Alice looks tough. She also looks very clear. Maybe I should have kept this camera (the Sony).

Yesterday, I got an invitation and the note said, “If you already received this through your husband’s email…” #^$@%&*! What?! (That’s not profanity, in case you missed it. It’s shock and confusion - you know, like when Charlie Brown’s mom speaks.)

I was surprised.

Mostly because I’m not married. And then I was a little offended. Maybe I was a little offended first. I’m not sure why for the offense, maybe it was more like a blow to my gut. A tender point.

“I already sent this to your husband’s email. Oh wait, you’re not married. Why aren’t you married? You should be. What’s wrong with you?” Woah, back off.

So, I returned the Sony. Did I say that before? I picked up the Casio instead. I’m still not convinced on either account. I don’t know what to do. It was so much easier when my paternal Kodak grandparents would buy me a camera every few years and I wouldn’t have to think about it.

Also got Savannah a Hello Kitty digital camera. And this is why:

I’ve already mentioned I’m not a gracious gift receiver, but the one time I opened a present and was truly shocked, no one was there to see me. That is unfortunate. Do you want to know what it was?! One of the partners at my workplace handed me a small bag and said, “I got everyone else champagne, but I didn’t know if you were twenty-one or not.” It was an iPod Shuffle! Now, I don’t need an iPod Shuffle since I purchased a full sized version through Pleo Marketplace a year and a half ago. But how much better is a Shuffle than champagne?! A lot.

Anyway, it spurred a gift idea for my mother. Yes, I finally thought of something to get my mom the night before Christmas Eve. [Paden|paden] and I got her a Nano! It’s red, so it matches all of her farm stuff, and I had it engraved. (I like to engrave stuff.)

Unfortunately, it made my mother’s computer explode. But, after spending a while in the freezer, Dad was able to get the hard drive working again. (The hard drive was in the freezer, not Dad.)

Also unfortunately, I spent the majority of the holiday ripping Mom’s CDs to my computer so when her iPod arrived, I could load it right up. While working on that project, I noticed that my own music library was sustaining duplicates and everything was really weird. So I deleted everything off my hard drive. Only then did I realize iPods work one way.

Bah.

So I bought a MediaWidget license. Good purchase. I recommend it.

That’s what I got. It’s amazing. Amazing is an understatement. A Kitchen-Aid mixer should be in every home. It is …it IS. And if you’ve ever picked one up, you know what I mean.

I usually use Moleskine notebooks. But two years ago, [Jenni|jennileigh] got me these other colorful notebooks that I’ve been using instead. I pretty much put anything in them. They stay in my purse and are used for whatever I need to jot down (I actually used it to make notes for writing this post). These notebooks (as well as the Moleskines) are the perfect size for exactly one year. On December 31st, I wrote in the last page. (The outline for this post.) Crazy.

The kittens are figuring out they’re too big to climb legs now.

I thought that my hermit crabs were all dead. I’ve been trying for the last couple of weeks to get rid of them through FreeCycle and Craigslist. Apparently, though, they aren’t dead. In fact, they’re thriving. Two have just molted, one for the second time since I got them in August. Now I think I might get them a bigger tank so it will be easier to take care of them.

In my extensive reading of CNN.com, I’ve discovered the NerdBlog. I don’t have much to say about it other than it’s entertaining. Thanks, NerdGuys.

I’m pretty irritated that on both Christmas and New Year’s, I got the day off, but not the day after. So I’m off Thursday and I have to go back for Friday. What’s that about?

Also, from CNN.com, I learned about Saturnalia. It’s the actual pagan holiday that coincides with Christmas. It’s the holiday that someone decided to put Christmas on top of. The most popular of Roman festivals. Multi-god society aside, I’d like to live as a Roman for a year.

I had two small portions of my hair dyed black on Tuesday. It was supposed to be navy, but my hair wasn’t taking the dye. Oh well. I like it, but …I guess my hair is a lot like my teeth: resistant to change. So if I have it done again, I think I’ll make them bigger.

My parents invited my boss over for Christmas. :) It sounds strange, but it wasn’t bad. They played Wii.

I went to use my work toothbrush on Monday and discovered it was moldy. That was disgusting. I’m really pretty freaked out about that. How can I keep a toothbrush at work and keep it from mold?

Betsey Johnson is coming to North Park Mall in 2010.

There were three pairs of shoes at Steve Madden that I planned on buying. However, the sales guy there ignored me for a good 15 minutes, and then helped another patron before even looking at me. So I walked out.

We got another second yesterday. Did you know? I thought it would be at midnight, but Dad said it was at 6PM. Midnight GMT. Bah, I missed it.

Listen, I saw this story on Palin pardoning a turkey. From what I gather, this is a traditional thing for political figures to do. Are you kidding me? What a colossal waste of time. Get a life.

I like Ashlee Simpson. I do. But, she’s named her kid Bronx Mowgli. What was she thinking? Jungle Book?

I’m rather fond of Twilight, but I’ve got to get something off my chest: “And so the lion fell in love with the lamb,” is the most idiotic line I’ve ever read. It’s lame. It’s other things, too, but lame about covers them all.

Also gleaned from CNN.com - tainted milk (in baby formula?) from China is giving babies kidney stones. Further pressing the question: Why are we still trading with China? What else needs to happen?

I saw a t-shirt line that read: “This person is a dead fish.” I immediately thought it referenced a dull person. Nope - the real story is far more funny. Beth Nudelman, an Illinois Democrat was dismissing accusations of voting fraud after her deceased goldfish, Princess, received voter registration info. “This person is a dead fish.” Hilarious.

A kid named Lin walked next to Yao Ming (basketball player) at the Beijing opening ceremonies. Why? During the last big Chinese earthquake, Lin carried his unconscious classmates to safety. His reasoning? He was the hall monitor, it was his job. Awesome.

And to the pregnant man, I say: Idiot.

I looked at my paycheck the other day and came to the following conclusions: Why am I paying for Medicare when I have medical insurance? Why am I paying for Social Security when I’ve been solicited to participate in a retirement program? Why is America being forced into a “mandatory” retirement plan? And Income Tax?? Do I even have to say anything about that?

This is my cousin, Carly Grace. I’ve never seen her in person, but there were tentative plans for me to be her nanny, and she is quite adorable.

Stay tuned for another racial revelation tomorrow. There are numerous political agendas I’m passionate about and would be an advocate for/against, however racism is a gray issue that really gets under my skin. Income Tax, Social Security, and the Federal Reserve Bank are black and white issues, but racism is ambiguous.

Joining Sagittarius ranks: Kip

My babies live in the barn. I’m fairly mortified.

I acquired a dishwasher full of Depression glass on/around/throughout my birthday. Thank you Mom, and First Monday. For future reference, I’m sticking with Amethyst and Pink glass. I’ll probably insert some white and tealish dishes in there so it’s not so girly. I think that’ll be nice with the overwhelming amount of gray I’m going to have when I get my own place.

I’m 25 now. I feel like I need to be doing something else with my life. But what? I probably just need a dog.

And just so everybody knows, Savannah is awesome, and my noise is crooked.

Also, if you want to be annoyed with me and think I’m an idiot, read the post below. Some day I’ll clarify my view on the working woman (right now I’m trying to bypass personal vendetta). Then stay tuned for my unorthodox view on the marriage ceremony. However, who knows when that’ll be since the Internet at my shell-of-a-house is going off tomorrow!

I better move, and quick.

Funnyman by KT Tunstall

Grandma comes to places with snacks. Recently, her snacks have been a trail mix by Sprouts that includes Toasted Corn. I love the corn. Last week, Grandma bought me some corn. It pertains to the next story; that’s the only reason I told you this one.

This weekend, in the life of Meagan, I walked down to the donkey pen to see if I could tempt Henry with some toasted corn…

…but I was distracted by the sound of a golf cart (okay, it makes no sound because it’s electric) headed toward a small herd of angus that had wandered onto our property.

(Uh, did I do the flash wrong on that one?) I thought Dad and Cowboy Cory were going to round them up and herd them on down the street, so I climbed Buddy’s fence and walked purposefully across his pasture toward the cows. Dad and Cory didn’t come, but I didn’t realize they weren’t until I was already there, however my presence caused the cows to scatter (even though there was a fence between us).

As I got to the fence and started taking pictures of the oddly small cattle, Buddy suddenly became interested in me. He ambled over and stole the corn I’d been saving for Henry.

(Yes, it’s corn in that yellow Hello Kitty container.) Then he nudged me, pushed me, and wiggled his oddly dexterous lips at me trying to find more. I climbed up onto the gate to watch the cows graze back toward me, and Buddy stayed with me. Over me, under me, pushing me, laying his large cumbersome head in my lap.

After I sat for a while and got sufficiently dirty, I hopped down and wandered off to the barn. As I approached, Nala, the neighbor’s Weimaraner, started barking at me like she didn’t know who I was.

So, instead of inciting an attack, I stood outside the barn and let Cowboy Cory berate her for her treatment of me. Then, I wandered around the barn and found my first deadly spider. (They are deadly, yeah?)

Dad squashed it. (Black Widow, in case you can’t tell. Click on it and it’ll get bigger. If you’re not chicken.)

It was slightly disconcerting to see that it was in the same stall Mom has been putting the kittens in during the day.

Speaking of the kittens, I returned to the breezeway from the barn and sat down with Alice and Jasper where I related the story of the black widow (and all things before) in a text message. (Apparently it was actually 3.)

Of course, the text was cut short by Alice who plucked a sticker from my jeans and got it stuck in her mouth. I grabbed her and ran in a panic to my mother who did an emergency sticker-ectomy with some tweezers.

That was frightening.

By the way, if someone saw my bare legs today, they’d probably think I was a cutter. The cats are getting heavier and sharper. That’s Pearlie’s biggest complaint: “Those kittens are too sharp.”

Today, I followed Mom back to Dallas to do some fabric shopping. Please note here that I was following my Mom. She passed a car, so I was passing with her. This jerk (it’s coming up) in a silver Pontiac cut in between us. I made sure to give him as much room as he was giving my mother, but he decided to flip me off anyway. Then, he slammed on his breaks so hard that his tires smoked and I could smell them. I honked.

A lot.

Then he did it again. When he got over to the right and I passed him with my mom, I put on my cruise so he could tailgate me all he wanted to appease his roadrage and I wouldn’t hit him.

Sometimes people are just jerks.

But anyway, some of you will be pleased to know that I managed to get her to (She thinks I railroaded because I was able to accomplish this in only one store when she had a list of several to go to. However, because I won, we got to eat at Kabab.) buy fabric for curtains in both back bedrooms. Thus far, there have been no window coverings. And while I’m okay with that while there’s an empty house, I doubted a house and yard full of Thanksgiving (or are we calling it my birthday this year?) guests would appreciate the lack of privacy due to no curtains. For some reason, she doesn’t trust me to finish the curtains. Maybe it’s because of that time I made a 12-square quilt in 9. Who knows. But anyway, I’ll assemble them, she’ll finish, and they’ll be up in time. They’re awesome. I’m just letting you know.

Oh, and then tonight I had a guy lump me with all women everywhere. He made assumptions about me, then told me how I felt, then wouldn’t let me correct him. To top it off, he said he’d pray for me. What’s that about?

Five more days of serving coffee to the most high maintenance people in the world. :) Sometimes I wonder why some of them don’t buy espresso machines and make it themselves. It would be cheaper. But then they’d have no one to gripe at when it came out wrong. Ah, I say it with humor. It’s amusing, but only in a sad, depressing way. Anything someone can control…

Rumor has it, Obama’s going to try to ban handguns. This is lunacy. “And… is the Constitution going to play into that decision at all? I mean, there’s no reasonable reason he should succeed, right?” I don’t know.

In A Little While, the Hanson version

I see this in Alice’s future.

This weekend, I got on Buddy again. This time, I can say I actually rode him instead of just walking around the round pen. I brought out the English saddle to tack him up, but realized the western girth I’d borrowed wasn’t going to cut it. So Mom and I hauled out to the neighbor’s and got him all fancied up as he’s used to. Mom watched as I struggled with Buddy for a while. She assisted in shoving him away from the railing as he leaned in to squish me again. After that, she went to get Joanne and Cowboy Cory.

I was given some simple instructions, had minimal success, and while Joanne went to get whip so I could lunge orneryness out of him, Cowboy Cory jumped in to show Buddy who was boss. As Cory flew around the ring, Buddy was putting up some serious attitude. And Cory’s just had 4 major joints replaced… So, at watching this hideous display of bad behavior via Buddy, Mom and I scoffed at Joanne as she weeks ago said to me, “Ride Buddy, he’s a kid’s horse. No problem!” And I didn’t feel so bad that I had such trouble last time.

I also don’t feel so bad now that my whole body is sore, considering Cory said Buddy’s a pretty rough ride. Man alive. Two days later and I’m still walking bow-legged.

Sunday, I went to church where Brandon Bell’s dad preaches. I think he has Celiac Disease. No, I’m serious.

Mom and I went on Saturday to the Edom Art Festival! We were looking for a saddle stand and a longhorn rug. Instead, Mom came away with… a soap dispenser. I tried to convince her to buy a Ryan Ayer’s piece, but I wasn’t successful. Someday, I’d like to myself.

Oh yeah, she got a metal goat, too. You know those lame people who have fake animals in their front yard? Surprisingly, there’s a lot of that in the country. As if there wasn’t real wildlife to look at. I could understand if fake deer fooled real deer into thinking that your front yard is safe and then they hang out. But, plastic ducks? Plastic pigs? What kind of pink pigs are wandering the countryside?

To me, fake animals are pretty much on the same level as fake plants. Just say no.

But, she got this metal goat as a mock to the fake animal trend. It also holds a potted plant, so it’s cool.

earlier
me: “Alice peed on my bed.”
mom: “Clean it up.”
me: “She was digging in my sponge rollers, maybe she thought it was big litter.”

later
me: “Pearlie, get over here, or I’m going to bring those kittens in here.”
mom as Pearlie: “Kittens aren’t allowed on the bed, they might wee.”
me: “You’ve weed plenty of places before.”
mom as Pearlie: “Only outside and on my wee pads. …and right beside my wee pads, when I thought my hiney was on it.”
me: “In Alice’s defense, she probably thought her hiney was in my sponge rollers.”
mom as Pearlie: “When you’re little, sometimes you just can’t tell where your hiney is.”

I’m not a cat person.

I don’t like them. I had one good cat, and he was so beyond cat that we couldn’t even name him - so he stayed KC (Kitty Cat) for about a decade before he died. I don’t currently have a picture of him, but one day I’ll post it. I never had a kitten because KC came to use an adult who drank bottled water and didn’t have any claws, and the one kitten I did have gave me ringworm, so we gave her back.

I digress.

This weekend, I planned to get some more futile practice on the back of Buddy, my chestnut Western nemesis, who would rather crush my legs into a metal pole than pretend to remember that I’m on his back. I didn’t get that far, though. I was stalled by something I didn’t think I’d care that much about.

What makes it more unbearable is that, not only do I not like cats - I loathe black and white cats. I just do. Cats can come in better colors.

Meet Alice, who has no sense of personal space, who hopped in my lap not two seconds after I entered the room, and who shot straight up my fishnet stockings on Sunday morning. I love her, she is the death of me.

And then there’s Jasper, and if his eager little purr doesn’t melt your heart, you’re a cold shrew.

Presumably, if they ever make it out of the house, they’ll be bloodthirsty barn cats, all too happy to rid the farm of ratty vermin.

If I don’t steal them from my mother.

On a less selfish note, I did do good things this weekend.

I finished the Sacred Selections quilt, and due to a country postal system, I sent it on with Larry. I hope it’ll make it to the fundraiser.

Speaking of which: go to it. It’ll be October 18th in Crosby, TX. There will be games, food, an auction, and a softball game thing. I wish I could go, but I’ll be in Edom (quickly becoming a favorite name).

The thing about quilts…

…is that I pretty much hate them, until they’re finished. Same with paintings. I’m too critical. But, I remind myself that I’m less critical than my mother, who took apart one of my skirts because a seam in the inside wasn’t lying flat. I’ve learned to let go of it because if I don’t, I’ll never finish. So, I set forth with a goal, meet the necessary requirements, and then when the quilt is lying on the floor and I’m seeing it from the viewpoint of, “I’m done, it’s over,” I love it and I don’t want to let it go.

So, go to the fundraiser and bid on my quilt. It’ll put a baby in a good home.

I thought I was getting sick this weekend, but it turns out that sore throat may just have been due to screeching this song for two hours as I drove to the franch on Friday. Then I screeched some more as I drove around the town on Saturday looking for a place from which to ship the SS quilt. I decided to lay off on the way home, and now I’m doing alright.

I listen to an exorbitant amount of classical music.
I wear a lot of blue jeans.
And I live in a big house that only grows more enormous at the passing of each day.
My weekends at the franch only make it harder to come back to the wretched big city.

ps. David Gray sounds like a sheep.