Caz, this is for you, and The Lucky Bat RULES

First off, a happy scallop.  I do not know why he/she is happy, because he/she is inhabiting a totally tasteless dish that I had high hopes for.  I told Terry to put the rest of it down the garbage disposal, but he has mad issues about throwing away food, so the leftovers are still stanking up our fridge.

 

 

Oh, that's right, Caz, my ickle British friend, I promised you a pic of Terry in your Christmas pressie.  Instead, I have chosen to take the British hat of coolness to a party and make people you do not know wear it, because hey, that's what the internet is all about, right?  This is Stan, #2 "son."  We don't work together, but I met him through Matt, and we went shooting together one time.  They drove me out into the middle of nowhere, and then when we get out of the car, he looks at Matt, and says, "So this is where we're dumping the body?"  I loves him.

This would be Katie, I hope I spelled her name right.  Never met her before, but she was uber cool.  Also convinced me to try hookah for the first time, it was minty and delicious, but probably not the best thing for my stupid won't get over this cold from hell lungs.



Oh my Ashley, my beautimous Ashley.  Her boyfriend dropped some alcohol off into her car, Captain Morgan (shudder) in a water bottle.  It's okay, folks, she's legal, well wait, there might have been that whole "open container" thing going on, but well, I know a cop that has a crush on her so it would have worked out anyways.  She's like, 100 and change soaking wet, so she sniffed a bottle cap and had to call someone to come get her.  Kudos to being responsible, plus giving us fodder to make fun of you at work.  Also, she made up this joke on her own:  "What did the regular noodle say to the whole wheat noodle?"   Wait for it......"You're an IMPASTA!"

 

Holy crap, I am getting tired of dicking around with blogger, it is fighting me.  So here's some more pics.  Brandee, Andy (the lead singer of The Distorted Waltz, my own itty personal Gerard), Vanessa being simultaneosly Born This Way and wearing the hat, Perez, who I do not know that much, but since everyone yells "PEREZ!" when he enters a room I figure he's pretty popular, Andy's cute friend, Tiff, who trimmed Stan's beard mid party, and we will not talk of how she earned the right to do that, Stan's Dad, Brent, the amour of Vanessa, Laura, who is awesome and did the Polar Plunge that morning to raise money for the Special Olympics, me hugging Brent, because he is my Nemesis (it's a thing), and my deli son, Matt.  You have a nice ass sir, that is all.

Happy Chinese New Year's, Valentine's Day, and such.

Our friends Rod and Danielle working on their oh so time consuming but yummy potstickers they made for our Chinese New Year's Eve party.  I swear these things were a labor of love, or possibly hate by the end of it.  Rod is a perfectionist and thought they were too heavy, but um, no, they were full of yum.  That's me in the back digging for God only knows what in the pantry.

 

 



The consuming of the foodstuffs.  I made Spareribs in the crockpot, there were the aforementioned pot stickers, out of season (the third time within a year!) sausage balls, and basically a ton of other crap.  We were trying to hurry up my friend Zach from work, so Terry texted him we were running out of food (that's all we have to bribe the youngsters to come over to our house).  Total backfire, the boy doesn't understand sarcasm, and they never showed.  It's okay, he gave me a contrite hug at work, with the warning "never joke about food again."  I will get a picture of him on here sooner or later!

The chef at work, I could never attempt these things, way out of my wheelhouse.

 



Al stuffing her gob full of out of season sausage balls, and I would like to point out none of those beers belong to her.  Gotta love her "Zombie Expressions" t-shirt.

 

 



The finished beauty of the potstickers, along with the yummy sauce.  I love having foodie friends!

 

 



Shrimp toasts!  Courtesy of the Englishes.  Also big with the yummy.

 



So now Al's room looks even MORE like a hobo habitat.  She asked if she could spend the night Monday, since she had to work until forever packaging paczki, and then had to be there at 5 a.m. the next morning.  I dragged Annie's old mattress all the way up from the basement with my anemic self, and she found some random sheets and covers for it.  Did she bother to clean it up since then?  Um, no.  So there it sits, probably until we start painting.  Also, Itty and Ghost think they now have a whole room to themselves, complete with a bed.  I think they are going to be legitimately pissed when Annie moves in.

 



The blue mold in the corner of the closet, and this is AFTER a cleaning with bleach.  Guess we're painting in there too.  Maybe we should pick Tardis blue and the closet will magically get bigger on the inside.  Worth a try.

 

 



Annie's Valentine's Day gift to Terry and I.  Should I be concerned my daughter gave me a black heart?  Is that indicative of something?  Actually it's pretty cool, she used glow in the dark paint on it.  And she obviously knows what her Dad likes, anything Michigan State.

 



I went to visit Al today to meet my Grandkitty (cutest feline ever, except for my Yuki, of course) and drop off some more odds and ends and some area rugs.  She got me a ginormous stuffed frog for Valentine's, because evidently she does really love me. :)  I'm sure I'm easier to love across town when I'm not hollering at her to pick up her shit, at any rate, it was appreciated, because the below link pretty much sums up my celebration here.  Let it be known that I definitely have the same sickness as my better? half, yet I continued to work all week, and made a kickass beef stroganoff for dinner, and did two loads of laundry today.

Valentine's day

Happy Birthday David, or conversely, sometimes this world sucks butt

 

 

Today should have been that cute little bee's 11th birthday.  Unfortunately, he died this summer from a brain tumor.  One of the coolest kids I ever met, and I wish I had gotten to know him longer, because most of my memories of him are from after he was sick, even though, he was still rockin' the hella cool upbeat personality even in the face of nasty odds.  His sister Holly and Annie are besties, that's how I met the family.  They are the strongest people I know, even though I also know they probably get tired of hearing that claptrap sometimes.  I guess I just wanted to draw some attention to the horror of pediatric cancer and how it has touched me personally.  The guys at http://coyscomics.com/ did a comic book called David in Space to raise money for the family, and Annie and Holly are planning on continuing it, the Facebook page is https://www.facebook.com/#!/Davidinspacecomic?fref=ts

 

At any rate, just everyone, give a thought or so to a cool guy who died way too soon.

Bye Bye Birdie

So Al moved out today, I'm happy for her (and me) but I guess it is the end of an era.  Although EVERYBODY at work claims that she will bounce back.  I have faith that she will persevere though, I think she wanted out of here just as bad as I wanted to stop looking at things like the following...

 

 

Her messy ass nightstand, even Itty is appalled by the level of slobbiness.  Terry took her bed apart while she was at work today, and found her iPod which had been missing and presumed dead for a couple of months.  He wanted to hold it hostage, but I think he finally turned it over.

 

 

A different view of the crap pile.  Hey mom, at least you can see she's using the bedroom slippers you sent her for Christmas!  She claims that life is waaaaaay better with slippers, and I concur.

 

 

A final view of the crap.  The whole place just looked like a well heeled hobo inhabited it.  We didn't even take a picture of the hole she paced in the carpet, with her pacing like a caged tiger ways.  (See, told ya she wanted out. :)

 

Her new room, clean for probably the last time.  Loving the doofy look on her face.  Her roommate Marshall was telling her how glad he was that his family didn't make him do the whole dorky picture thing, whoops.

 

Al's friends Angela and Steve helped a crapload, literally, as in they hauled a load of her crap in their car, and Steve was the MAN.  Toted the dead grandma chair and the tv up the icy snow covered stairs like a champ.  Al has some great friends.  Angela did carry a seat cushion and I think some pillows.  Still more than I did, I believe I brought in the box of Legos (very important).  Hey, I work this morning and I was all old and crippled from the cheese wall.  I'm still seating on the heating pad even as I'm typing this!

 

 

 

Annie and me in the kitchen.  Really nice pantry and countertops.  Overall, the place is gorgeous, and I am a little jelly her first apartment is so nice.  Mine and Terry's was a rat trap.  Well, literally a mouse trap, but that was probably more because that was before I was OCD and I was a horrible housekeeper.  Hopefully Al won't have to go through that particular learning curve.

 

 

But I'm pretty leery about that happening--and so the mess begins.  She's probably over there twitching right now because she has no internet access, probably until Wednesday.  But, she did forget to steal some towels, and her leftovers from her "last supper" I made her last night--steak, baked potato, roasted asparagus, and a buttload of baby bella mushrooms and onions.  Annie had....a turkey sandwich.  Sometimes I swear that kid was given to me by mistake.

 

 

 

When we were getting ready to leave, Terry was taking forever and then I saw him taking a pic of something.  This is the truck of Al's new neighbor.  Um, yeah, that totally doesn't look like a serial killer's ride or anything.  O.O

 

All in all, I'm very proud of her for taking this big step, even though I will miss her and our late night tv watching.   Love you, baby girl!  And you guys know that's about as much gushing as I can muster, I am a human version of grumpy cat, after all.