New Place and That's Not Chicken

Hello, Everyone! Sorry I've been away so long. I have moved (yes, again! Move #17 of my life!) and been busy planning for Hong Kong. Because why not move AND take a 2 week international trip right afterwards? That's not stressful at all.

I also had to order and set up my Wi Fire, this super cool gizmo that magnifies wifi signals. Since I moved right next door to one of the buildings associated with the school where I work, I needed something to help me pick up the wifi signal from next door. It was too weak to pick up with my built in wifi thingie on my laptop, so I did some research and found out about this Wi Fire thing. They sell it on Amazon for $50, and voila! Free internet, courtesy of the wifi network next door! Woo hoo!

So I have moved out of the townhouse I shared with the Ex-F. It was a big relief -- I had a lot of bad memories there, and the HOA was driving me nuts with their controlling ways. Did I tell you they wouldn't let me have a yard sale? Yeah. WTF. They said it would "inconvenience my neighbors". Whatever. I just sold everything on Craigslist. They can bite me. Since I was moving from a 3 bedroom, 1250 sq ft place into a one bedroom, 800 sq ft place, I had to do a LOT of downsizing! I ended up making almost $300. Sweet.

Now, I am back downtown, living in an old building, just like I wanted. It was built a little after the turn of the century, and I really like the details. I'm actually right across the street from work, which is pretty cool. I can take naps on my lunch break! My coworker Lunch Buddy (her nickname, since we eat lunch together every day) and I watch tv at my house while we eat our turkey sandwiches. It's pretty sweet.

I have to say, I am pretty stoked about my new place, even though I am not done unpacking or setting it up. I forgot how long it takes to cram all your stuff into a smaller place! Not only do I have a sweet location, but my building was redone very nicely, so the kitchen is great and the apartment is not grungy or weird. It even has a normal floor plan, and gorgeous hardwood floors. And lots of storage -- a rarity in downtown Savannah! And like I said, I now get free internet! I am never moving again, as long as I live in Savannah, anyway. The kitchen even has a garbage disposal and a dishwasher. I have a clawfoot tub in my bathroom which is original to the building, so it's about 80-90 years old. I even have a spot for my washer and dryer, so I have on-site laundry facilities -- another rare thing in downtown Savannah. And would you believe this place is almost $100 cheaper than my old place? So worth it. Several of my coworkers have confessed to apartment envy.

I forgot to mention one super cool thing -- according to my landlord, Shoeless Joe Jackson used to live in this building after he got out of the Major Leagues. She doesn't know which apartment, though. Cool, huh? Here are some pics.

This is the outside of my building. I'm on the bottom left. (Yay, no more stairs!)


A shot of my bedroom:


The super cool fireplace in my bedroom:


My kitchen (you can't see the fridge on the left or the sinks on the right, so just use your imagination.)


Another shot of the living room:


I have some other pics, too, but are you really interested in seeing my closets? Didn't think so. The Czarina wants me to send more pics when I am all set up, so I'll share those when I take them.

I leave for Hong Kong on Saturday for 2 weeks. I am sooooo not ready and have a to-do list that is making me panic a little. I do have the major things done -- new passport and all my shots (dude, I had to get like, 7 different shots! Whoa!) . But now I just have to do laundry, run a bunch of errands, pack....ugh. I am a little stressed. I have Friday off, which helps, and my flight doesn't leave until noon on Saturday, so that also gives me a little time.

I won't get excited until I get on the plane. Then I will be super pumped! Even though this is a work trip, I am excited to experience a different country on someone else's dime. I wish they had put me in business or first class, considering my flight from Detroit to Hong Kong is 16 hours, but whatever. I'll survive. I'm actually more worried about eating while I am there. You see, I can't use chop sticks. I love egg rolls, but they will get old after a while. I am packing plastic forks, just in case.

After wondering what Chinese people eat for breakfast, I got a DVD about Cantonese food from Netflix the other day. Excited to learn more about the world of dumplings and stir-fry, I sat on my couch to watch. The narrator started off with something along the lines of how bouts of war and famine in China throughout time forced the people to consume all their food daily because they had to remain on the move and couldn't afford to bring food along (hence the emphasis on fresh ingredients). They also had to cook their food quickly to save time (hence the invention of stir-fry) and they also had no money so they had to eat cheaply (hence all the rice).

Very nice. Making sense so far, I thought.

Next, the narrator explained that the Cantonese people sometimes had to just eat what was available to them, due to the constant upheavals which come along with war and famine. Then the narrator said something about how there's a saying about the Cantonese -- they will eat anything that flies, swims or crawls.

Oh, haha, like they would eat my dog, how stereotypical, I thought.

"Actually," the narrator continued, "In the Cantonese language, there is no word for 'inedible.'"

Um, what?

Then the narrator said, "Chapter One: Chicken."

Oh no....

And what followed after was a 20 minute expose of how they love chicken and eat every part (and I mean every part) of a chicken. WARNING: Do not eat while reading this next part.

So they eat the obvious chicken parts. But the thing that is weird is that they seem to always cook the chickens whole (well, minus the feathers, which seems to be the only part of the chicken they don't eat). So there were all these full bodied chickens being boiled in pots. Whatever, they probably buy them from farmers and chop the heads off later, right? Wrong. Sometimes, you are served a whole chicken on your plate. As in, it's looking at you. Other times, they cut the head off, but only because they are making another dish with the head parts. Like deep-fried chicken beaks, for example. Ew. I have heard of people in the South eating chicken feet, but chicken beaks?? Sounds...crunchy. I would also like to add that they make a "specialty" dish out of the chicken part which I will simply refer to as "sphincter". Yes. They deep fry those, too, and you dip them in sauce. Are you gagging yet? Because I was. It totally ruined the ice cream I was eating while watching the DVD.

So they get to the end of the chicken section, and I'm like, "WHEW! Glad that's over!" But then the narrator comes back on and says, "Chapter 2: Snake." Ooooohhh noooooooo.......

I won't even tell you what they do with snake. All I can say is thank the Lord they are shaped the way they are so I can spot them in any dishes offered to me.

I stopped the DVD after the snake chapter. Chapter 3 was "Sheep", I think. No, thanks. I'm already a picky eater, and not the world's biggest Asian food fan, so this DVD was not helping. Perhaps this trip will be a good way to kick off my diet? I probably won't have any access to Ben and Jerry's which will be a start. However, I do know that KFC is on like donkey kong over there, so I can have fried chicken (breasts! Not beaks!) if I get the hankering. One of my coworkers made me promise to try at least one weird thing while I'm over there. I agreed, but only after she said it didn't have to be snake.

Well, guys, I don't know if I will have time to blog again before I leave, but I will blog when I get back. I'm not bringing my laptop with me, because my hotel charges $15/day for internet access. Which may be worth it, but the dealbreaker was that I found out that you can't get internet on planes once you're about 100 miles away from the US coastline. Well, not on Delta flights, anyway. If I could hop online as I cross the Pacific, I would probably bring it, but that is too much hassle. Sorry, guys. I'll be bringing a little notebook with me so I can write down all the interesting/funny/weird things I experience while over there. I'll provide a full report when I get back! Until then..........joi gin (goodbye)!

My New Home, Part 3

Do you want the good news or the bad news first? How about bad.

You know how when you leave a job, you usually get to cash in your unused vacation time? Ok, well I just went to HR today to do the whole exit procedure stuff and I found out that instead of getting to cash out what I thought would end up being 19 days of vacation time, I will only get to cash out 6. Without going into all the details as to why, I will just say that I do not accrue vacation time at this job. I have a designated amount that I have to use up by the end of the year (our year runs from July - June). So I really shot myself in the foot by showing up to work all these past months. In fact, if I had used up all my vacation time by now, I would still be able to cash in on those 6 particular days.

So to say I'm disappointed is putting it lightly. I am kind of pissed. Plus, I could have really used the money from cashing in 19 days. But at least I get 6. Oh well.

But the good news is, since I can't cash it in (ie, take it with me, so to speak), I might as well use up as much of it as I can before I go. So I'm taking off most of the rest of the week. Which works out pretty well, considering I have umpteen things to do before I move on Saturday.

Alright. Enough of that. I wanted to share pics of the interior of my new place w/y'all. I created a virtual floorplan on floorplanner.com (free!) so you can see the layout of my place.

I went ahead and put in some virtual furniture, too, just to make it more realistic. Ok, so now that you have a feel for what it looks like, let me show you the photos. I'm showing you the pics in the order you'd see the rooms if you parked behind the house and enter thru the backdoor, which is the door I will be using for the most part. This first one is the dining and/or entryway. It will probably end up being CN's office. It's the first thing you see when you walk in the back door.
Next, to your right is the kitchen. I really like the cabinets -- each upper one has 4 shelves! I need that, since I have so much cooking stuff. The door you see is open -- that's where the pantry is. I heart pantries. Notice the lack of dishwasher. :(
If you are leaving the kitchen, this is what you see.
Going back through the entryway, you next enter my living room, modeled here by the lovely MJ. Check out that fireplace! I am in love with my fireplaces. Yay for architectural/historical detailing!!! :) Boo for this room only having one electrical outlet. :( Although as I pointed out, this makes TV placement a no-brainer. LOL! I will be putting my couch under the window, because the TV has to go in the opposite corner.
Next, you proceed to the bedroom. Gotta love those gorgeous floors and the big picture window. I think I will put my bed under it.
The other side of my room has a nice-sized closet, again modeled by the lovely MJ. As you can see, she's as excited about it as I am. And no, I am not prepared to share this closet with CN. I will cross that bridge when I get to it. Still need to figure out where to put 60 pairs of shoes.....hmmmm....
The other corner has my bedroom fireplace. This is a close-up. Both of my fireplaces are original to the house--only the tile surround is new. But only the bedroom fireplace has the original mirror as well.

Alright, now if you were to come in through the front door instead of the back door, you would be entering my hallway. The doors on the right are as follows: bedroom, living room, and then straight ahead is my bathroom (you can see my sink and shower/tub combo -- the toilet is to the left, but you can't see it in this shot). The door on the left is the laundry area, of which I forgot to take a photo. So use your imagination.

Continuing down the hall, you will enter the bathroom, part of which is pictured here. Yay for linen closets!!!

And last but not least, here's a cool shot. If you were to stand on my front porch, facing the street, and look to your right, here's what you would see:

I love how all the porches line up like that. I think it is so cool and old-fashioned. The house closest is where the students live. I mentioned them in the last post.

Alright, I also dug up some photos I took when CN and I went to Savannah last fall. Better late than never, right? It's funny what you find when you decide to finally put all your pics onto your computer. :P
This is a really cool drain spout I saw in Savannah.
Savannah has buildings from just about every time period and architectural style.
It will take me months before I pick out my favorite house in town.
It was love at first sight when it came to the trees. Live oaks grow very large, and the branches are very gnarled and arching. Throw in some Spanish moss hanging from the trees like cobwebs, and it's basically impossible to shake the romantic, spooky and fairy-tale-like aura of the town.
This is The Olde Pink House. It was originally a home built in the late 1700s, but now it's a restaurant. It's haunted. Trivia fact: it was not meant to be pink. They had red brick and covered it with white stucco, but the brick bled through, turning the stucco pink. But the name stuck, so they kept it pink.

Seriously, I can't stop taking photos of these trees, y'all.
This building is called the Cotton Exchange. I don't think there's much exchanging going on these days. It's currently vacant. On the other side of this building is the Savannah River. Lots of bars, tourist traps and restaurants, too.
This is City Hall. One of the nicest-looking city halls I've seen in a while. The dome was only painted gold in the last few years. It's really pretty in the sunshine.
You may know that downtown Savannah has a series of squares placed periodically throughout the blocks and rows of old homes. I think there are 24 of them, and it's really nice to break up the streets with mini-parks. These last 2 are photos from Chippewa Square, where a big statue of General Oglethorpe stands. He founded Savannah in 1733. Trivia fact: he is facing South, because Savannah was founded by the English as a way to defend its borders from the Spanish, who were in nearby Florida at the time. So he is turned to face his enemy.

If you want to know more about Savannah, here's info about its history, Gen. Oglethorpe and the Squares. You can also watch Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, which gives you a good feel for the city today, in addition to being a really good movie.

My New Home

One more thing about ring info: so we were worried about getting the ring, which is currently in Belgium, over to the United States without paying major customs duties. Then my mom found out that her friend is vacationing in Europe in March. So my aunt is going to just meet up with her to give her the ring while she's on vacation. Problem solved! Yay!

Ok, on to other big news: my new place in Savannah. Last weekend, I went down to Savannah with CN to look at places. We stopped at a property management place to get keys so we could go check out some places.

"Ok, which properties do you want to go see?" the lady behind the desk asked.

"510 Price....203 E. Gwinnet..." I said, reading off their list of properties for rent.

As CN and I were figuring all of this out, a girl about my age walked in with her mom and her sister. They walked up to the desk and had the same conversation with the lady.

The girl recited the same addresses we did! We laughed about it, and then decided that hey -- we might as well carpool! So we all piled into CN's car (he has GPS, which came in very handy) and started looking at places. We had SO much fun! I learned that she is a newlywed whose hubby is going to be a student at the school where I'm going to be working. She's moving up from Orlando and is just a little bit younger than me. She and I really hit it off. She's totally adorable!

Most of the places were total dumps. I'm talking visibly slanted floors, back doors that literally do not close, washers/dryers in the middle of the kitchen, leaking ceilings, wobbly staircases, you name it. It began to be really funny and we all started just making fun of the places. Each one was worse than the last.

As we were finishing up looking at places, she said she had another appointment at 2pm to look at a place I hadn't heard about. I asked her if we could tag along, and she said sure. So after we split up for lunch, we met her at the 2pm appointment. The guy there showed us around here. While it was a lot nicer than anything else we'd seen that day, he could tell that none of us were blown away. They were a little cramped for my liking. And since they were new construction, I was a little let down. I really had my heart set on living in an old house.

So after showing us around, the guy said, "Ok, I was planning on trying to sell it as condos, but I'm not getting a lot of bites in this market. So would you like to see the house I bought and restored? I've decided to rent it out. It's not part of this organization. It's my own personal thing and it's a block from here."

"Sure!" we replied.

We walked down to a yellow house, built around the turn of the century. The bottom floor has a one-bedroom place for me and a 2 bedroom place for the other girl and her hubby. There's off-street parking and the rent was about $100 cheaper than other places on the same street. We are 4 blocks from Forsyth Park and about 2 blocks from the grocery store. I can still walk to work, too. Plus, it's JUST been re-done. No creepy bathroom or old appliances.

We walked in, I took one look at the gorgeous hardwood floors and the beautiful decorative fireplaces and the normal-sized kitchen (a rarity in downtown Savannah!) and shouted, "SOLD!"

The other girl took one look at the upstairs place and fell in love, too. So we are housemates! Isn't that so weird how we just randomly met like that??? And she is so cool!

What's even weirder is that this is not the first time this has happened to her! The last time she went apartment shopping, she met a girl in the rental office and they ended up being roommates and very good friends! They lived together for 6 years before she got married last year. The girl was even in her wedding! Very strange.

So we go back to the office to sign the leases with this guy, who is extremely nice. "Oh! I need to call and cancel my next appointment. I was going to go look at a house over on Lincoln street, but I guess I don't need to now," she said.

"Wait....1003 Lincoln St.?" I said.

"Are you the 4:30 appointment?" she asked.

"Are you the 4:00 one?" I asked.

We burst into giggles.

Anyway, here are photos of our house. I'm on the bottom, she's on the top. (Ooh, that sounds pervy! Tee hee!). I took photos of the inside, but they are on her camera, and I'm waiting for her to email them to me. This is all I have for now. The first one is the front of the house, the 2nd one is the back of it:
There's hooks on the ceiling of the front porch where we can hang a porch swing! Woo hoo!
And yes, he's going to landscape/pave this so it's not just dirt. Those 2 windows on the bottom floor are my kitchen.

Yay! We have been calling and messaging each other on facebook already. She likes to cook! And drink coffee! And she has a dog!

This is so awesome.

Or so I thought. Stay tuned....

What's Wrong with This Picture?

I know I don't talk about work a whole lot on here, because I don't want to get dooced.

But this was too good not to share. And I am providing no identifying characteristics of the library where I work.

I would like to preface this post with the following: I like my coworkers. The vast majority of them are very pleasant and nice people. The lady I mention in this post is one of the pleasant and nice ones. So I'm going to try and not make fun of her on here today, because she's always been nice to me. But we have been laughing about the following all afternoon, because she really had a "D'oh!" moment. Here goes.

Ok, when you go to any library, sometimes things are on hold at the desk. These are called "reserves". Reserve items cannot leave the library, but they can be checked out for in-library use. A couple days ago, we had a teacher come in and ask us to place a book on reserve here at our library. She had just bought it, it was very expensive and she didn't want the students to take it home -- that way, all her students could use it. So categorizing this book as a reserve book made sense. The book was brand-new and came with little supplement booklets, and they are all shrink-wrapped together.

Now, in order to check anything out to students, books and other things need to be entered into our computer system so that we can keep track of them. Even reserve items need to be entered into the computer system. During this process, each item receives its own unique barcode, which is scanned any time someone uses it. That way, when someone checks it out, we scan the little barcode, and the computer knows who has it, when it's due, etc.

Well, this coworker of mine ended up putting this new book on reserve. These photos show what it looked like when she was done. Anyone see anything wrong with this picture????

The little red sticker says "Library Use Only". Can you see what's wrong yet?
Ok, this picture really shows you where she stuck the label for the class, so we will know which book the students need. (Oh! I just realized that is my arm in the photo!) See any problems now?
Finally, here is the barcode that needs to be scanned any time someone checks it out.....are you seeing why we are giggling about this? Yeah. We're hoping that maybe she was just distracted when she was labeling the book.......tee hee.
Maybe the students can use osmosis to learn what's in the book? Or perhaps only psychic students can use it? Or Superman? I guess they could always just use it as a paperweight.

Anyway, I want to see what happens when she goes to check it out to someone. I want to see what the student says. And I really want to see what she says when they bring it back to her!

Have a good weekend everyone.

Smurf Goes to Prom

In case you are wondering where I've been lately, I can give you a quick explanation:

I have had a terrible cold, which is still lingering. *cough* *sniff*
I have been in interviews for the PT Clinique job (I start tomorrow).
We had inventory at work. Thousands of books needed to be scanned. :\
I have been doing a bunch of regular, un-blog-worthy things (Sadly, my life is not always as titillating as I wish!).

So in short, you haven't been missing anything.

However, my little sister, Smurf, is having a very eventful spring! Not only did she get her driver's license (if you live in Virginia, watch out, because the girl cannot drive AT ALL!!!) but she went to prom with a senior -- which really impressed me, since I was so socially awkward in high school, I was grateful to be invited at all, by anyone. She is only a sophomore, which proves that my little sister is WAY cooler than I ever was at her age. Apparently, the senior has a crush on her, but she only likes him "as a friend". Which is probably a good thing, because the last time she filled me in on her love life, she had 3 guys (!!!) calling her.

I don't think I've ever had three guys calling me in my LIFE.

So I am relieved that high school isn't nearly as painful for her as it was for me. And I'm pretty proud, not only of her social abilities, but also her excellent grades (AP classes!) and her athletic talents (she currently plays softball, basketball AND volleyball -- WOW). She even plays the flute in her school's marching band. I don't know when she sleeps!

Thanks for letting me brag. Now, here's some prom pics of my little sister Smurf.

The obligatory hair-do, complete with 18 gallons of hairspray, I'm sure. And I would like to add that she was lucky enough to inherit The Czarina's extremely thick and shiny hair, whereas I got WLF's thin and fine hair. And did I mention that this girl NEVER gets zits?? Yeah. And can you tell how long her legs are? She is 5' 9". I am 5' 5". She's got legs for days. It's just not fair!!!

Is it just me, or is that corsage gigantic?? And I think her prom date is the same height she is!

I love her dress. And check out her adorable dimples!!

Ok, maybe she should pull her dress up a little bit....(oops, that's the overprotective Big Sis coming out!)

Having fun at prom with her date!


She said the after-prom stuff was held in the gym at her school, which is where this pic was taken. Apparently, it was super fun, because she didn't come home until 4am!!! The girl on the right is her best friend. I don't know who the girl on the left is. With a social butterfly for a little sis, sometimes it's hard to keep up!

Just to illustrate how vastly different my prom experiences were, let's do a quick reflection of VB's proms:

Junior year (1996): Considering my senior boyfriend dumped me right before everyone started finding dates (Gee, thanks, Scott. Great timing.), I was kind of S.O. L. and so had to pray to the prom gods to be asked at all. I ended up being asked by some guy in my math class. Until he asked me, I literally did not know he existed. (Isn't that terrible?? I don't even remember his name. Chris, maybe?? In my defense, my high school was HUGE and I was extremely shy. So it's not like I was too cool to know who anyone was. I was just clueless.) We went with his friends to dinner. I didn't know them, either. I don't remember having too good of a time, although I was glad he didn't try to kiss me, because that would have been awkward at best. I do remember liking my dress (it was short and bubblegum pink) and my hair -- The Czarina was a hairdresser in a past life, I swear. The woman has got some wicked hot roller skillz. Anyway, I had this whole 1960s girl group vibe going on. Very Dreamgirl-ish.

Senior year (1997): Again, there was no convenient boyfriend to be my automatic prom date (see a pattern??). So I was stuck crossing my fingers and again praying to the prom gods again. My best friend was in the same boat I was in. So was our guy pal, Josh. So the three of us went together! We ended up having a blast. My girlfriend wore a champagne satin dress; I wore a long, fitted, black dress trimmed with rhinestones. He got us matching red rose corsages. We got him two boutonnieres -- one for each lapel. And arm-in-arm-in-arm, we went to prom! Josh took turns dancing with us, and we ended up having so much fun. Josh told me later that he felt like a pimp all night, walking around with TWO prom dates. I can't remember where we ate or what we did that was so fun, but I do remember having a really good time and laughing a lot.

Now, Josh is engaged. And my girlfriend just got married last fall. I am now praying to the marriage gods. LOL some things never change....

Anyway, what was your prom like? Did you have fun? What do you remember? If you are a female reader, I want you to describe your dress to me!

Bahamas Pics

Hello, dear readers. You have all been waiting patiently for my vacation photos. *crickets chirp* I'm sorry it has taken me this long to get them up, but I have good excuses!!! Look:

Sammy didn't stop barfing until Sunday. I had no paper towels, clean rags or carpet cleaner left by the time it was over. Ugh.

I had a migraine all day Sunday. And my trainer KILLED my calves at the gym on Friday night. My calves STILL hurt today. But it's much better than the last three days, where my calves have been so tight that I have had to hobble around like some kind of geriatric Barbie doll. People were staring at me, actually, I was walking so awkwardly.

CN has been having MAJOR gastro-intestinal issues since Saturday evening, and I have been worried sick about him. We are going to the doctor as soon as I post this, actually. We almost went to the emergency room last night, because he was in so much pain. He's not in too much pain right now, but let's just say that something just isn't right with him, and I'm getting really concerned. I don't want to go into the gory details, but there's a laundry list of issues he's having right now. Remind me to tell you about Dr. Quack. (That might be tomorrow's post.)

Alright, on to the pics. Maybe some of you still care to see them?? I dunno.

Can you see the "fever" of stingrays in the water? Yes, that is the correct term for a group of stingrays. I looked it up. Of course. They were kind of creepy, the way they "flew" underwater.
This is the view from the ferry we took to the island with the stingrays. This is some big resort in Nassau.
This is some government building in Nassau. It's really old, and I love that it's pink -- so Caribbean, no? It's hard to see, but the seal of The Bahamas, there on the portico, has a blue marlin and a pink flamingo on it. I thought that was so cool. Very exotic.
This is a shot of the beach area where we swam after we finished swimming with stingrays. Isn't the water beautiful?? Even with the rain clouds overhead, it's still gorgeous.
This shot is just to the left of the last photo. The yellow hut is the first aid stand, I think.
This was the view from deck when we pulled into Freeport the day before. (Yeah, these are out of order. Sorry!) That wall you see jutting out into the water is where the boat parallel parked! Can you imagine parallel parking a cruise ship??
CN's feet are pale. Mine have long toes. Freaky feet!! This was on the ferry as we went to go swim with stingrays.
This is what the deeper water looked like in the Caribbean. So pretty.
I got a good close-up shot of a stingray!

I know these are not the best photos ever. I'm just not artsy like that. And most of my pics (obviously) include me or CN. Since I am trying to cling to what little shred of anonymity I have on here, I am not sharing them. Besides, I don't want to put up pics of CN without his permission. So if you are wondering what I look like, just imagine....I look like Jessica Simpson. Or Scarlett Johanssen. Yeah. I'm the spitting image.

Ok, I'm off to take CN to the doctor. Yes, he needs a chaperone, trust me. *groan* More on that tomorrow.

PSA: Smurf is Driving

WARNING: My little sister, Smurf, turns *16* on Sunday. This means that, according to the Commonwealth of Virginia, she is legally eligible for a driver's license. If you live within a 500 mile radius of Farmville, VA, I highly encourage you to inform your local authorities, call your State Congressman and lock up your pets and small children. Whatever you do, you should definitely stay off any and all roads. This chick has no business whatsoever driving. According to my mother, she has committed the following moving violations during her practice runs:

1. Did not stop AT ALL for a stop sign -- she just followed the car in front of her!
2. Cannot seem to master lane mergings without almost causing 3-car-pile-ups.
3. Believes turn signals to be optional at all times.
4. Literally not looking at the road -- she has always been a space cadet!
5. Speeds terribly.
6. Uses mirrors instead of actually looking over her shoulder.

Ok, now before you panic, keep in mind that she won't actually be legally on the road, driving alone, until about April (you have to be 16 years and 4 months to drive in Virginia). So she's going to practice some more. A LOT more. Smurf has to learn how to drive safely, because right now, my poor mother is carting her all over the place: school, sports (Smurf plays 3 sports), friends' houses, football games, basketball games, parties, movies, etc. For most people, this isn't that big of a burden. But when you live in the boonies, like they do, it takes 45 minutes to get anywhere. So my mother is really ready for Smurf to drive herself around. She's even bought her a used car. A very very large used car. I think it's an old Chevy Suburban kind of like this one.

When I asked The Czarina why she bought such a large car for Smurf, when gas prices are so insane, she replied, "Because I know she's going to get in a wreck. And I feel better if the car is so big, it inflicts more damage than it receives."

"Oh. Ok. That makes sense," I replied. "So how is she going to pay for the gas?"

"She's going to get a JOB!!!" my mother replied gleefully, clapping her hands together.

I snickered, remembering my horrible grocery store job I had in high school. Ah, the days of minimum wage and polyester uniforms....

Anyway, The Czarina has tried to discuss with Smurf the responsibilities involved in operating a motor vehicle. She has lectured, pleaded, begged, yelled and stressed about it. She even went so far as disconnecting the CD player/radio in Smurf's car, in order to eliminate at least one distraction. Of course, being obnoxious older siblings, the rest of us tease her about this incessantly. We even joked about buying her a bunch of CDs for Christmas, which would be useless to her. Tee hee.

I have quizzed her on the Rules of the Road. My brothers have tried to take her driving. She has studied old driver's ed manuals. We share driving tips and advice with her constantly. When we are driving her somewhere, we periodically ask, "Ok, what should I do now?" or "What did that other car do wrong?" -- and her answers are always wrong. She fails miserably at anything even remotely related to driving. All we end up doing is shaking our heads at her.

To be honest, we are all kind of worried about her! Our family is full of good drivers. WLF had one accident when he was 16. That was the only accident he ever had. Fat Dog has never had a wreck. Fungus is a pretty good driver. I have only had 2 accidents, my last one being in 2001. The Czarina has never been at fault in any accidents, although she's the type of driver who backs into poles and trashcans. In short, we have no idea where she got this from. Although we are all notorious speeders in our family, none of us have ever been this clueless about driving.

She's going to be taking driver's ed at school pretty soon. I really hope that will help her out. Because right now, I won't even get into a car she is driving. I guess I was a pretty bad driver at first, too. I really hope her learning curve is better than mine.

Oh! In honor of her birthday, I do have some pics of her when she was little. Here goes:

Here is Baby Smurf. She's the only one in our family with dimples. That is WLF holding her. Yes, I realize he was old to be the father of a baby. What can I say? There were 7 of us. Someone had to be last. This was at Myrtle Beach.

Ok, that is Fungus with Smurf on his shoulders. This pic was taken in about 1992.

I remember Smurf doing this a lot in the car when she was little. She would make these hilarious faces! That is Fat Dog on the left. imitating her, and Fungus on the right. You can see my big ol' feet in the background. This was in our old station wagon, which was the car I learned to drive on. This was soon after we moved to Indiana.
Ok, how cute is this pic? That is my youngest brother, Gulgie, and Smurf.

This is a pic of my four full siblings. Remember, I have 2 half siblings, too. I am not in this pic, and I do not know who the guy is in the back ground. L--> R: Gulgie, Smurf, Fungus, Fat Dog. Oh, and the date is conveniently displayed in case you are curious.

Here she is with a friend of the family, when she was little older.

I have more family pics, but that's enough for today.

~~~~~~~

Oh crap. I just realized. Today is January 25th. Every year, I have a horrible, horrible day on or near this day. Examples:

1. I have been dumped.
2. My dad died.
3. I have been in 2 car accidents.
4. I found out this guy had lied to me and cheated on me.
5. I have been sick.

So looks like I will be staying in bed as much as possible this weekend!!! I hope I can end my Curse of the End of January.

Shit. I should have called in today. That was dumb of me. Last night, I had a bad dream that CN and I broke up. Ugh. That is bad timing.

Have a great weekend, everyone! I have to go look for some good luck charm, now, before it's too late! Cross your fingers for me!