I'm Tired

I want to post about his past weekend, because it was insane and fun filled and super busy, but I’m actually working today, so you have to be subjected to bullets.

My weekend in chronological order:

• Grew some balls and went to the best and also the most insanely crowded produce market ever to buy pumpkins, gourds and Indian corn.
• Created my fall masterpiece with the above items, fake crows, fake spiderwebs and a bird bath. Pictures potentially coming in the following days if I get off my ass and post them.
• Went on a private tour of the Lyndhurst Estate for research for an article I’m writing. Keep meaning to post about this really cool website I’ve gotten involved in, HauntedHudsonValley.net. I’ll go into more detail one of these days.
• Took a lantern lit tour of the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Not only is this where Washington Irving is buried, it is also in the town that the Headless Horseman story is set.
• Had to change the batteries in my camera three times in one day, I really need to invest in rechargeables.
• Woke up bright and early Sunday morning with some serious motivation. I got up, walked the dog and immediately left the house with my bike in the car. Hopped onto the brand new rail trail in town expecting to ride all the way across the Hudson river on the also brand new Walkway Over the Hudson. I sadly learned that they aren’t connected yet. BOO.
• Drove the two mile span separating the trail and the bridge and walked over the Hudson.
• Brough Olivia to the dog park where she subsequently got into a scuffle with a Great Dane. After realizing she had a hefty gash on her shoulder I decided it was time to go to the emergency vet.
• 2 hours, $500 and 6 stitches later we were home again and Olivia was stoned! She ended up keeping me up all night because the toenail they cut too short when she was under anesthetic was too terrible to bear and she kept licking it all night.

And that, my dear friends, was my weekend. I need a nap.

VH1 Family Tree

Know Your Audience

Any blogger who has been around more then three months probably gets them all the time. You know, those random emails from random people asking you to review their products. Hey, you want to give me something for free, I'm all for it. And I'm not one to hold back so I really don't care if your product sucks.

But there is a lesson to be learned here, primarily for the poor innocent marketing intern who has been given the crappy task to do this, but for the entire world really. If you ask me to do something for you, do your fucking research first.

The first time I was asked to review a product it was for a book, about relationships especialy. Which was cool, I like books, I do talk about relationships here a bit. The next couple were sort of just generally for women, the core demographic of this sad little blog. But this most recent one was so far off the board it was rudiculous.

If there is any post I just refuse to read it's about weight loss. In fact, I'm passionate about my lack of desire to read these posts. I will skip it automatically, and if I find you just keep writing about it, I'll unsubscribe from your blog. I just don't give a shit if you lost 1.24 pounds in the past three days. Get over it! I'm proud of you, I really am, but I don't need the details. If I weren't so lazy I would do a search and see if I actually wrote a post about this once, but I'll just assume I did.

And so, when I was asked to review a new weight loss gimmick, one that would require no work on my part and I would magically waste away to nothing, I said, you stupid shit, sure I'll take your product for free.

My thinking on this...it's never going to work, and as long as there is no scary ephedra or anything that is going to kill me, what could it hurt?

And I get to write a post about how marketing people need to get their shit together do some research first.

My Ghost Story

The following is a recap of my own ghostly experience which I wrote up for a local site, HauntedHudsonValley.net. Even if you don't live in NY's Hudson Valley I still recommend checking out the site because it has some pretty interesting stuff on there.

For five years I worked part time in the gift shop at Mohonk Mountain House. Anyone who had worked there long enough had some kind of personal ghost story to tell, but I was always skeptical. But one early morning in the dead of winter changed my mind.

The hotel gets pretty quiet in the winter. Families stayed away and rooms were never sold out and the ones that were booked were usually with corporate retreats. This particular day I was working the opening shift, as I typically did. I arrived around 7:30 a.m. expecting to spend the next half hour alone preparing the store to open for the day.

The building is old, dating back to 1869 and the heat is hard to regulate. As I unlocked the doors I immediately started stripping off my winter coat and scarf, the closed up shop was unbearably hot. Before I could start my morning routine I needed a cold beverage before I started to sweat. I rounded the counter and bent down to slide open the old cooler. As I bent down to grab a bottle of water I heard a noise directly behind me.

A child giggling.

I immediately spun around, startled as I didn’t think anyone was there with me. And yet, I was more surprised to see that there was no one there.

I had worked there long enough to recognize the strange noises that the old building made. I knew the routines of my coworkers. I know that that noise was abnormal. It wasn’t a noise, it was a giggle.

Even though I know for a fact what I heard I was still skeptical. I checked under tables for the secret intruder. I checked the floors above and below the shop, the rooms were empty and locked. I finally checked the guest registry and I found what I expected. The hotel was only booked by a corporate group and there were no kids registered.

I never figured out who my ghostly giggler was. Was it someone related to the ghost who touches peoples shoulders in the parlour? The child of the woman who can be seen in mirrors. Was it the child who was rumored to be hanged in the attic? I have no idea. But I’m sure that child is still laughing somewhere in that hotel.

For My Non-Vegetarian Friends

Wouldn't you just love to celebrate the holidays with an Advent Sausage?

 

As pre Lovely Package: “The challenge was to increase the sales of Koenecke (a famous German meat and sausage producer), especially in the wintertime. As solution a special advent calendar was created that was made of a salami sausage-packaging with 24 indications to cut off a delicious slice every day.”

Life...and Death

I’ve been pretty cranky all week. Annoyed with little things at work. Nothing of real importance that should get me fired up, but mixed together they just put me in a foul mood and made me scowl at my nemesis, Chuckles McGee.

Yesterday I came back from lunch and checked my cell. I saw an old friends name pop up on my missed calls and I already knew what he would say on the message.

His mother had died.

She was a neighbor, lived four houses up the road and while P and I didn’t get to see each other as much as we should, our lives were still connected. My father does a lot of excavation work for his family so we stay connected. A few weeks ago my father had gotten the word that the doctors decided there was nothing left for them to do for P’s mother’s breast cancer.

My cranky mood instantly changed with the new perspective. The simple frustrations of a lack of communication in the company and annoyances of people not trusting my opinions were nothing in comparison to what P is dealing with right now.

I spent my hour commute last night and this morning reminiscing about P and his mother. We were great friends through school, living only four houses away from each other.

Riding on the pedals of my bike down his dirt, pot-holed driveway.

Playing Manhunt between the trees on their Christmas tree farm.

Getting my mother’s car stuck in the driveway of another neighbor and drinking hot chocolate at their kitchen table while all the boys tried to get it out of the snow, while still wearing their ice skates.

Dying my hair with kool-aid in their bathroom sink. (I wonder if she would have given me the hot chocolate if she knew I was the one who probably stained everything in her master bathroom with my kool-aid)

Practically breaking my tail bone on the back of their quad.

Getting as drunk as a skunk for the first time at P’s bonfire party.

I don’t really have a conclusion to this post. The words are failing me right now. Hopefully I will find something before I see her family at the funeral. I guess just a simple “she will be missed” is really all there is to say.

When Headaches Attack

I have a headache.

I've had this headache for about a week now.

Off and on. Low and dull and achy.

Somehow with all the crazy things I did last week I ended up drinking five days in a row (hells yes, momma's still got it...alcoholism that is) so I just figured this headache was something stupid like dehydration.

I was just starting to get a little concerned about it yesterday. This is just the thing you hear about from people who just drop dead at the age of thirty. "oh, she had a little headache for a while, but you know, it was just stress or something" and then they open her up in the autopsy and find a tumor the size of a watermelon in her brain.

I did a quick little diagnosis on WebMD because that is what us hypochondriacs do. It was either anemia or a brain worm. Awesome. I took some Advil and forgot about it.

A few hours later the Advil wore off and there it was again. A low, dull ache, right up in my forehead. You know, my forehead, exactly where I got a mosquito bite...about a week ago.

So don't be alarmed. I am not dying of a tumor or a brain worm. Just the mosquito bite that has apparently been pushing hard enough on my skull to cause me pain!

I am the coolest!