AZ was great!  We drove around everywhere.  About half of the pictures we took are of cactai and the other half is probably the Grand Canyon.  Which was very cool by the way.  It just didn't look real.  We stayed in Phoenix and took day trips to Tucscon, Sedona, and the Grand Canyon.  We stopped in Flagstaff on the way up there to pick up lunch.  We put over a thousand miles on the rental car.  Even with all that running around, I still came back happy and relaxed.  I was even happy to go to work.  That lasted about 3 days and then it took me two hours to get there one morning and yeah, the bloom was off that rose pretty damn quick.  For all that it was absolutely gorgeous, I still think that I like SF better.  Sue me, I like water. 

 

I don't think much else has been going on.  All seems to be worked out with the band stuff.  The groom to be actually called the band's manager and set things up with him.  Naturally, two days later the band fired their manager so the groom then had to call his friend in the band and set things up again.  But whatever, I no longer have to be involved in any of it. 

 

I don't remember if I put anything up here about him recently - but my dad is doing better.  He hasn't smoked for 40 days.  He said hes  had some set backs but thats going to happen but hes trying to avoid the things that trigger a craving for a cigarette.  I don't know how well that will work long term but for the moment its good.  He was around my brother yesterday and my brother smoked but dad didn't (brother will be quitting soon.  Hes trying Chantix).  He is taking his insulin and blood thinners and all that and for the moment is taking ok care of himself.  He still has no feeling in his left foot but he can move two of the toes now.  Although, he can't feel them moving.  He says its weird, if he tries to move them when he has socks on, he'd have no idea because he couldn't see them.  He gets really bad stabbing pains in the leg, its still very swollen, and possibly getting infected as he thinks he's been running a low grade fever. He's alone with my grandmother a lot and its driving him nuts.  Shes getting really loopy and kind of (kindly understated!) mean.  I would like to get down to see him sometime soon.  Thankfully, one of my cousins is flying in and will be staying there for a few days until an uncle comes to get him.  At least there will be someone else to talk to. 

 

My sister's divorce will be final next week I think.  She also had a custody hearing and got partial custody of her kids.  Her husband will  have them two weekends in a row and every other holiday.  I think thats what it was.  I know thats got to be a relief for her.  If he had decided to push things, she'd probably have lost them and ended up paying him alimony.   

 

I just tried Mexican Chile Pepper tea and it is excellent.  The aftertaste is like honey and oranges.  Best thing ever!  Right, I just completely lost track of anything else I was going to put up here. 

 

Oh and can I just say I love wikipedia?  I know that you have to take the stuff up there with a grain of salt but I love being able to look up someone and read about them and link to other important people in their lives and read about them and just keep on going.  I looked up Louise O'Murphy the other day and also Queen Ann, Queen Mary II, Lola Montez, and Empress Maria Theresa and all of the siblings of Marie Antoinette and most of their children.  It was awesome!  

 

I need another cup of tea.         

i had no idea it had been so long since i had been on here.  almost two months!  probably no one checks my page any more anyway.  not that i blame anyone, i imagine it gets boring after awhile when there isn't anything new.  spaces looks different.  what changed?   

 

the saddest part of all?  i can't think of anything that i've been doing in the mean time either.  nothing exciting.  counting down the days to vacation. 

 

chris and his brother want to start a ghost hunting group.  like taps?  so last weekend, we went to gettysburg and walked around and took pictures in the dark and it was fun.  totally not creepy but i got to practice night photography.  and this weekend, we went to frederick and did the candlelight ghost tour that they do on saturdays and that was pretty fun, too.  again, totally not creepy but what do you expect when you have to stand outside the haunted building and look in on it.

 

oh, and i'm going to be in a wedding in october.  a friend of chris's is getting married.  i guess he's a friend of mine too since i've known him just as long as i've known chris.  anyway, chris is a groomsman and the bride to be had a "girl" drop out (more than one from what i'm hearing.  i believe she just had her third (!) person drop out) and so she asked me to be in it.  i said sure why not.  i could use another dress that i have to pay through the nose for and will never wear again cluttering up my closet.  um, no offense to those whose weddings i've been in.  yalls dresses were just lovely.  and i totally wear them out every weekend.  :o)  as i'm sure you still wear the ones you had to wear in my wedding.  anyway, this whole thing has been nothing but drama.  drama about the band, about the bride, about the music, place, blah blah blah.  and now, because i told her that i would help her if she needed me for something (thats what you're supposed to say right?) i have kind of been pulled in to the middle of things and have been placed in the role of breaking the bad news about the music to the bride.  yay me.  why these whiny baby asshole men can't talk to this woman and just tell her, "hey - what you want isn't going to happen so get over it and think of something else" i don't know.  its my job apparently to explain to her that the band won't play if she gets a dj and that she will need to talk to their manager and no chris will not dj for her either.  because, well, thats pretty much where the asshole part comes in.  i worked out a pretty reasonable compromise but he still doesn't want to do it because he wants to visit with people at the reception.  i have a nasty feeling its going to be me handling the music just so i don't have to tell this woman that shes not going to get what she wants.  i have a real problem with that.  i don't like to disappoint people.  and really, if someone had told you two months before your wedding that something you wanted wasn't going to happen how would you reacte?  (please don't say shoot the messenger.  please don't say shoot the messenger.)  anyway, it all kind of boils down to the bride and groom are presuming an awful lot that their friends are going to step up and want to do all of these things for them (free photography, free band, free dj) and their friends are getting ready to disabuse them of that notion and, lucky me, i get to be part of the fun! 

oi. 

 

oh!  and i have sad gossip about my old roommate.  she married the navy guy that she constantly fought with (we're talking very jerry springer-ish) and she got pregnant with twins (fertility drugs).  sadly for her, she went in to labor early and one of them didn't make it.  the other twin had a lot of complications and just recently was able to leave the hospital.  i don't know if he has any permanent damage.  i felt so bad for her when i heard.  i honestly don't know how capable she is of handling this kind of thing.  i wouldn't say she lead a charmed life, but definitely a superficial one.  anyway, thats my news about her.  my aunt is supposed to be getting me her contact information but i'm not sure i would do anything with it.  not particularly close/friendly with her.  i didn't have a whole lot of respect for her and was probably not particularly careful about not showing that.  if that makes sense.   

 

huh, i guess some stuff was going on all this time. 

 

on a work note, i have gotten extremely bored of my job.  they need to give me something new to do. 

We ripped out the remaining three really ugly bushes from out front.  And planted other, much cuter bushes in their place.  I think I have a before shot but I definitely have afters and I'll put them up here.  It looks so much better - you can see the porch!  Which made me instantly realize that Chris is right and we have to paint it.  Soon. 

 

We also had some friends over for a cook-out on Saturday.  As glad as I was to see them, by 2am I was falling asleep in my chair. 

 

Sunday we had to go back to Lowes to get another 14! bags of mulch.  There are still some thin spots where you can see the weed mat but there isn't much we can do about that until we put edging or something around it.  That's not going to happen until next year. 

 

We did decide though that we have 61 days until vacation (as of today) and that we should finish up all the other projects that we started and abandoned in the house before we leave.  I'm fine with this idea but I told him that he would be on his own for the Harry Potter book weekend. 

 

I have to get my car inspected this morning so I had better get a move on.  Still moving more slowly than normal today.  Who knew that being bent over pulling weeds and digging holes for 8 hours or so you would find thigh muscles you never felt before?   

when one uses the guest bed as the litter box and the other throws up in your new shoes. 

 

 

I feel like such a stupid asshat right this second. 

 

We have this nifty new thing at work called eprint.  You can send your large print jobs over to the print department over the intranet and can even specify the things you want, holes punched, tabs made, whatever.  Its wonderful and I used it for the first time yesterday. 

 

And then this morning I opened the first box and the first two parts were correct, and the third was completely wrong.  So I went back and checked the file I sent, and checked it again, and made sure that the data that was on the form was right.  And I couldn't get my head around the problem.  See, I sent a pdf file that looked one way, and when I got the print-out, it was totally in the wrong format, the data on the page was reordered, the paging was completely off, and the sort order was totally wrong.  So I'm thinking how the eff does that happen to a pdf?  So then I went to ask the IT guy if had used this thing and explained to him what happened and had him look at the file, look at the printed pages and check the data and he couldn't get his head around it either.  So before I called the printer to have HIM look at it, I opened the second box.  Yeah, there was the third print job and what I had been looking at was part of the second job.  We don't use that part of the file because, ha!  its not in the right format.  So generally, just the first few pages get printed.  I'm the only person here who prints and binds this report.  I have done this every 6 months since I've been here.  So yeah, started my day wearing my asshat and spent forever on something that really should only have taken me an hour. 

 

I would like to say that in my defense, the first box did say 'contains 3 print jobs' when really, it only contained 2.  So there, stupid printers.  

 

And now, I'm off to revise the SOP for this.   

But maybe not so good? 

 

Have you heard of freebirthing?  I'd never heard of it.  At least, not in cases where the baby doesn't end up in a dumpster or trashcan at the high school prom.  This article says that its getting more popular in developed countries.  This totally puzzles me.  So much can go wrong!  And not just for the baby.  I understand wanting to do things naturally, and using a midwife instead of a doctor.  But to not have anyone there at all?  And the argument that women have been having babies for thousands of years and it isn't that difficult else we wouldn't be here is just completely ignorant to me.  Midwives have been around as long as women have been having babies for a reason.

 

Yeah ok I was kind of on the fence about it when I finished the article. But I've talked myself over it and firmly on to the side of this being a stupid and terrible idea.  It ranks right up there with the stupid twits who deliberately take up smoking while they're pregnant so that they have a small baby and think that this will make for an easier labor. 

 

Where?  Where are thefreaking lifeguards when you need one? 

I sprained my ankle last week.  And yeah I know that this is completely dumb, but it actually kept me out of work for a day.  I did it at night and when I got up in the morning - couldn't work the clutch.  Completely stupid, I know.  My mother in law drove me to the ER so that I could get it xrayed because it was really hard to put any weight on it.   Just sprained.  So I drove a big huge boat of a car last week and yesterday, too.  I have mine back today and it kind of feels like a clown car.  This morning was a little painful getting to work but I'm convinced that the stretching is good for it. 

 

And you're not going to believe this, but I'm tired of wearing flip-flops.  They make my pants drag on the ground.  And while I really like my toe socks, and wear them everyday, the flip-flops are kind of ruining it for me.  Yesterday I gave up and wore my sneakers.  My grubby, stretched out, gardening sneakers.  To work.  With my work clothes.  By the end of the day I had convinced myself that I needed to stop at Target and get some flats.  By the time I got to my car, I had talked myself out of that and today?  I'm wearing the flip flops.  With toe socks. 

 

Two weekends ago I bought a super cute pair of shoes.  High heels and ankle straps and peep toes.  I think.  Its been so long since I've looked at them.  Still in the box.  Top of my closet. 

 

Anyway, on my unexpected day off, after calling my bosses and begging them for something to do from home so I didn't have to run out my sick time, I finished my book.  I started another and finished it, too.  Now, I have about 6 books on my nightstand that I am in various stages of 'reading' (you can interpret that as having put down possibly for good).  These are the ones that I believe I may actually go back and finish one day.  And yeah, I had to sort through the stack and weed out the ones that I know I will not finish.  They went back on my bookshelf.  So now, I need something to read and I'm at a loss.  I want something good, and preferably ancient so that maybe our library will have a chance of having it on the shelf. 

 

Suggestions? 

Our gas just went up to $3.09 for the cheap crap.  Oi.  That works out to oh about $200 A WEEK for Chris and I to get to and from work.  Over $800 a month for gas.  I am going to start begging my boss to be able to work from home.  Maybe stand outside her office for hours at time, shaking my paper clip jar and saying, 'Gas Money? Anyone spare some change?  Hey lady, can I borrow some change?  I need gas money to get home to see my family. I promise it aint for drugs or nuthin.'

---

I took an OCD test that Chris sent to me and was mildly surprised to learn that I possibly have OCD and that the test recommends that I seek counselling/treatment. 

 

What should really come as no surprise to anyone is that Chris scored in the'Definitely has OCD and probably requires treatment' range. 

 

My weekend was good.  Watched FTM's dog and cats.  Her dog loves me.  I know this because she tried to hump my leg all weekend.  Went to a birthday party down at the river on saturday.  Had a pretty good time even though I was the driver.  Its kind of fun playing asshole when you're just drinking water.  Makes other people feel stupid when they tell you to drink. 

 

Yeah. And thats pretty much it.  Woohoo. 

Check this out.  I don't quite get it myself but I think its pretty funny.  And a little on the nasty side. 

Puff had an all day stay at the vet on Friday.  She's been having issues with lots of gunk in her one eye.  The morning I dropped her off, her other eye had started to do the same thing, just not nearly as bad.  So the vet, Dr. Brown - a very bizarre but really nice and funny woman - sedated her and flushed out both of her lachrymal ducts.  I'm really glad I didn't have to watch this.  I took her last Monday to get looked at and they numbed her eye, and then jammed a q-tip in there and started swabbing under her eyelids.  Trust me, I was not her most favorite person when I got her home.  Anyway, Friday's diagnosis?

 

Herpes and Chlamydia.   Oh no no, you didn't read that wrong.  It says exactly what you think it says. 

 

No, these aren't STDs.  And the vet says that we can't get either one of them.  But from what I've been reading online, thats not true.  Apparently there have been cases where people have picked up the chlamydia bacteria from their cats.  Didn't give them an STD but it did cause mild conjunctivitis and/or pneumonia.  Great.  Even better?  The virus is shed in the eye gunk.  And me with my tendency to pick at things that are out of place have my fingers in her nasty eye at least 5 times a day.  More during the weekend I'm sure.  And yeah, I scrub up with antibacterial soap afterward with hot water but still.  Its just nasty. 

 

So now we are giving her Gentocin drops twice a day, a lysine nutritional supplement twice a day and Zithromax.  OOO and the zithromax?  Its cherry flavored. 

 

Blech. 

This is not usually a topic that I care much about.  I'm pretty sure that this will be the case until I hit that lifetime milestone - 65.  However, if you plan on participating in 'Take your elderly mother to work' Day, then please at least let her get out of the car.  She shouldn't have to sit there, windows all rolled up, waiting for you to finish up with your work day.  She could totally overheat in this charmingly drizzly, not-quite-60 -degree weather.  And really, it puts passersby off and makes them not a little uncomfortable to watch your mother pant and press her face against the window.  If you think that the elderly don't belong in the workplace then I think it would be extremely considerate if you could at least take the time out of your day to go back to the car and walk her.  Show some respect people!  Whats that?  No such day?  Oh then maybe she just snuck into the car and you didn't notice her sitting in the passenger seat on the way to work.  I suppose they can be sneaky and use their ninja like abilities to blend into the upholstery and fool you into thinking that their various creaking, aching joints and strange stomach burblings are standard car noises.  If thats the case, then never mind.  She deserves to be locked in the car.  Maybe next time she'll shuffle a little faster and get herself out before you hit the autolock. 

---

 On a completely unrelated topic, I would like to issue a public apology and retraction for all previous statements of support and admiration that were made by me, in regards to one Mr. Michael Vick, aka Mr. Ron Mexico, aka Asshat (really its a pet name).  I overlooked the stupendous, yet undeserved, ego.  The embarrassing social disease.  The pathetic and laughable (and yes, also embarrassing) free-clinic alias.  But today I feel the need to draw the line.  Really, a pseudo-fan can only take so much. 

---

 P.S.  Puff might have the 'herpis in her eye.' 

 

P.P.S When we went home to visit my parents this past weekend, I saw a license plate that said 'T Baggin' and I couldn't explain to my mom why I thought it was funny. 

so yesterday I stopped to talk to one of the admins around the corner from where I work and we were just chatting and she asked me if I was pregnant.  And you know what?  It didn't really bother me.  In fact, I thought it was pretty funny because she looked appalled when I told her that no, I wasn't and she was thinking of someone else. 

---

I also found out that the date for my 10 year reunion has been set.  I'm going to go.  A friend of my sister is helping to plan it and she sent me the link to the reunion myspace page so that I could see sort of whats going on.  She also said that she'll email details out as they get finalized.  I got sucked in to looking at the pages for the people that I graduated with last night.  For some reason, it surprised me that the people who talked to each other in high school are still talking to each other.  I think that this confuses me because I didn't keep any friends from high school.  I made all new and truer friends in college which is how I think it should be. 

 

Course, now I can't get rid of yall.   

---

Good-bye Mr. Vonnegut,

  Thanks for your pictures of assholes and aliens. 

 

 

 

chris had surgery on wednesday to repair a deviated septum.  they are hoping that this will help with his ears and sinuses draining and that he won't get sick quite so often.  an ear and/or sinus infection every two weeks is a bit much.  afterewards, he had all this packing jammed up his nose and these strings hanging out that were taped to his face. and a gauze pad thing that was also taped to his face.  i kept brushing at the strings and really wanted to pull them out because it just looked like the gauze pad was starting to fray.  on thursday, he's still bleeding pretty freely, and getting a little nervous.  originally, the doctor said minimal bleeding and pain so it was kind of worrying that he was still bleeding.  the office called to check up on him and thats when they told him that they had to take out some bone too and that would account for the bleeding.  good to know. probably would have been better to know before we left the hospital.  friday the packing got removed and i have to say it ranked right up there on the list of grossest things i've ever seen.  it looked like whole tampons had been jammed up either side of his nose!  nasty.  and not very pleasant as the doctor just kind of yanked those suckers out.  this has not been the most pleasant of experiences for chris and i have to keep reminding him that he decided to go through with it and that it should help in the long run.  one thing i've noticed is that people really don't like to hear about things that happen in their nose.  it kind of geeks them out.  i have also discovered that its a really good thing that i didn't go into the medical field as i would end up being a nurse/doctor with the worst bedside manner ever.  no patience and apparently very little sympathy.   

 

oo, the other thing from last week?  my brother came to visit!  he called and said that he and his gf were going to be up visiting her youngest son and wanted to know if they could come by.  i was floored.  i have no idea how many times hes been up to see that kid and never asked to see me.  her son is only like an hour away from where i live.  they were coming on saturday and for a while i was getting really upset because i hadn't heard from him and couldn't get through on his cell phone, just kept leaving messages.  really upsetting and i was on the verge of calling and leaving a nasty message.  i mean, i would expect to be stood up by my sister but not him.  anyway, they were just running late and he had his phone off for a while because it just roams when hes up here.  they got in around 10 or so and we went to dinner and then sat around and drank a bit and just talked forever.  he had recently discovered the joys of jager bombs so thats what we drank.  other than my parents, hes my only family to come see our house.  i don't really count my mom though. she was there when we closed but hasn't seen anything that we've done to it.  i didn't realize before how very much he dislikes our sister.  can't stand her and thinks that some of the stuff going on with her, she totally deserves.   i tend to agree, but i at least feel bad about her.  not him though.  in fact, i think hes kind of enjoying seeing her get hers.  anyway, i had a really good time.  i love his gf!  shes so cool.  her kids are great, and shes really good for my niece, too.      

 

 

 

that when the soup is called hearty country vegetable, the only vegetable it has in abundance are carrots?  why can't it have more lima beans?  hell, why not throw some okra in there to take up space!  i like okra!  no.  it has carrots.  and not just little slivers of carrots.  this is a hearty soup remember?  it has to have monstrous gag inducing stomach heaving choking mushy pale orange chunks of carrots.  i can't think of a more worthless vegetable. 

 

cliched I know but I couldn't think of anything better (except some part of a line from 'baby got back' (?) about getting sprung and I thought that that might not be as appropriate).

 

anyway - let me say it - I have daffodils!

 

was this not the surprise you were waiting for?  well whatever, you have no idea then. 

 

and not just the scraggly green stalks of daffodils either. but blooms.  big yellow ones. 

 

thats it then. thats enough for me. winter is over. spring is here.  i can get rid of sweaters and layers and big clunky shoes.  ha, scratch that i only wear big clunky shoes.  but you should be getting the drift by now.  i can pull out light shirts and the one skirt that i own and the cute wrap thing that i bought and only wore once.  i can pretend that i will take part in spring cleaning. not really, but i will watch chris do it.  :o)

 

we planted our seeds the other night and no lie the next day we had sprouts.  even better, it was sprouts sprouting. 

 

 

i know its petty but it really kind of bothered me.  usually the stuff you see on personalized plates are people announcing that they love jesus, are number one, like to go fast, or that they have a hummer (as if you couldn't tell when you get stuck behind them.  personally i like to think that this is less of a bragging thing than an apology for a) trying to run you over on their way to the gas station, or b) taking the next 30 miles to get up to the speed limit).   but this one?  it just said H5N1. 

 

am i wrong to be bothered by this?  i wasn't sure how to take it.  are they paying tribute to the fact that they were able to afford their very (VERY) nice car by making money from a potential disaster?  are they announcing their anticipation of this pandemic?  am i being too sensitive about this?  it just seems wrong to me to take something that is being looked at as potentially being able to wipe out upwards of 100 million people and put it on a license plate.  for sure i wouldn't put AIDS on my plates.  or DIABTS or HRTDZ or ILVCNCR. 

 

does this bother anyone else? 

Thats about as near as I could come to finding out what Happy St. Patrick's Day is in Irish Gaelic.  Apparently not too many people speak it these days.  I was thinking that this was why the Irish have been stereotyped as being drunkards, its not the jameson or the guinness, its the language. 

 

And then I think about the "irish" people I know, and think, huh...maybe not.   

 

Went to Shamrock Fest last Saturday and had the best time.   Didn't listen to any of the bands except for Flogging Molly and a little bit of Carbonleaf.  Proudly wore 'my' Flogging Molly t-shirt.  No idea what they sing.  Not sure I'd ever heard them before that day.  But really does that matter?  :o)  I have to say it was a predominantly white person celebration but I was still surprised by the number of black, hispanic, and indian people there.  You haven't lived until you see a guy who would look more fitting in a turban wearing a leprechaun hat and green feather boa.  I didn't bother asking if HE knew who flogging molly was.  Of course he did, he had the t-shirt on didn't he? 

 

My interesting factoid about this holiday?  Its not celebrated in Scotland.  I tend to lump Scotland, Ireland and England all together (a sentiment which would probably get me stoned in either of those first two) so I was kind of surprised to hear this. 

 

Today is also Chris' birthday.  Which is good because if it weren't affiliated with some kind of holiday or something, I probably wouldn't remember it.   We don't really have anything planned. Were going to go see his brother's band play but he's been sick and its probably not a good idea to go sit in a smoky bar all night.  Although, I could stand to do some drinking.  And let's face it, its practically expected on St. Patty's.   

 

My dad drove all the way up to charlottesville this weekend to hang out with my uncles and didn't make any plans with me.  I have no idea where this is in relation to where I am, but still, its closer than normal.  Ain't that some shit?  Whatever, I see now that the globetrotters are more important than me.  Thats who he came up to see.  They're having a guys weekend and went to see them last night.  Maybe thats why we didn't make plans, I don't have a penis so I can't come for dinner.

 

We got 6 inches of snow yesterday.  Can you believe it?  It was 70 something degrees earlier this week.  It also took me about 3.5 hours to get home last night.  Some people *cough*FTM*cough* don't believe that you may need to slow down when the weather is bad.  This in turn, slows things down for everyone else while their careless asses are having to be hauled out of ditches, put up on tow trucks, or turned round the right way.  Not to mention occassionally having to be cut out of their cars and stuffed into ambulances.  I'm not bitter though.  Not at all.  I left work two hours earlier than normal and still got home at the same time. 

 

I think that we are going to put my little greenhouse cart together today and start our seeds.  Sure there's a half foot of snow on the ground but its mid-March its time to get things going.  I may also need to buy some tulips sometime as they may not make it up this year.  They had started to pop up, those and the daffodils, but the new shoots have been frozen a couple of times now. 

 

OH!  I got a new phone.  Its super sweet.  Slim, takes pictures, makes cute noises and its red.  Oh yeah and I can make phone calls on it too.  Go figure.  :o) 

 

Sooo....La Faily Patrick Suna der juh-care-dee agus tuh-a-latch...yeah and i'm totally sure that's how you say that. 

work has been completely nuts.  and i can hardly be expected to blog on my own time now can i? 

 

i go to LA next week so i'm only in for one day so i should be trying to tie up loose ends and make sure that everything will be ok without me.  that sounds really conceited.  like i'm invaluable.  not true, but i don't know how else to phrase it.   i feel like i've tied up enough ends today.  some of them should be saved for tomorrow right? 

 

we have a pest inspector somebody coming to look at our house tomorrow morning.  i don't think we have pests but its part of the insurance thing that we have.  pay them an amount for the year and they look around and then if we get pests (variety unspecified) later they will take care of them for cheap.  er. 

 

my sister just found out that she has carpenter ants in her soffetts (sp?).  the people fixing her house up after the fire don't want to fix that part because of the ants so i'm not sure what they are going to do.  i always thought carpenter ants were the ones in the rainforests but i didn't do so hot in the bug portions of biology.  although i will forever be able to tell a hemiptera from a hymenoptera and both of them from a lepidoptera.  as well as having a ridiculous cringing gagging reaction every time i see a pra(e)ying mantis.  ick. 

 

other family news?  my nephew, hes 12, has paraded quite grandly over the threshold of teenagerdom.  he announced his turn to the darkside by smacking my sister (his mom) in the face.  my dad told me this the other day.  my reply was 'well, i'll miss him.  where do i send the flowers?'  and nearly keeled over when he told me that she didn't kill him off.  (i should probably add a big YET here).  i also took the time to point out that I was not a little asshole when i was that age.  my mom said, 'no you weren't.  but your sister certainly was.'  i think they really do enjoy that she has kids just like her.