sand in my asscrack

There are some things in life that annoy me greatly. Clingwrap, dogs sniffing my crotch for far too long or often, useless people, and dog hairs in my bedside water glass, for instance.
A big, big thing with me, that can enrage me on my less tolerant days is wishy-washiness. This will not stand. I do not abide by this at all.
No, the Dude does NOT abide by this aggression, which will not stand. Even though the Dude was pretty flaky. This Dude is not.

One major perpetrator of this crime of inconvenience (and, let's face it, rudeness), unfortunately, are the clump of ladies known as my "hippie girlfriends". My other girlfriends....no, not so much. However, the hippies outnumber the non about 12 to 1. Linz and Ricki, jeebus bless, I love you. You are bastions of organization and orderliness.
I love my other girlfriends, but they are frustrating to peg down for a specific date, time, and activity. It can take over a week of emails and calls to finally chase down the elusive playdate or shopping date or party. It's worth it, and is not so much a statement of our relationships as it is their upbringing (homeschoolers, they had no schedules...), and I get that. I am a planner. I have a framework with sufficient wiggle room built in, and I run with it, improvising when necessary. My ladies...they are not so much this way. The worst is trying to get them ALL in one big group and plan something. POTSMOKING, it addles your brain after a while. There is such a thing as being too laid back and loosey goosey. Luckily, things get done because I have no issue being the "heavy" or subjecting myself to being the leader and all of the potential criticism or lame times that may come with that. Otherwise, all we'd do is sit around, drinking beer, discussing WHAT to do until it was time for everyone to go home.

The biggest thing with me is the awkward situation one finds themselves in when trying to arrange a dinner or get together..."Saturday works for me, call me at the very last minute and let's see how we all feel about it and what to do"...."gimme a call ten minutes before I leave to go do something and we'll try to plan while I get ready"..."yeah! let's see how we all feel about what to do when we get there, depends on everyone's mood"... I'm sorry, what? Do you eat food? Do you like to have someone cook FOR you at their house? Yes? Then why do we need to pussyfoot around and "wait and see" with some indecisive hour-long discussion about WHAT to eat.
If I invite you to dinner or a get together at my house, I am cooking for you. Barring food allergies or specific tastes (oysters are a never, pumpkin mousse is a maybe for most folks I know), you will eat what I cook. There will BE NO DISCUSSION about what I am making. I am inviting you to kneel at the altar known as my dinner table and leave a drool sacrifice to my mighty seasoning and meat-moistening prowess (ohhh dirty). We will not be talking about what everyone is in the mood for, because I planned the fuck out of a meal about a week in advance, bought groceries, make a cheesecake to let sit and set up, defrosted a slab of meat, and stocked up on everyone's favorite beers. You will eat it, you will love it, and you will thank me and sing its praises for months on end. It's not conceit speaking here, it's the truth.
But waiting around, discussing what everyone wants to do (this smacks of too much touchy feely feelings discussing, which is a bad idea when I am hungry and wanting to eat NOW), you end up with mac and cheese in front of the tv in a big heap. Which is cool sometimes. But when I tell you I am making food, you should understand that you have little to no say after voicing concerns on food allergies and specific tastes. NO. Chickens do not magically defrost themselves because we all sat around and decided that's what we felt like eating 10 minutes ago and are now ravenous and cranky. That is not how that works, nor is it how hosting works. There will be no takeout, frozen dinners (I don't buy them), or leftovers. I am inviting you over for a nice meal because none of you cook that well and live on beer and takeout.

I think perhaps I should take my Dad's tack on inviting folks over, I will INFORM them what is being served and when they should show up. In the friendliest way possible. I've really got to figure out how he does that... Maybe I should leave the baseball bat and crowbar in the shed. And use a nice voice? Maybe. Mayyyybeee.

Shoppin for small ladies

And I don't mean little folk.
My little sister (and by no means my youngest, that one is...3?) has a birthday coming up, her fifth. I was stymied about what to get her until a friend suggested over facebook that stickers were the way to go, or better yet a sticker book...because we've all seen the unfortunate family cars with the rear passenger windows COATED in peely, sticky paper backing of shapes of dinosaurs and butterflies and the like. I can't in good conscience inflict that on *anyone*, even my step mother and her *snicker* audi station wagon *snicker*. So sticker books it is.
And then I remembered the sticker books I had, that ended up mostly on my dresser as oppossed to the family car or in the sticker book. I had everything from dinos to astronauts to large smiling teeth (ikr?) and pretty glittery pixies. And then there was......LISA FRANK.



FTW.
This was THE thing to have back at my grade school, next to RL Stine books and YIKES! pencils (both of which I was the queen of, that and Babysitter's Club books). Yikes pencils were the bomb, you'd get a neon pencil that was a WHOLE DIFFERENT COLOR when you sharpened it and had zaaaaany erasers. It came very close to making cursive practice in 3rd grade interesting.
I was not the hugest Lisa Frank girl, there were far too many puppies and unicorns and shit like that for my taste, but they DID make neon dolphins jumping over rainbow stickers, so how could I refuse? That, and next to those light up LA Gear shoes, you could be no cooler in school than if you had those...until pogs... :( good god, what was wrong with my generation?
Anyhow, enjoy the trip, I read today that "flourescents are making a fashion comeback", let's just hope this time they leave the hypercolor t-shirts out of it!