Slackass.

Okay, so I've been a real slackass lately with the blog.  And with everything else in my life.

Why?  Am I sick?  Am I depressed?  Are Matt and I on the verge of divorce?  Has our internet been out?  Was I bitten by a brown recluse? No, no, no (but he has made me wake up from naps three times this week which is making me consider it), no, and no*.  

Nope.  Just lazy, and unmotivated to do anything but play Mario 3, watch Mad Men, watch Friday Night Lights, eat Hershey's nuggets (damn you, Publix, and your buy one get one free temptations!) and snuggle with the dog.  Oh, and nap.  I've been very motivated to nap.  Last night I took a 6-hour nap.  Yep, Matt was at work (so he couldn't wake me up.  HA!) and I slept from 6:00 until midnight.  It was. . .amazing.**

Just wanted to check in and say what's up.  We've got a fun and relaxing weekend planned, and maybe--just maybe--I'll be able to muster up the energy and motivation to get some stuff done around this joint and then share it with you.  At minimum, I'll post pictures of me lying on the guest bed, playing Mario 3*** and eating chocolates.  Clearly, thirty has been good to me so far.

What have y'all**** been up to?

P.S.--I actually wrote this during lunch, and in the meantime had a work episode that is making my blood boil.  Can't say anything about it here, but I'm suddenly feeling a surge of energy.  Golly, maybe I need to be angry more often!  I'll be super productive then!

*But I do have a really bad mosquito bite.  Can I blame my vegetable state on this?

**And don't even think about going and getting yourself all hot and bothered thinking that I'm with child.  Because I'm not.  

***Send me all of the secrets you remember or find about Mario 3.  I mean, I'm good and all, but it's been like 20 years (ACK!  I can even pull that "20 years" bull jive out and use it for real!) and I don't remember everything.

****How do you feel about y'all?  Love it or hate it?  I love it because I think the English language needs a word like it.  (Spanish has one, after all.)  I also love split infinitives, though.  And excessive parentheses and exclamation points.  And fragments, apparently.

Weekend Fun

We had a boring, quiet weekend all lined up, and then on Friday I got an email from Hugh (the other part of Hugh and Cassie) saying that he'd be in the SAV for the night.  It was an almost-reunion for our Savannah family (minus Cassie, who was away on a girls' weekend).  Shoot yeah!  We ate and laughed and drank and then ate more because the drink had taken effect and then laughed even harder.  And then I woke up the next morning with a wine headache so bad that I have sworn off wine for at least six days.  Also, I don't have any pictures to show you from Hugh's visit because I forgot to take my camera.

Oh, wait!  Yes I do!  I just remembered!  (see: too much wine drinking).

Also, Brian had 10 pairs of these sunglasses that his mom sent him because they were $.50/each and he's terrible about losing sunglasses.  He was willing to part with one of the pairs, though, and Hugh, for the rest of the night, would incorporate the word sports into what he was saying, and would slowly turn his head to the side and graze the side of the sunglasses with his finger.  When I talked to Cassie this afternoon, she mentioned that Hugh had received some cheap plastic sunglasses during his visit and that he refused to take them off in the house.  Apparently he was playing some indoor sports.

That was the height of excitement for our weekend.  We spent the remaining hours bemoaning Friday night's poor judgment, playing Mario 3*, making marshmallows, catching up with my Brothers & Sisters (both real and fictional), sleeping until 1:00, watching Mad Men, and pretty much just wishing we were as badass as this kid.**

Um, yeah, that kid is riding a skateboard AND playing a trumpet at the same time.  I can do neither of those things.**

How was your weekend?


*Damn you, world 5 airship and fortress!


**Cool: a kid who rides up and down the street on a skateboard while playing the trumpet.  Not cool: the creepy lady who gets caught taking a picture of the kid from her living room window.***


***Guess we're not going to be friends with those neighbors after all.

Blast from the Past

If you don't hear from me, or if you call and I don't answer, well, it's probably because I got this for my birthday from one super husband.

Um, yeah, that's Marios 1, 2, and 3.  And some lost level game that I never played.  And there's also a soundtrack.  How am I dealing with having turned 30?  By regressing, of course, and channeling my 11-year old self, the master of all things Mario World.

So, don't be mad if I'm MIA for a while.  If you need me, I'll be in the guest room turning myself into raccoons and statues and defeating Koopas, yelling and screaming at the TV and scaring the dog (who may or may not really be a king who's been transformed!).

Drinking and Driving

Saturday night, after feasting on another huge and indulgent meal and self-medicating with a magnum bottle of Sauvignon Blanc (you would understand if you knew my family), I meandered into the living room where Chloe was playing Mario Kart on the Wii.

Now, when Chloe visits, she spends approximately 85% of her time on the Wii playing Mario Kart, and she boasts about how good she is. She loves to challenge us and act very unsportsmanlike when she wins.

In the race I was watching, Chloe was doing terribly. She kept falling off the edge, and she was driving like a damned maniac. I demonstrated my maturity by laughing at her and mocking her each time she made a mistake--especially since this terrible driving was so out of the ordinary for her.

So, finally, Chloe said that I should drive since I thought I was so good. Since I was about five glasses of wine deep, I had too much confidence (kind of like the time I did the 30-day Shred with Cassie after consuming large quantities of wine). When it was time for me to pick out my track, though, my confidence began to wane and I selected Mushroom Gorge, only because that one is easy, I know it like the back of my hand, and I felt like I would suffer the least amount of embarrassment if I drove that particular track.


But something was off. Way off.

I kept falling off the edges. I didn't know where I was going. I was dying left and right. When my instincts told me to turn right, I really should have turned left, and so on. Throughout the race I was commenting about how this should serve as a lesson about why we shouldn't drink and drive (teachable moments, you know). It was awful. I came in 12th place and was a full lap behind 11th. I just couldn't understand how I'd done so badly.

I walked into the other room and, in all seriousness, stressed to Matt the importance of being sober while driving. I told him about the race and was freaking out. What if I had been driving a real car? What if I drove a real car off a cliff or a giant bouncy mushroom? I could have killed myself and other people!

And then my brother and sister (both of whom are THE DEVIL) came into the room laughing. Apparently they'd unlocked some mirror feature on the game, and the track was actually backward. So it wasn't me or the booze, it was just that my siblings are evil. What a relief!

Moral of the story: you can drink and drive on Mario Kart, but not in real life.

Also, never trust your siblings. At least, never trust mine.