Before I go any further, I neglected to mention the history of why my yard looks like Wild Kingdom. The process is threefold- One: My next door neighbor used to kindly, and graciously, mow my front lawn when she mowed hers. I always appreciated it. Always. When my lawn is mowed, I feel better about my home. I just enjoy looking out the window at it. It’s not beautifully landscaped or anything, it’s just nice to see. Two: My neighbor moved and my lawn mower is DOA. I think it’s a spark plug, but now that I have no way to get it to the shop (which is just down the street), I also have no way of getting it fixed. Three: I have been unsuccessful in getting someone to give me an estimate, much less mow the fucker. I thought I’d hit pay dirt when I found out that a co-worker’s son had his own lawn “business.” Crazy me assumes that when you have a business, you answer the fuckin’ phone. But, in their defense, that seems to be how “businesses” are running things these days: voicemail. I say this because I’ve gotten sent to voicemail when I’ve called electricians, taxicabs, tree services, etc. Call me crazy, but voicemail does not instill in me, confidence in your business. If I get sent to voicemail, I put you in the category of “SIDE business”: something you do in your free time. Whereas a BUSINESS is something you do for a living. An income. Not mad money.

So, 3 broken appointments later, I FINALLY get this co-worker’s kid to come out, and he looks things over and says he’ll “get back to me with an estimate.” First off, why do you have to ‘get back’ to me? I already told him that I knew it was going to cost more initially, because, let’s face it, my yard is outta control. I’m fine with that. I understand that. I used to clean houses, and that’s just how it works: the initial clean-up is always more. Secondly, 5 days later, and I haven’t heard from him. This combined with the Post-it left on my front door, from dickhead one house down, forced me to go through an online search, something I didn’t initially want to do (call a “lawn service“), because, not unlike when you go to a THRIFT STORE vs an “ANTIQUES & COLLECTIBLES STORE”, the price goes up (i.e. getting my lawn MOWED vs getting my LAWN SERVICED). You know what I mean. It’s the equivalent of paying for atmosphere at a restuarant with mediocre food. Same result, different pricing.

So, I go with Lawn Dogs, because they don’t seem too nuts (with their pricing), and make a call. They’re in the neighborhood and arrive in around 20-25 minutes. They’re able to give me an instant estimate, I write them a check and they mow/edge my front yard while they’re here. They’re coming back Monday to do the back yard (it’s substantially larger). Nice. …plus, it doesn’t hurt that “Austin” is a super-cute grown-up with braces. *squeal*<—–super-gay

SO, back to Saturday morning. I take the trash to the curb and out of my peripheral vision I see that jackass note-maker is parked in his driveway (he always parks behind his house, in the back) and is coming towards me. I don't look up, as I have nothing (nice) to say to him. I start to walk away and I hear him say "Excuse me." I turn, putting my hand on my hip (how gay was that move?) and look at him, like “Uh, yeah?” He goes on to say that he was the one who put the note on my door. I say, “Yeah, I know.” (Prepared for an altercation, I was in a Bring it ON-mood…thus the über-gay hand on the hip. LMAO! What?)

{ I “know” because I’ve lived in this house for 15+ years and in all that time, NO ONE has ever had a problem with me and/or my home’s upkeep. Since he’s the second newbie (the first being my new next door neighbors to the north, who have been here three months, and whose yard looked just as bad as mine, up until 2 days ago), and he was an outspoken douche when he moved in 3 years ago, naturally, he’s the prime suspect. Eat your heart out, Nancy Drew.}

He then goes on to APOLOGIZE to me. What, what? It’s true! He says that he felt really bad about it, even after he’d written it, but by then he’d already posted it on my door. He couldn’t sleep last night, thinking about it. That it wasn’t a very neighborly thing to do and that what he should have done was to ask if I needed assistance with it, instead of writing that curt note. My mouth is agape (figuratively, not literally). I’ve NEVER, and I mean NEVER, had ANYONE apologize to me. Even when they were wrong. Even if my feelings were hurt. E V E R. I found his apology refreshing, especially since I’ve pretty much bitched for the last 6 years, that no one takes responsibility for their actions anymore. No one ever has the guts to admit they were wrong (I’ve done it plenty of times). He went on to say that he found the note crumpled up on his front porch, and didn’t know how I knew it was him (LMAO! Hilarious! I had to stifle a laugh). I told him that I knew it was him because I’ve lived here for 20 years (so, I lied and added 5 more years to reality); I didn’t go into detail. I also told him that my car was in the shop, and how I’d just gotten home from walking 9 miles to work, to find his message on the door and that the last thing I wanted to deal with was that bullshit. He understood and continued to apologize. I then went on the explain how I’d made several attempts at getting the lawn taken care of, how my mower was broken, etc. Again, he was apologetic. I told him I appreciated his apology, told him it was no big deal, we shook hands and parted amicably. A nice end to an otherwise shitty weekend.

First off, to set the scene, my car is in the shop AGAIN (and yes, to the same incompetent Dodge dealership, because it’s still under warranty), for the exact same thing I took it in for about a year and a half ago: it’s leaks when it rains. As a result, my driver’s side floorboard gets SOAKED. I’m talking two, thick terry cloth towels-soaked. Then, whenever I arrive anywhere, the bottom of my pants are wet and it looks just lovely. So, I take the car in, a day EARLY (as suggested by Don Davis Dumbass, so the “technicians” can get started on it “FIRST THING in the morning”) and he tells me “3 days, maybe sooner.” I take a deep breath and think “right, fucker” and go home. I go home because I lucked out and caught the one person I know who can give me a fuckin’ ride (remember this part, it becomes an ongoing theme). I’d already made plans with work to be MIA for 3 days, so they made the schedule accordingly.

So, I’m stuck at home for three days. Fine. I’ve gone longer. Day three rolls around and the car is still not ready. What a surprise. Since I have to be at work at 10 the next morning, I decide to get up 3 hours earlier (just in case), call a cab and have them take me to work. The next morning comes, and I call a local cab company. Five, actually. I keep getting the runaround from all of them… once they find out that I don’t need to be shuttled somewhere far away (i.e. the airport, Dallas, etc.). I’m fucked. It’s now 8:45 and I have an hour and 15 minutes to get to work… 4 1/2 miles away. I put on some comfortable clothes, back a tote bag with my work clothes and head out.

An hour later, I’m at Cooper street, about a 15-20 minute walk from my destination. I decide to call and let the MOD (Manager on Duty), know that I might be a few minutes late, as I am walking to work. “Walking?!” Yes, walking. See you in a minute. “Be careful.” Be careful. Having a full 15+ minutes before we open, I can see how you wouldn’t possibly have the kind of time it would take to drive 3 minutes down the fuckin’ road and pick me up. No, really, I understand. It just makes sense.

So, I arrive and clock in: 9:59. I arrive red-faced and sweaty, to: “Heh heh. Well, at least you got your exercise today.” Fuckin’ adorable. I walk back to the back to change clothes. I come back to The Spanish Inquisition: “So they haven’t fixed your car? Have you heard anything about your car? Where’s your car? I guess your car’s not ready yet. Have they told you anything? When will it be ready?” Exhausted x 2, I just reply with a blanket “nope.” Let’s just get the fuckin’ day started, alright? Fuck the small talk.

So, I ASSUME (and you know what they say about when you assume) that my car will be ready by the time my shift ends and I can simply walk to the dealership and pick up my car. Of course, that’s just too easy, right? Instead, I call for 4 hours and repeatedly get sent to voicemail. I don’t leave messages. They never get answered, or if they do, it’s whenever they get ready. I need to know NOW if my car is ready or not, and/or if it will be ready today. I’m on foot and I don’t want to get halfway home, only to find out that it’s been ready all along. Fuck that. One last try: again, no one around, and no one can tell me anything. I decide to call a cab.

Again, I go with a local cab company. When they ask my destination, I’m elusive, saying I have to run SEVERAL errands first. I give them my location. “Someone will be there in 15 minutes.” I go to wait outside. I soon receive a call, from the confused cab operator, to whom I spoke earlier. She can’t figure out if I’m “North, South, East or West.” I tell her that there is no N/S/E/W in the address. She insists she’s trying to figure out which one I am. I ask her “N/S/E/W of what?” She just needs to know. I told her I was South of I-30, if that helps. I tell her that I’m located in Lincoln Square (a well-known shopping center in North Arlington; it’s been here for decades). She’s still lost. Now I’M confused: “You ARE located in Arlington, Texas, correct?” Yes. And you’ve never heard of Lincoln Square? “I don’t see it on the map.” You know, what, just forget it.

I start walking back home. My phone is dead and I have no way to charge it. I take a shorter, more dangerous route, this time, in hopes that I will be home sooner. The bridge that crosses a street near my home, freaks me out. It doesn’t seem this high when I’m driving over it. I’m fuckin’ tired. I mean, yeah, we all know I’m fat, but it’s not like I’m winded, my feet are KILLING me. I’m wobbly and there’s not much room where you cross the bridge. The breeze coming off the speeding cars + the super-narrow walkway + my aching feet, I feel like I might fall over the railing. And the fact that I hate heights and seeing the cars speeding by below, out of my peripheral vision, isn’t helping my queasiness.

I get home and first thing I see is a note on my front door. It’s one of those large, lined Post-it notes. Written on it, are the words: “PLEASE MOW!” Exhausted, and now pissed off, I cross out “MOW” and write “SUCK MY DICK!” with the ballpoint I had in my tote bag, crumple it up and throw it on the front porch of the jackass 1 house to the south of me. The same dick who made a sparkling first-impression, when he moved in 3 years ago, by yelling “HEY!” when some friends and I were shooting a pellet gun in my backyard. *sigh* He’s been on my shit list ever since. I’m sorry, but you don’t JUST move in and start off on that foot. Sorry, but that’s a recipe for disdain.

Once inside my house, I immediately take off my shoes, pop all the blisters on my feet and soak them. I’m DOA. Four and a half miles, okay. Nine miles, um, no.

Tomorrow: Part 2

( Click image to enlarge )

• The Mermaid Bar at Neiman Marcus
• Angus burger & fries at The Mermaid Bar
• Tacos at The Dallas World Aquarium
• Wicked Chicken at Popeye’s
• Pineapple froyo at YoBerry
• Hawaiian pizza at New York Joe’s
• Shrimp appetizers at Thairrific
• Cheeseburger & Fries at Griff’s Hamburgers
• Spicy chicken pad thai at Thairrific
• Fish & chips from Captain D’s
• Roast beef ‘n cheddar from Arby’s
• Calamari at The Mermaid Lounge
• Hamburger & fries from IHOP
• Barbacoa burrito from Chipotle
• Gyro from Gyro House
• The House Special from Mellow Mushroom
• Retro (70′s) candy box!
• Gourmet White from Mellow Mushroom

The one nice thing about dating is that if all else fails, the food is usually good. The one nice thing about NOT dating is enjoying a meal with friends.

Expired OTC Meds – A friend recently got ill and I was telling her about my cure-all: Alka-Seltzer Plus Cold & Cough (the purple one). So, I went home to grab some of mine and noticed that it was “expired” by a few months (another medicine I also recommended was more like 8 months). I hear SO much drama over expiration dates on food & medicine, I thought I’d check online and see what the consensus was. Here’s what I found, according to Harvard Medical School: It turns out that the expiration date on a drug does stand for something, but probably not what you think it does. Since a law was passed in 1979, drug manufacturers are required to stamp an expiration date on their products. This is the date at which the manufacturer can still guarantee the full potency and safety of the drug.

Most of what is known about drug expiration dates comes from a study conducted by the Food and Drug Administration at the request of the military. With a large and expensive stockpile of drugs, the military faced tossing out and replacing its drugs every few years. What they found from the study is 90% of more than 100 drugs, both prescription and over-the-counter, were perfectly good to use even 15 years after the expiration date. I relayed the info to my friend, gave them the meds and wished them well.

Cleaning Grungy Cookie Sheets – Make a paste out of peroxide and baking soda, use to clean dirty cookie sheet. It’ll shock you how clean it gets it.

iTunes Genius Mixes – iTunes offers a (free) service, called Genius Mixes. Basically what it does is it creates playlists that you can listen to via your iTunes, MP3 player, AppleTV, etc. The mixes are only limited to your iTunes library. For Example, mine are:

- Jazz Mix
- Electronica Mix
- Techno/House Mix
- Vocal Mix
- New Wave Mix
- Lounge Mix
- Indie Rock Mix
- Dance Mix
- Pop Mix
- Synth-Pop Mix
- Alternative Rock Mix
- Country Mix (yes, I listen to Country sometimes…though most of it is post 80′s)

Well, I was having, what I came to find out, was a not-so-uncommon problem: my Christmas music was being mixed in. Yuck. Not exactly what you want to hear 10-11 months out of the year. Well, I found out that this can be remedied by ‘unchecking’ the box to the left of all your Christmas song titles (highlight all and while pressing the ‘Command’ key, unclick one and you unclick them ALL: fast!). Then, go to ‘Store’ in the menu bar, whilst in iTunes, and select ‘Update Genius’ from the drop down menu: no more Christmas music in July!

YouTube & Movies – There are tons of FREE, full-length, uncut movies on YouTube. And when I say “FREE” I mean it: FREE of commercials, FREE of ads, etc. So far, I’ve bookmarked The Wolf Man (1941), The Brides of Dracula and more! I’ve since watched Sleepaway Camp, Detroit Rock City, Teen Witch, Lost Highway, Urban Legend, The Hills Have Eyes (1977), The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), Astro Boy (The Movie), Addams Family Values, Apollo 18, Sex and The Single Girl and Wrong Turn. Granted, I own all these movies on DVD, it’s just quicker to access them this way!

And when I say full-length, I mean you can watch the entire movie at once, so installments (like, when I recently watched All The Boys Love Mandy Lane). Nice! The other nice thing is that there are movies that are either not available on DVD and/or may be hard to find. I just watched Edge of the Axe, a 1988 slasher I’d never seen before because it’s OOP on VHS and not available on DVD! By the way, it was SO good (IMO). I’ll be reviewing it at a later date.

I also was able to watch another 80′s slasher favorite, 1985′s The Mutilator. So, check it out!

Make Foaming Hand Soap – Did you know that making your own foaming hand soap (or in my case, REFILLING my old dispenser) is SIMPLE? All you need is your old foaming pump dispenser, some dishwashing liquid and water. Seriously easy! See the how-to here.

And while I’m on the topic, here’s a fun DIY project you can do with an old pump bottle

More Clever Ideas – Click here to check out all the ideas/projects I’ve deemed ‘Clever Clever!’ over on Pinterest.

*SIGH* Alright, I’ve been putting this off since before Christmas. I was initially going to title this post “Well, Kiss THAT Christmas Special Goodbye”. I chose this title because The Duggars used 2010′s holiday season to exploit their latest suckling. They were geared up to do the same last year, but, unfortunately (?) that baby didn’t make it. I put a question mark after unfortunately because maybe it was divine intervention; that baby dodged a huge, kooky bullet. Unfortunately, the public didn’t. Which brings me to this post: the exploitation of the stillborn fetus. Yes, you read correctly. Now you know why I couldn’t bring myself to post this around Christmastime. It’s both a downer on SO many levels (and those levels have sub-levels) and just a whole new plateau of ignorant.

Just an FYI before you make the jump, these pictures were pixelated on SO many sites, though I don’t find them all that shocking. However, I do find the fact that they were taken at all, much less exploited in such a gruesome way, somewhat shocking. Thanks for nuthin’, reality TV. Apparently this wasn’t enough to make the producers over at “The Learning Channel” (what exactly are we “learning” from this show?) head for the hills, since, according to IMDB, the show is heading into its 9th season. I’m all out of words to even talk about how tactless and sad this all is. Apparently “religion” can mask anything. *sigh* Train. Wreck.

Photos courtesy of TMZ.com

First off, a synopsis for those unfamiliar with the premise: A young lawyer travels to a remote village where he discovers the vengeful ghost of a scorned woman is terrorizing the locals.

Now I knew that Dark Castle has been remaking William Castle films (in the beginning, but have since done other non Castle films), like The House On Haunted Hill, Thir13en Ghosts, Ghost Ship, etc. WELL, what I didn’t know was that Hammer Films had had a revival and that this film (The Woman In Black) was one of those productions. Interesting! I always enjoyed Hammer films of the 50′s, 60′s and 70′s.

I was curious if Radcliffe was going to be able to escape the pigeonhole of such an iconic character as Harry Potter, but from the trailer alone, I felt like he had a shot. Well, after seeing the film, I definitely think he has a future as a believable character in other roles, but like a friend mentioned, we can’t picture him expanding beyond British characters. But hey, we could be wrong. In the end, he was very good in this role.

The movie had a great look to it, shot in a palette of grays and blues. Very atmospheric. Very cold and oppressive in it’s scope. Perfect for a ghost story.

I also liked the supporting actors. I felt like they complimented the era of the film and no one was unrealistically attractive or overly groomed. It was a period peace and everything from the sets to the locations was well done. The kids in the film were a little ‘off’, and not in a weird sense, but in a time period sense. I felt like their looks were a little too contemporary for the time period (the end of the Victorian era).

I thought the premise was good, though I did see a lot of the ‘scares’ coming (sorry, it’s the horror movie nut in me), though it was still a good, suspenseful ghost story, which is what I was looking for.

My only complaint would be that I felt like the ending tacked on too much ‘explanation’, possibly for the Duh Generation that needs to have all their questions answered and wrapped up in a neat little package. Personally, without giving anything away, I felt like the ending would have been more affective had it ceased 5-8 minutes earlier than it did. However, overall, I enjoyed the movie and it was worth seeing. I’m curious to see where Radcliffe goes from here. Recommend.