LadyGypsy.net – the blog of Kimberly Dowd of New Jersey

Today I managed to escape from work only 30 minutes late. Driving home in the sunshine with my new (prescription) sunglasses on, windows rolled down, and Dave Matthews in the CD player (5 days left!) put me in a very good humor.
 
After greeting Max lavishly, I hopped upstairs and tiptoed into the bedroom. Thor was sleeping, so I quietly began to change out of my “Junior Executive” costume into something more comfortable.
 
“BAM BAM” went the knocking on the door downstairs.
“ROWF!ROWF!ROWF!ROWF!ROWF!ROWF!ROWF!” went the small dog.
“Fwap!” went Thor’s eyelids as they flipped wide open. All he understood at that point is that there is a very loud commotion going on, and I’m standing in front of him in a black bra and a sheepish grin.
 
“ROWF!ROWF!ROWF!ROWF!ROWF!ROWF!ROWF!ROWF!ROWF!ROWF!”
 
I grab the first shirt I can lay my hands upon (lightweight white knit), pull on my shorts and head downstairs. There’s a neighbor-woman at the door.
 
Here in Stepford, there is a ‘block party’ every July for our street and the cross street.  It’s all that I’ve heard about from the neighbors since we moved in.  “Don’t have time to introduce ourselves now…we’ll see you at the block party!”
 
The woman at the door (who probably wondered what kind of trash I was to wear a black bra beneath a white shirt) was the organizer for the block party. She introduced herself, pointed out her house, briefly mentioned her husband and 2 kids and launched the block party pitch. The party is Saturday, and were we coming?
 
Of course!  She asks who else is in my household. After introducing her to Max, who was ROWFing in the bay window, I told her that I lived here with my husband, Thor.
 
“Any kids?” she asked.
 
“Nope,” I reply,  immediately sensing the crushing aura of disappointment around her. At this point I feel like apologizing, but she whips out her clipboard and talked about what each person was bringing. Naturally, all the cheap/easy stuff was already claimed.  Can’t wait to meet the neighbor who signed up for the bag of chips. Just so I can smack him.
 
All that was left was the ambiguous “fruit,” or the equally vague “cookies.”
 
Block party captain looks me in the eye and asks, “Do you bake cookies?” 
 
Heh.

Catching up (warning: long!)
I could lie to you and say I didn’t blog for a week out of respect for President Reagan, but that’d be a big fat lie. Being that I prefer small white lies instead, I’ll tell the truth. This week has been punctuated by extreme periods of business. The non-busy moments were pure laziness. Let’s catch you up,.

Last Saturday, I went to the Riversharks game with Thor, John, Erin, and Erin’s sister. Through the pouring rain, we watched Smarty Jones lose the Triple Crown. Then the game was officially called due to rain.

You’ll recall that I was on my way to my first big yearly meeting in Atlantic City. You’ll also recall that I was out of my MIND with worry. That I had nothing. Monday night, I travelled there and checked into my room at the Borgata. Thirty-fifth floor, baby! I gambled, yes. On Monday, I played my usual mix of slots and roulette. And lost horribly. Maybe it was my worry. But I didn’t win a dime. None of my numbers hit and when I retired to my room, I had lost most of my weekend’s allotment. Yeesh

At the meeting on Tuesday I was the fourth to present, and throughout the day my mood went from:

confident –> apprehensive –> full-blown verge-of-nosebleed-panic –> violent apathy

And it was in that violently apathetic mood that I passed out my handouts of ideas and hit the stage. I figured, “You know what? I worked my BUTT off on these little ideas. You don’t like ‘em? SCREW YOU!”

They liked them. My boss (who is the big head honcho of the paper) told me I did well. After that, I felt like an American Idol. We had dinner that night, saw a comedy show, and gambled again. This time, my beloved 23 came out more than once, and I started making progress. A bunch of us got a table and played Let it Ride. I lost money, but it was at a leisurely pace. Then I won $300 at a slot machine, and ended up only $20 from where I started.

Know when to fold’em, kids.

On the way home Wednesday afternoon, I stopped at a Farmer’s Market and bought flowers to beautify my front lawn. We have lots of shrubs, but no flowers. I bought mainly petunias because you can be a gardening halfwit and they’ll still grow. Pink and purple, because I’m a girl and flowers are meant to be girly. Plus a garden size American Flag for the summer. Call me crazy, but it feels good to see the stars and stripes in my garden. I adore the flag’s pattern. I have a navy dress with red and white stripes and white stars around the trim. You should see some of my — um — let’s end this paragraph right here.

That’s Max, who watched for a brief time as I planted my flowers Wednesday afternoon. I had his leash tied to the porch post. In moments, he managed to figure-eight around the porch post and the flower urn behind it. Then, without any slack left in the leash, he almost leapt off of the porch, hanging himself. Max went inside before he could attempt suicide again. That Max…

Yesterday was the Courier-Post’s Classic Car show. I volunteered to work, and although I had to be at the site at 7:30am, I had loads of fun. My first ‘job’ was to hand out C-P bags (with the paper and other coupons inside) to all of the registrants. I’m not into cars at all but it’s cool to see the old cars, and the levels of care that go into them. My buddy from Accounting and I managed to get the fire engines and cop car to ring their bells and sirens for us. Yes, we shimmied.

Later on, I was bored, so I loaded up a handtruck with some boxes of bags and hawked them, news-girl style, up and down the lines of displayed cars.

“Free copy of the Courier-Post with coupons for Chick-fil-A and Build-a-Bear!”
“Nation bids farewell to beloved former President!”
“Courier-Post employee makes fool of herself at local Car show!!!”
“Free plastic bag! Newspaper included!”

I’m guessing I gave away about 75 more papers. What was in it for me? A free hat (I’m all about the hats), some sunburn, aching feet and an impromptu jitterbug with an elderly man. I’m starting to love my job again.

Breaking news!

Holy crud! That’s Charlie sitting in the hallway, as captured by my webcam. He’s finally becoming more comfortable with the new house it seems. Only took him a month. (rolls eyes) Both cats are thinner now. For Misty, I attribute that to the 3 stories of house that she’s been exploring. As for Charlie, living a life of constant panic and nervousness can take its toll on even the chunkiest of cats.

That’s it for me. I think I’m going to give Max a trim and bath. He reeks.

It is Memorial Day, it is rainy, and I am sick. At first I was bummed. Having a cold (which developed into a cough almost immediately) is a real inconvenience. But then I realized that the cough I had from last August to January disappeared without me taking notice. And by far, I’m much healthier than most. So I’ll put the complaining behind me.

I’m reading a book that is much more fascinating than you’d ever imagine by the title: Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson. I bought it at the Courier-Post book fair a few weeks back. Ol’ Ben is a HUGE character here in the Philadelphia metro area, so it’s nice to learn a bit more about him. Franklin lived until he was 84. The book is 493 pages long. He’s already 42 by page 127. That means that the real guts of his history (electricity, inventions, politicking, etc) happened after 40! I know I’m only 31, but in this society, where athletes and pop stars are considered grizzled by 30, it’s very heartening to read such things.

I couldn’t wait any more for the Dance Dance Revolution pad that I bought from eBay, so after I turned in the keys to the ol’ apartment (today’s our last day, and the event was anti-climactic at best) I headed to GameStop and bought one. So I’ll have two.

Which is ok, because MOM likes it. Honestly, how many of your Moms would even attempt a DDR type game? But she tried it tonight and we laughed our butts off. I guess after countless hours of “CandyLand” and “What Shall I Be?” Mom’s thrilled that I picked a game she can play with me and enjoy! Once the pad arrives, we’ll play head-to-head.

Game is hard! HARD! But hella fun. I love to dance, but I never go to dance clubs because, I don’t dance well. NOW, I can jam to these songs in my own living room! And lose weight while doing it. 30 minutes a day will either kill me or make me svelte.

By the way, my ‘reward’ for getting to 133 lbs will be a navel ring.

More about the house

Thor and I spent Saturday night moving stuff around again. I think our ‘formal’ room is almost done. A lovely woman I work with is going to give us her dark wood coffee table for free. (FREE!) That’ll complete the room.

We have one full bathroom and two half bathrooms. This ‘half’ is my favorite bathroom of all three. It’s right across the hall from the computer room and right next to the back door. This was the first room we finished.

Why? because all of the stuff came from our old bathroom. The dark blue accessories go well with the Jeezus-Christmas-that’s-plaid wallpaper. I think I had pants with that print when I was a kid in the 1970s. But as horrific it looks here in the computer room (which I may just start referring to as the ‘control center’), it looks fantastic in the bathroom. And let you think I forgot my devotion to Disney, the lid to the blue jar candle has a silvertone Mickey head atop it.

And…Max chews on a paper towel tube. Better that than what he was chewing on last night — my cardreader! Bad Dog!