water. It's the same thing you've seen the past 8 years, only different angles
Into The Shark Bite: Sharks bite really effing hard. Don't get bitten
Shark Attack Survival Guide: If you don't have a shotgun, punch the shark in the nose. If you're not prepared to die, don't get in the ocean
Day Of The Shark 3: Every single day is Day of the Shark. This is about 6 dumbasses that sharks mistook for food
Shark Bite Beach: Really? Shark bite beach? Sharks only bite people because they bleed into teh ocean or try their best to look like seals
Shark Bites: Adventures in Shark Week: Famous guy swims with sharks. He makes jokes. Will only be funny if he is bitten.

Lolz.

Okay, okay, point taken.

Dear Shark Week Executives
Perhaps it's time to admit that your materials are going a bit stale. Might I propose that you change Shark Week to focus on another scary predator-type animal?
Like Bears.
Fact: Bears are one the largest land predators in North America. Like, really, REALLY big. And strong. Especially Polar Bears. That shit is scary. Get on it.
Fact: Grizzly bears will hunt you over hundreds of miles and eat your bleeding African American friend, and you'll only survive if Anthony Hopkins happens to be nearby. I saw "The Edge." That shit was crazy!
Fact: Stephen Colbert hates bears. Which means Republicans hate bears. Which means, by default, Democrats must love bears. Great way to increase your demographic!
Fact: I once saw a video clip of a "tame" grizzly bear maul a reporter. You should put that shit in there.

Obviously, it's time to retire Shark Week for another animal. If not bears, then lions maybe, or something equally toothy and claw-ey.

Or you could just rerun clips from Real Houswives of NY.
Nobody would be able to tell the difference.

Beer-Sponsored Literary Snobbery

*disclaimer: the aforementioned "beer-sponsored" part of this post occurred last night, not while this post was being written, which is a good thing, because it's only 8:30 in the morning. However, it IS 5:00 somewhere. Keep that in mind.

You guys...
TODAY IS THE DAY that I write a funny...or at least worthwhile...blog post.
There has been a lot of crap posting going on here lately.
I do not approve.
However, since I've been the one writing these crap posts, there will be no disciplinary action just yet, unless you count me waking up at 6:00 this morning to see my two male dogs humping each other, in which case, it would appear that I deserved it.

What?

Whatever.

I started drinking last night, in honor of the awesome post I was sure to write today.
I was feeling all, yay, I'm funny and creative again. Let's unwind after dinner and have a lively discussion about interesting things. (which is code for drinking multiple beers and having a heated argument over the most respectible rap artist. Oooh, to be a fly on that wall). So we did argue about rap artists, as only two white middle-class individuals can. Then we moved on to literature.
And that's when I dropped the bomb (compliments of the third bottle of River Horse Brewer's Reserve).

Brian has this.....author. According to wikipedia, he's considered to be "an American adventure novelist" (and those of you who are literary-inclined can already see where I'm going with this). By all accounts he appears to be a very successful novelist, with 17 of his books being on the New York Times best-seller fiction list.
But the thing is....

It's crap.
Like, god-awful, cringe-while-reading-the-first-paragraph crap.
Really bad.
(And seriously, considering most adult readers think that Harry Potter is ground-breaking fiction, any book that hits the best-seller list can probably be read and fully comprehended by an 8th grader).
I tried reading it once, while Brian was out of the house. I read 3 pages of the book, gently put it down, and swore that I'd take my opinions of this author to the grave so as to not disturb the household.
But that stupid third River Horse Brewer's Reserve....apparently it didn't know when to keep it's mouth shut.

So the cat's out of the bag.
Brian is not heartbroken, but I think I've officially been labeled a literary snob, which is just as well, considering I have a B.A. in English. Hell, I'm just glad the degree is starting to pay off. I might have spent 4 years wasting money on classes that have little to no application to the real world, but at least I can recognize a phony writer a mile away.
At any rate, after much discussion, we've decided that Brian will continue to read his "author," and I will continue to smile falsely when he talks about him, if only for the sake of the dogs.

Oh well...I guess it could be worse.
He could be reading the Twilight trilogy
*GAG*

Nonesense

I have no topic for this post.
I'm supposed to be writing about glioblastoma, because honestly, what could be more fun than talking about brain tumors?!?
But I'm not ready yet - the ole' noodle isn't working at full capacity...which is a symptom of brain glioblastoma and OMG MAYBE I HAVE A BRAIN TUMOR!
That's the problem with medical writing.
If you weren't a hypochondriac before, writing about diseases all day will certainly make you one. For instance, at one point, I was convinced that I had prostate cancer.
I rest my case.

In other news, I tried mountain biking the other day.
I also kicked ass at it like nobody who has ever mountain biked before.
Okay...that might be an exaggeration. But for my first time out, I was damn good.
When we were finished, after almost 4 hours on the trail, Brian confessed that he was shocked.
"I would have bet money," he said to me, "that you were going to fall or just get scared within the first 10 minutes and insist on turning around."
HAH.
Well....okay....the first few minutes were a little "poop-your-pants" scary. But then you realize that your bike is MADE for this shit, and as long as you don't lose control completely, chances are, you'll be okay.
So I kept riding, managed not to soil myself, and before you know it I was catching some air and generally having a good time, except for that one point where I may or may not have seen my ex whiz by in a group of 8 mountain biking dudes.
*shiver
I hope I was mistaken, because that would be no good, people. no good at all. However, when we were togethere, there weren't 8 people in the world who liked him (including his parents), let alone 8 guys who would have liked him enough to go mountain biking with him, so I have my doubts.
On the other hand, they're doing amazing things with antipsychotics these days, so maybe?
I dunno.
Bottom line is, if we get into a head-on crash on the trail, I'll just have him arrested for breaking the rules of my restraining order
:-)

So I've got a big week coming up.
Brian's brother comes back from Afghanistan for a 3-week visit on Thursday, and then Brian's birthday is on Friday. So there should be much celebrating and good times to be had. And I WISH I could tell you guys about the awesome-sauce present I got for Brian, but I can't risk him reading this blog before his birthday and ruining the surprise.
All I'm going to say is that there's a good chance I might win Wife Of The Year after this one.
Oh yeah...it's a doozie.
So I'll fill you peeps in on that little surprise after Friday.
Until then, I guess it's back to writing about brain tumors.

Modesty, And Cookie Cake

So now every time I log on, I'm kind of all woah because my blog used to be brown-ish and pretty and now it's full of blue bubbles, and then the cat with the lime on it's head makes me laugh a little, but then I get sad because a cat with a lime on it's head will NEVER trump a poorly cut-out rabbit with its tongue sticking out.

In short, this new background and pic is kind of freaking me out.

But the good news is that I've decided to NOT hang my hat up, not only because at least 8 of you cared enough to ask me to stick around, but also because work has lightened up a bit and now I suddenly have time on my hands, and writing blogs is preferable to doing the laundry or cleaning the house, and it's a good distraction while I'm waiting for Brian to come home and entertain me.

I jumped 4 feet today. On a horse, I mean.
It was kind of awesome - I haven't done that shiz for a good 6 months, at least, and not consistently for about 10 years.
oh yeah, I still got it.
It was for an exhibition. The barn where I grew up and now keep Mikey at has summer camp, and the girls wanted to see me jump something high.
And for realz, I'm the most down-to-earth, friendly, non-competitive, modest rider that you will ever encounter in your life, people, but is it wrong for me to write on my semi-secret blog that it's way fun to be my trainer's prodigy and an overall barn superstar, and that watching 8 girls look up to me with awe and admiration (literally as well as figuratively, because I was still sitting on the horse) kind of feels like lounging in a super-plush terry robe - all warm and fuzzy and awersome?

Oh, it is?
well never mind then.

Regardless, it's nice to have an "I still got it" kind of day. It makes you feel young, for one thing, and also, I feel like I kind of earned that giant piece of cookie cake I ate for lunch.

Fin

...Because the updated Blogger templates destroyed my soul...

Can we talk about how I went to post a blog a few days ago and my background had gotten all messed up?

Can we talk about how, when I went to fix it, I had to use this new-fangled Blogger template thingey?

Can we talk about how everything....EVERYTHING...then got screwed up and I ended up having to revert back to a basic blog template just to apply these new, SUCKY templates to my blog?

And finally, can we please talk about how my blog is essentially ruined and I lost everything, including my widgets, my pictures, my recommended blogs, and my hits counter.

In summary, the new Google Blogger can eat a big, fat dick.

I'm devistated. The blog that I lovingly maintained for almost 2 years is gone. Sure, the text is still there. But all those little things that made the blog mine have been taken away.

I'm wondering if it's a sign.
Because, let's be honest, I haven't been blogging lately.
My life is just too full of activity and too devoid of the pent-up rage that I need to write funny, creative posts.
And now my blog - well, everything that made the blog mine - has been replaced with a gay background and a picture of a cat with a lime on it's head.
And I'm not saying that a disgruntled cat wearing a fruit hat isn't funny....but is it me???
I suspect not.

So I have a hard decision to make.
Do I plunge forward with this fresh, new, horrible blog, or do I hang my hat up for a while?

Decisions...decisions...

Craziness

Forward: Thanks to everyone for their support and encouragement in response to my last post. Shit sucked, I'm not gonna lie. But I'll go forward because what else can I do? In the meantime I'll just be glad that I can ride again. And drink beer. mmmmm. Beer.



So, it's been a week since I last posted.

Eeek.

I'm sorry.

Life has been totally, utterly, completely crazy lately.

We've had more animals in our house than the San Diego Zoo

We drove from NJ to South Carolina and back in 34 hours.

I sent a riding student to the ER in an ambulance.

I made pumpkin chili without any pumpkin last night.

WITHOUT PUMPKIN, people.

If it gets any crazier than that, I don't want to know about it.

So where do I start? I guess we'll do this in chronological order.

Over the past two weeks, we've had no less than seven animal in this house. No, you didn't read that wrong. SEVEN ANIMALS. That means the pet-to-human ratio was 7:1 during the day and 3.5:1 during the night.

It was ridic.

One night, we were eating dinner at the dining room table and something hit my foot, so I looked under the table.

Big. Mistake.

It was like that scene in Open Water, where everything looked calm above the surface, but beneath the surface there were like a million hungry sharks thrashing about.

This is what happens when you agree to watch your In-law's dog, your sister's cat, and your sister's ex-roommate's cat without looking at the calendar.
Whoops.
I'm happy to say that the In-law's annoying beagle (nicknamed "Bad-touch Bandit" for ...well...you don't really want to know) is now gone. But the cats are still here.
It's like living in an episode of National Geographic, except instead of hunting, all of the cats just sit around and whine for food.

Lovely

And then this past weekend, we had to drive down to South Carolina and back. Something to do with a nasty break-up and a certain brother-in-law whose stuff was still in "the ex's" townhouse just outside of Greenville. So we left Saturday morning and returned back to NJ on Sunday night. Thank GOD Brian and I get along so well, or those 22 hours in the truck would have sucked big time.
It didn't help that we got a late start on account of me sending one of my students for a lovely ambulance ride after she fell during her lesson Saturday morning. It looked like a normal, slide-off-the-horse type of fall. But she hit the ground and started screaming in that "Oh Snap I Just Broke My Pelvis" kind of way, and suddenly I found myself calling 911.
Turns out, she just bruised her butt. In fact, she was smiling and joking with us by the time the ambulance arrived, which allowed me some time to snap a few pictures:

But when it comes to back injuries - and potential lawsuits - I don't mess around, so off to the ER she went.
Do I feel guilty, as a trainer, for sending one of my students to the hospital? A little.
Do I feel guilty, as a trianer, for capuring the moment with awesome cell-phone photography? Not at all, folks. Not. At. All.
(Hey, someday, she'll cherish these memories).

So that was my week.

It was wild and hairy and full of unexpected trips to unexpected places.

I'm not complaining - I love a good switch-up in routine - but I'll be happy when things calm down and the most exciting part of my day is switching the laundry from the washer to the dryer.

Phew

Pressure Cooker

My In-laws want grandchildren. They've made this perfectly clear through subtle little hints. Their plans to retire to Altoona, PA seem to have come to a screeching halt; they've suddenly subsided working on the house with intent to sell. They sit and wait, and watch to see if I'll choose a beer or a soda.

Brian's coworkers want him to have children. I'm not sure what the deal with that is, but they barrage him with questions every day. Maybe they want him to be as miserable as they are? Or maybe they just see him as a great potential father (much like we all do).

My coworkers, when I had them, started asking about children the minute I announced I was engaged, and continued to ask until the day I left. I think it's just "what you do" in an office environment. I don't blame them - the corporate 9-5 lifestyle is so prescribed, so predetermined, they practically flinch when you do something outside the norm, like stop eating meat, or wear black shoes with brown pants. Babies are the norm. When are you going to have one?

My mother wants a grandkid. She doesn't say a thing, other than to offer moral support as I go through this trial, but I know her heart, and it aches for the both of us. She just wants to retire and help raise the kid. Maybe putter around the yard a little. It would be lovely.

I had another negative pregnancy test yesterday. The labcoat....the elevator music...the extreme emotional turmoil...it was all for nothing. Conditions were about as optimal as they can get, and nothing happened. I'm at a loss. I want answers. I want to shake my doctor and tell him to figure out what's wrong with us and FIX IT ALREADY. But I can't, because I know he's doing his best, and sometimes our bodies just want to keep secrets.

Today is a hard day. I have to deal with the knowledge that a baby might not happen. I have to deal with the knowledge that I may never be a biological mother. That Brian and I may never be able to make something that is pure "us."

I know that it could be much worse - that people are dealing with much more terrible things than I.
But today?
I've lost hope.
And for me, that's about as bad as it gets.