This post is better than nothing.

It’s the dog days of summer where half your coworkers are on vacation, the other half are doing everything they can to keep you from getting anything done and you’re cruising the Internet from blog to blog trying to find something interesting to keep you awake read.

KAT to the rescue! I don’t have too much to report, other than the continuation of the wedding plans (OK, I probably lost at least half the audience after giving that away, but I’m going to soldier on for the one person left reading rest of you). By the way, you can blame my friend Tiffany (not her real name, but you can probably ascertain what fabulously glamorous company she works for, can’t you?) for my posting without anything interesting to report. Although Tiffany and I have been terrible about keeping in touch, we finally got a chance to chat the other night and she mentioned that, although I have no idea what’s going in her life, she does check up on mine every once in awhile by reading FunnyGals. Although– ahem, Tiffany– she has yet to leave a comment to prove her readership.

Anyhoo, the wedding plans progress, with a break every once in awhile for either the Pretend Husband or I to exclaim, “Oh my god, we’re getting married!” or “It’s really going to happen!”

This was a particularly productive weekend as I raced to Massachusetts for a whirlwind visit with college friend (and wedding party member) MM and her husband MM. Then (the female) MM and I went to pick up my wedding band, which is all sparkly and shiny and very hard to take off (because it’s so beautiful, not because I have fat fingers or anything!)

Then I spent Sunday shopping with the Pretend Mother-in-Law and K, who have the best luck ever when it comes to shopping. The PMIL tried on one outfit, which ended up being absolutely perfect and that’s the one she bought to wear to the wedding…. And did I mention it cost only $30? Then K found not one, but three outfits, any of which are perfect wedding attire. Then we went shoe shopping and not only did they find perfect shoes to wear to the wedding, but I did too! (And I wasn’t even looking). I should mention that I’m not wearing a traditional wedding gown so finding matching shoes is a bit harder than finding the perfect white pair (and that’s all the hinting I’m going to do about that until after the wedding).

As though all that wasn’t productive enough, I spent my entire evening yesterday finishing gluing all the parts of the invitations together and beginning to address the envelopes (because it wouldn’t be a KAT wedding if I didn’t do all the crafty stuff myself). And I convinced MM to come visit next week to help me assemble the centerpieces in exchange for my friendship chocolate and martinis.

My goal is to get all of my tasks out of the way so the weeks (perhaps "days" is more realistic) before the wedding are relaxing and fun and meaningful. I’d much rather be able to spend time visiting with people traveling to see us, getting my nails done and thinking about marrying my sweetie than trying to assemble everything at the last minute. And being able to eat chocolate and drink martinis while getting there is just icing on the cake.

That karma, man, can she be a bitch!

A couple of months ago, the Pretend Husband misplaced the passbook for our joint bank account (oooh, look at us being all 1985 with a quaint little passbook instead of electronic statements!). He searched for hours for it, tearing through his car, the house, etc.

All while I said helpful things like, "Where did you last see it?" and "Did you check under BOTH seats in your car?"

It drove the PH crazy that he couldn't find the thing and he was antsy through dinner, thinking about where it might have gone and how much of a pain it was going to be to replace it. Finally, he agreed to retrace his steps with me and... he found it (it was in the pocket of his pants, but he thought he had worn a different pair that day so he checked the wrong pants when he was previously looking). And then we joined the 21st century and switched to electronic banking. The End.

But it seems karma was paying attention back then because, as much as I was sympathetic to the PH's angst, I was also a little too smug. As he sweated and searched and ran around the house panicking, I thought, "I would never lose something that important."

And I was right... for a couple of months, at least. I really only have two bills to be responsible for, but they're important ones because they are the ones that allow us to live in this beautiful house. If I don't pay the mortgages each month, we may not need the PH to continue paying for electricity and cable, because neither is needed in the tent we'll be living in.

Anyway, last night, I went to pay the bills and couldn't find the booklet that has the mortgage slips in it. It's only ever been kept in one place and it wasn't there. So I searched, sweated through dinner, accused the PH of moving it and generally drove myself crazy last night (I even checked the cabinet in the bathroom because... I don't know why, but it seemed like, being the last place the booklet should be, maybe it would be there?)

Around 10 o'clock, I found the booklet tucked into a folder that, yes, contained a lot of paperwork about our mortgage, but shouldn't have included that booklet. I tried to blame the PH for moving it, but he wasn't having it.

I'm working on a theory about Molly digging it out of its hiding place, opening a drawer and slipping it into the folder where it was found, but the details have yet to pan out.


She's saying, "I didn't do it. I don't even have thumbs, dumbass!"

It's like those choose your own adventure books!

To try and map this out for you, the next post is SJ pointing you to the fourth post down, which means you should skip over the third post to get there (except if you haven't read the third post yet, then you should read that one, then the second one down, THEN the fourth one down). So the order is this one, then the third one down, then back up to the second one down then down to the fourth one down. Got all that?

You may notice (while scrolling up and down this page while trying to figure out the order of things before you give up and go read someone else's blog) that the post about SJ's birthday is a lot less colorful than it was before I messed with the code and erased all the photos from it. It's not just my lack of technical savvy (although I don't think anyone would argue that I have any), but an attempt to keep our lives somewhat private. I mean, it gets so tedious to be trying to have a quiet night out with your fiance and having people approach constantly to compliment you on your wit and gush about how they LOVE your blog (I mean, I assume it does... perhaps someone who has actually experienced this could tell us?)

In any case, the photos were a bunch of shots of us laughing and drinking alcohol. If you need to see that, you're welcome to join us on Friday night.

!@%!#%% blogger.

no. this isn't quantum leap or anything like that.


my post about my birthday is actually under KAT's because i had started it on Friday and decided instead to finish it up today. and it wasn't at all because i was tired, hungover, sometimes drunk and reading the last Harry Potter book.

Screw Harry Potter, it's SJ's day!

You know those friendships that are really for convenience– either you grew up together or your parents are friends? Or those friends that come out of having grown up in the same neighborhood or town, or from being forced to live together in college? How about those friendships that seem to linger on long after you’re really getting anything out of them?

On the flip side, have you ever met someone and said to yourself, “we’ll never be friends”? Were they perhaps wearing such a crazy-looking shirt (to a job interview, no less!) that you knew your styles were too different to get along? Did you ever start your friendship off with a night that had a haunted house, free food, two wardrobe changes and more men than you knew what to do with?

I have. As wacky as it sounds, that’s how I met the fun, fabulous SJ at work a couple of years ago. And how our friendship began.


Really, we look like our styles go together well. Either that, or we both figured black was a good party choice.

But friendships aren’t built on only one night of fun. We found we had a lot in common, including taking our jobs as reporters very, very seriously.


This is us taking our jobs so seriously, we stopped by the newsroom on Halloween. Yes, it was Halloween. If it was a normal night out for us, I would have been wearing a shorter skirt and SJ would have been showing a lot more cleavage... and that lollipop would have been a Cosmopolitan!

I think one of the secrets of our friendship has been a similar spirit of adventure and a willingness to try almost anything once, regardless of how goofy it makes us look. I mean, I’m really wracking my brain for examples, but I’d have to throw out wearing wacky hats to the grocery store to buy chocolate sauce and whipped cream as an example. Now, what was I saying about not being afraid to look silly?


I’m not actually sure who we’re supposed to be. I might be the Virgin Mary and SJ's Joseph? Or maybe some Greek figures. Who knows? We just liked the idea of poking our heads through the holes!

Our friendship over the last six or so years has been full of a lot of tears. Actually, I think most of the tears were the kind that start dripping down your face when you’re laughing too hard to stop. Although there was one time when we managed to make each other cry for most of a trip to the ocean. But even those were from talking about good memories. I still prefer the laughter to the tears.



One of the best things I got to do with SJ was marry her… um, I mean, be there while she got married. And I’m looking forward to having her there at my wedding. I’m planning on giving her a pretty good seat because, let’s face it, there wouldn’t be a Pretend Husband if it weren’t for her cooking abilities, which made us poor, single folks prefer to spend time at her house instead of another night in front of the TV eating Taco Bell. Oh, and the Setback games were pretty fun too.


This is one of my favorite photos. And just today I noticed SJ’s in it too!

So you might be wondering the reason behind this sappy post in honor of the girl with the best shoes, as SJ is known in these parts…


Even in a bridesmaid’s dress, she manages to sneak in some glittery shoes!

Well, there is a reason for toasting SJ today (this post wasn’t meant only to pick on a teenage wizard just trying to impress Hermione... oh, and save the world). Because, Lordy, Lordy, SJ’s 30!!!

Happy Birthday, mon amie! I plan on sticking around for at least 30 more years (we’ll be the old ladies sitting on the front porch of the nursing home with tiaras on!) and my wish for you is that they are filled with love, laughter, tears from laughing so hard, more laughter and fabulous shoes! As your husband often tells you, you don't look a day over 35!


Happy Birthday, SJ!!!

how i spent my birthday celebration by sj

i started this post on friday, and it was going to be by "one day more" post talking about the momentous occassion of turning 30. but then i got caught up in my celebration.

so what's the difference between now, and say... friday? well for one, i'm not drinking at work. not that i was on friday, but i did begin drinking promptly at 6 p.m. on friday to toast with my friend jen who was also turning 30 on sat.

for two, i am a little slower on the recovery from a three-day long celebration. this also seems to have evolved over the course of the past five years. i don't leave my house to drink much anymore. (that's actually not exactly true - as we spend a good deal of time drinking at KAT's house nowadays, but you see my point.) we celebrated at midnight on friday/saturday with cake at a diner surrounded by some seriously sketchy people. but they may have thought the same of us, anyway. "wait jen- let me take a picture of you with the cake in your mouth."

i got in really, really late, and was promptly wakened at 7 a.m. by j, bearing a gift: a large, 759-page gift that was the last Harry Potter book. and of course i had to start wearing it. so then i met up with s and her husband whom i have nicknamed tall j and adorable child for lunch (i forgot how much fun i always have with s and tall j). then after lots of laughs and fun stories, it was time to let s head off to her all-male revue while i prepared for sat. night.

it was a mellow night out but as always - LOTS of laughs, and a few nice glasses of wine (a tradition i continued on Sunday). i didn't cry, even though the waitress totally thought i was 40 (thanks to j gesturing behind me -- she totally believed him because she guessed 35 and i nearly cried).

and sunday i celebrated with my family. and j's parents. so i had a few glasses of wine. not that those statements are at all related. i also took monday off as a recovery day. and by that i mean we went to the movies, slept in and did a whole lot of nothing.

all in all, it was a lovely weekend and it was just a gentle reminder to remember how very lucky i am to have such fantastic friends and family.

and i did manage during this time to read the entire book.

Give the needle… I’ll do it myself!

Things a phlab… flebot... blood taker should not say to a tired, cranky, fasting woman about to get her cholesterol tested, especially after said woman warned her about not liking needles and a past episode that may or may not have resulted in blacking out in front of her entire high school:
– Wow, those are small veins.
– Let’s see if we have better luck in the other arm.
– Want me to give it a try?
– If this doesn’t work, I can send you over to the hospital and have them do it.
– I’ll have to try a smaller needle. It’s the one we use for babies. But it will take longer.
– We need to collect A LOT of blood from you. And it’s going to take A LOT longer with this tiny needle.
– Do you think I should try?

It worked out in the end and I managed not to faint onto her floor, but c’mon! Rule one of needle sticking school should be: exude confidence. Never let them see you sweat and never, EVER ask a nervous person about to get stuck by you if they want you to “give it a try.”

kevin smith, thou art hysterical

sorry. i'm taking a page out of KAT's book today and i'm a little random. just fair warning.

i'm trying to catch up to my 20s before i turn 30, so in an effort to identify with everyone else in my generation, j and i rented an evening with kevin smith 2: evening harder. so we didn't watch the first one. so what. so we didn't watch clerks, mallrats or chasing amy.

i did see dogma.

so we rented this and i believe it's going to lead to a kevin smith weekend very soon. he is incredibly funny! i say this, somewhat surprised, because the last thing i saw him in was catch and release. so, you see my point. except, i don't know anyone who swears that much. so i'm not sure how real to every day life his movies are. but then i've never really worked in a convenience store. or a mall. so you know. what do i know.

in other news, i haven't spent much time with my family this weekend, so therefore, no funny posts. well that's not entirely true. i did go see my parents the other night (and brought them pie because i went there to steal lettuce for crispix who is entirely mended -- i may not have mentioned that i was bringing my bunny back to health, but yeah, he was sick and is now better. after days of baths, hand feeding, messy, messy bunny and some long sleepless nights. he's fat now. so all is well. but i felt bad so i had to bring pie).

my parents were well, although, dad stole jason for quite some time. it took a very loud and very close lightening crash to steal him from my dad: "That could have been our house! we have to go! the dog! the bunny!" every time we go there, my dad has to show jason pictures of tractors on line. i suppose it only means its inevitable that some day, we'll get a tractor. granted we have a half acre on a fairly busy street and probably could do without a tractor. but what if we wanted to dig a coi pond in the backyard.... so what if we have leech fields for the septic... wouldn't it make for bigger fish?

Random facts you could have lived without

Let’s see, I’ve told you about my grooming habits, how I got engaged,how it feels to have puke down the inside of my shirt… really, is there anything left to share?

Oh, but there is! And since I’m bored at work and have some random semi-posts rattling around in my head that I can’t seem to make an entire post out of, I’ve picked rightthissecond as the perfect time to share.

– I appreciated Molly’s suggestion to try dying my hair now that I’m noticing tons of grey in it. Actually, it made me giggle because I’ve actually been dying my hair since I was in the eighth grade. At first, it was because I preferred reddish highlights to my natural blond-ish ones, but now it’s serving an important purpose (making people not mistake me for SJ’s mom when we’re out together!) I really can’t blame anyone but myself for the grey because I’ve just been too lazy to cover it up.

– We visited a house under construction yesterday that belongs to friends of ours. It’s a gorgeous, huge home at which I am looking forward to plenty of parties. But I’m filing this under the “I’m officially old” category because my first thought when we walked in was, “Boy, am I glad I don’t have to clean this!”

– The Pretend Husband and I have an ongoing argument about farting in bed (I warned you about not needing to know this stuff!) He refuses to stop, so I’ve taken to launching my own attack, so to speak. But it seems kind of hypocritical so, when he gets angry, I’ve tried to argue that guys’ farts are terrible, but girls’ farts are actually unicorn kisses. This morning, I sang a whole song about unicorn kisses, but I don’t think he bought it.

– In my quest to lower my cholesterol and lose weight for the wedding, I’ve been eating tons of cereal, fruits and vegetables– foods that are all very high in fiber. Let’s just say there have been a lot of unicorns flying around blowing kisses in our house lately.

– I have so far failed in my quest to get the digits of a woman we met in the dog park (with the PH egging me on, no less). But I’m working on it. Before you get too enthralled with this, it’s because our dogs get along great. And she seems like a nice person. And perhaps she’s into threesomes too (just kidding about that one!) Anyway, it’s because our dogs get along and it would be nice to be able to call her up and see when she’ll be at the dog park because she’s also fun to talk to.

And I’m officially getting married in less than four months so why am I spending time sharing way too much information with strangers when I could be assembling invitations? Back to work, KAT!

just another friday night at my parent's house.

i had to do some work on Friday night and my internet connection has been bad since our phone lines got struck by lightening, so i decided to go down the street to visit with my mom and use their wireless connection.

at least i got work done until the kid came by.

and by kid i mean...


well not this one exactly, but one very similar. do you have any idea how loud baby goats are? let me tell you. they're freakin' loud. and where did a baby goat come from? (besides the obvious: when two goats who love each other get together...) it came from the farm down the street. because of course my dad knows a guy who has baby goats. my dad is the inspiration for all of those urban legends that start with: I know a guy who... because honestly, he really does.

so dad walks up the driveway with the goat, which he had picked up in his pickup truck ("dad, where did you put it?" dad: "on the seat next to me. it sat there."). at first, we thought my dad was dragging a child by its hair from the scream the goat was letting out. but no. it was just a baby goat a little scared to be temporarily dragged away from his sister when he was clearly winning the battle of ramming each other's heads against.. each other.

meanwhile, back at the ranch (as opposed to the farm down the street), my parents' dog is quite curious about the strange and noisy little thing. and my mom thought it'd be a good idea to let the goat run around.

do you have any idea how fast a baby goat is?

it's about as fast as it is loud.

after it jumps on a chair, a table, rams the window screen and manages to dump the 10 lb tin of dog food, my dad once again captures the goat. right around that time, when the goat is in my mother's lap, nestled against her bosom (dad: "look out, it may try to nurse.") is when anonymous walks in with baby e.

"DAD! NO." anonymous had been aware of the goat, as she had texted me earlier in the day: do u know about a goat. i hadn't. but by this time, i was equipped with a video camera.

some of the highlights included baby e offering the goat some bread... and promptly eating it himself. and then offering another bite to the goat (which by now had gained the name: "baaaaaaaaaaaaaaa"), and e chasing after the goat trying to grab its collar (dad learned his lesson after the first time), and not to mention the goat poops scattered all over the kitchen floor.

and this, folks, is why i have no need for cable.

It was bound to happen eventually...

It’s official. I’m an adult. How strange that realization came not when I voted for the first time, or when I graduated from college, or paid my own rent, or made the decision to move in with the Pretend Husband, or got engaged, or bought a house… nope, it took a call from my doctor telling me I have high cholesterol to do it.

You KNOW you’re old when you have to start worrying about things like high cholesterol and gray hair (but I’m in deep, deep denial about the gray so I won’t be talking about it, thank you very much). Yup, high cholesterol.

I’m not surprised about the test result because there’s a history of high cholesterol in my family so it was probably just a matter of time. But there is a sense of surprise about having to worry about it right now. I mean, it seems like it wasn’t all that long ago that I was getting my braces off, worrying about who I would go to the prom with and packing for college. Of course, if I’m being honest with myself, that was 12-15 years ago… 15 YEARS! I don’t feel old enough to be able to say, “I’ve been friends with her for 20 years” or “Remember our first grade teacher? That was, oh, 23 years ago.”

I’m not going to get all sappy and start talking about what I have or have not accomplished in those last 15 or so years. I’m pretty happy with where I am right now. But the whole “I’m an adult” thing is still sort of a shock. It means worrying about things like metabolism, cholesterol, fertility (although, not quite yet…) and yes, even gray hair. I’m just not sure I’m ready for that kind of responsibility.

A new tradition, perhaps... but next time with more beer

Ah, the Fourth of July… hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill, beer, laying out in the sun, fireworks. Those good ol’ activities that make America great. All of which were missing from our celebration yesterday, by the way.

It started with the menu. Although we had planned to grill the hot dogs and hamburgers, my dad showed up with a huge turkey and some pasta. Not exactly traditional Fourth of July fare, but it was delicious nonetheless.

Then the weather canceled out any other plans we had. Just as we had all claimed chairs on the deck, pulled open the bag of chips and started snuggling in for a long day in the sun… it began to rain. We uprooted ourselves, picked seats inside the cottage and broke out the cards. Still a really fun day.

Except for the lack of beer. And I’ll blame the weather for that one too. My allergies have been acting up lately so I chose Benadryl over a brewski.

But you know what? Despite all that, I’m not complaining. So we broke tradition with some food meant for other holidays. So I traded alcohol for clear sinuses. So we had to admire the color of the playing cards rather than whatever pictures fireworks painted across the sky. It was a day off from work and I will never complain about that.

the dog ate my shower invitation.

well not really.

but i was kind of wishing it had for a while. or shall i say whishing. oh where do i begin...

first i'll explain my typo. i was waxing nostalgic on Sunday and decided to crack open the guest book from our wedding. i like to read these messages from time to time because it reminds me of that fateful day - i mean, that beautiful day that was our wedding day.

it's filled with lovely things like "may each day be happier than the one before" and other such sayings. and one says that the couple "whishes us a lifetime of happiness." j thinks they meant to write something else and didn't want to scribble. i have less faith in people's ability to spell.

but the shower.. well. it's never a good sign when you pull into the shower parking lot and the bride is one of the first persons you see and she gives you a quizzical look that either says: a) i have no idea who you are (which wouldn't be good for me, seeing as the bride and mother of the groom were the only two i knew until KAT got there or b) what is she doing here? i didn't think we invited her.

so for the first 20 minutes or so i sat alone at a table in the back. i made some friendly eye contact, but was promptly shunned (they literally looked me up and down and turned away). thank god it turned around soon. the bride came by with some other friends of the groom, and soon after that KAT arrived, whereupon we spent the better part of the shower mocking shower games, much to the dismay of the (much younger) bridesmaids.

shower games are fun and all, but for those of us that don't know the bride (in fact, it was apparently so obvious how little i knew the bride that i was skipped over when they handed out the "how well do you know the bride" quiz), they're not so much fun as time hurdle before she can open the gifts and therefore, you can go home.