croozin' 2011

omg we had way too much fun.  i'm tempted to just post all the photos and let it go.  but i guess i owe you all more than that.

royal caribbean was great.  i guess the ship seemed a bit classier than carnival, but not by much.  it may have been because there were 700+ college spring breakers on board.  or whatever.  but it was fun.  coco cay was great, but we missed freeport.  freeport was one of awesome husband and my favorite stops on our last cruise.  also, carvnival is generally a bit cheaper.  so i think for a short 4 day cruise like this, i'd probably go carnival in the future.  however, the newer royal caribbean ships are AMAZING and i wouldn't hesitate to book one of those.

we are actually planning another cruise next fall to scatter some of mom's ashes between the keys and freeport, where we scattered my stepfather in 2008.  not sure what line we'll take, but i know it will be fun.

okay, so let's get some photos going!

in our cabin - we brought on rum runners and cranberry juice to mix a few of our own drinks in the room

the view from our cabin - deck 9 'obstructed view' - not too obstructed at all

looking out at the open water over my feet.  i'm wearing awesome pink argyle socks.

awesome husband and i at dinner the first night

relaxing view from deck 12

our view on coco cay - we scoped out a spot near a bush and were pretty much left alone

i brought my camera in the water and took a picture of the beach - sooo prettyyyy

my tootsies in the clear water - SO not like beaches in new york

awesome husband in the water.  yeah, i hit that.  regularly. 

the inlet at coco cay where the tender boats dock - so many shades of blue/green

awesome husband and me on formal night.  i FINALLY got to wear my party dress!

we're so cute. and i'm so pale.

on the top of fort fincastle where you can see like ALL of nassau island

any excuse to get dressed up.  we're HAWT

 

so we had lots of fun.  although i'm kind of bummed that i saved the dress i did for the last night, since they didn't do any professionally staged photos on the last night.  because i looked AMAZING.  and my tits were hanging out.  which i think contributed to my amazinglookingness.

it's funny: i feel like i should have long, involved stories for you.  i don't really.  we had a great time.  we drank more than we should have.  the term 'four-day-long hangover' was used more than once.  we saw a comedy show.  we were seated at a table for six at dinner but there were only four of us.  our tablemates were from boston.  red sox fans.  and we didn't have ANY PROBLEMS with them.  and this is the second set of great people we met on a cruise that happened to contain a red sox fan.  so awesome husband has decided that asshole boston fans go to disney, and cool boston fans go on cruises.

i was able to watch harry potter 7a (my name for 'harry potter and the deathly hallows part one') one time from start to finish.  and i watched bits and pieces of it a few times.  cruise ships don't have regular television - they have like specially designated cruise stations.  for instance, 'eye on royal caribbean' is cbs shows (the eye, get it?) like how i met your mother and craig ferguson.  and the style network is limited to like five different shows.  that they show over and over again.  cnn/cnn espanol is normal cnn.  espn is some strange conglomerate of espns.  and there are usually a few movie channels.  carnival had like three or four movies per cruise.  royal caribbean had A LOT - harry potter 7a, burlesque, something with matt damon, crazy all the time, like four other ones.  nice for relaxing time.  we also caught some baseball (thankfully - i can't WAIT FOR BASEBALL).  we saw a yankees and a mets spring training game.  we lost some money in the casino, but we made some back.  i would guesstimate we 'lost' about $30.  well.  maybe $40.

we saw the buildings on bay street that were decimated in the valentine's day fire on nassau.  we saw the new straw market building being built.  we saw drunken college girls being carried/groped out of senor frogs.  sadly, we were not offered drugs once.  not that we would ACCEPT.  but generally i get offered drugs like every ten minutes on nassau. 

ahem.

now we've been back to work and the real world for a couple of days.  i know this is a long, photo filled, bandwith heavy post so we'll talk about the cats and life, the universe, and everything next time.

i'm less important than i think i am

i bet you've all been DYING to know where i've been.  worrying about me and shit.  because i think i'm more important than i am.

well, i was on a cruise.  i got all paranoidy 'i shouldn't post that i'm leaving my house on a public blog even though i don't use my full real name while blogging' because someone might break into my house and steal/kill/eat my cats.

so we're just back today.  awesome husband and i left monday morning and went to the bahamas with royal caribbean.  it was our first time on royal caribbean - i've only sailed with carnival in the past. 

expect quite a few pictures and details within the next day or two.  awesome husband and i are still nursing our four-day hangovers (and might continue drinking tonight, just for shits and giggles).  i'm anticipating some kind of liver- and kidney-friendly fast saturday through monday. 

hope everyone has a great weekend!  i'll get right on uploading my photos and writing a supergreat post for y'all.

nervy b's are fun, yo.

but not really.  having a little nervous breakdown (or nervy b as i so eloquently call it) is not full of The Awesome.  it's actually pretty fucking lame.

it's even worse when you do so during a meeting filled with your coworkers.  since you hate the shit you see going on, and when your 'supervisor' says something like 'don't use AIM for bitching about others or gossiping, just to stay in touch with each other' you get offended because A) AIM is not owned, operated, or maintained by my 'job' and i'll use it how i damn well please - EVEN during work hours, B) you work from home and this is the ONLY place you have to gossip and bitch and keep in touch with your coworkers - no scheduled breaks for coffee or smokes, no clandestine meetings in the bathroom to bitch about your other coworkers, nothing like that - and C) i work for MYSELF.  i own my own business.  i am subcontracted by another company - NOT ARISE - to do my job.  why should ARISE be fucking policing my shit?  if we're getting our jobs done satisfactorily as far as the client is concerned, why can't we vent to each other? 

so some of us *ahem, me, ahem* open our fool mouths during the meeting and voice this opinion.  some of us are heavily medicated and don't speak well in public anymore (hence, all my typing and blogging and chatting - i can read it and make sure it 'sounds' right instead of tripping over my damn words all the time and sounding like a fucking idiot).  some of us explain how we feel and get a little emotional.

and then we have a call with our 'supervisor'.  who basically tells us off.  tells us to keep our opinions to ourselves.  that some other coworkers were complaining that our AIM chat was a bit negative, and they didn't want to participate.  and honestly? if he had said that first, i would have been okay.

but no.

he initiates a phone call with me and tells me to KEEP MY OPINIONS TO MYSELF.  basically tells me that he did me a FAVOR by letting me voice my opinion during our meeting, that i should contact him directly with issues like that.  hello?  I HAVE. YOU NEVER EMAILED ME BACK.

so i got very, very upset.  i spent about 7 hours crying, took 1.5 tarzipan total and STILL kept crying and freaking out, and it's colored my entire week.  i had a pretty good birthday monday, had a sad morning tuesday, all this shit happened tuesday afternoon, i was off wednesday so i spent the day hating life and going to sephora, and back to work yesterday.

i showed up, logged in, did my job, ignored almost all of my coworkers, didn't 'participate' in our AIM chat, and then left to take <jake to the vet. 

and i'll do the same today.  and tomorrow.  and then we'll see what happens.  because i have some time off to step away from the situation and see what i can handle.

it's really annoying being an 'adult' and not being able to function because i'm so sick.  i don't know how other people function.  i don't know how many pills i have to take and how many times i have to go through this and how many jobs i have to quit in embarrassment.

being crazy permeates every aspect of my life.  and i'm kind of over it.  but how do i GET over IT?

yesterday

was my birthday.  i did the corporate taxes, i started doing my mom's taxes (yes, they expect a dead woman to pay taxes - thanks, government!), worked for a few hours, and went to benhinana's.  where i had four mai tais, slipped on the fucking tile floor in my new shoes (with very new, very slippery heels - must remember to scuff shoes before wearing out), and had my first spicy tuna roll.

and loved it.  but i put a bit too much wasabi on one piece.  and cleared out my sinuses something fierce.

i also had green tea ice cream. which was really really really good.  and i ate A LOT of shrimp.  and apparently have some kind of onion hangover.  i can still taste the onions.  i think i'm getting too old for onions.

at 31, i think i'm too old for lots of things now.  i'm probably too old for skinny jeans and 4.5" heels.  i might be too old for rockin' cherry bomb red hair (or atomic pink, or hi-octane orange hair).  i could be too old for double nostril piercings, two lip piercings, and stretching my ears (at a 4g right now, contemplating the jump to 2 with fear).  i'm too old to be going for my first associate's degree.  i might be too old to love my chemical romance as much as i do, or listen to pop music.  i could be too old to have (and love) hermit crabs and hamsters (which i am no longer allowed to have).  i'm probably too old to watch almost exclusively cartoons (with some ghost hunters, deadliest catch, mythbusters, and news mixed in).

but at 31, i think i'm a bit too young to have high blood pressure.  i might be too young to have to worry about drastic lifestyle changes.  i could be too young to be falling asleep at 10pm.  i'm probably too young to be thinking about retirement savings (but you should start early, fyi.  really).  i'm too young to be selling a house.  i keep getting told by my doctors that i'm too young for a hysterectomy and too young for menopause (damn them).

i also think i'm too young to have had to plan my mother's funeral.  i might be too young to have to go through all her things and pack them up.  i could be a bit too young to handle all the responsibility of tying up loose ends, worrying about whether i got them all.  i'm probably too young to wonder whether or not i carried out her final wishes the way she'd have liked.  i might be too young to be planning to scatter her ashes at her childhood home (still owned by family) or planning a cruise to scatter some of her ashes at sea (like we did with my step-father).

i know that i'm too young to have celebrated a birthday without my mom.

it was my first birthday without her.  yesterday was the 101st day without my mom.  2,424 hours that she's not been with us, except for the remains of her physical body.  i had only 30 birthdays where my mom would say 'happy birthday!' in the morning, or call me to say it, or give me a card, or a hug, or a present.  and i'll never get those again.

and for possibly the first time since she died, i'm angry.  i'm fucking angry. 

i can't pack up her room because it still smells like her.  and i didn't get a hug for my birthday. 

i'm so fucking angry.

disappointed.

yes.  i'm disappointed.  ONE of you entered my superfantastic giveaway.

yandie is the only one awesome enough to have donated to that worthy cause - and is the winner of a rule 42, inc custom original.  yandie, congratulations and check here to see a recap of what you can choose from.  and the rest of you can go there and hopefully feel shame for not being as awesome as yandie.

yandie is awesome in many ways.  she's an awesome blogger here.  she's canadian, eh.  and a leo.  so it's obvious that not only is she great, but she's WINNING.

yes, charlie sheen reference.  i'm totes in the loop about that.

so i had a quick four-day vacay to new york for my dad's birthday.  my brother and i took him to our fave steakhouse for dinner.  i had three delicious margaritas and two bailey's on the rocks.  and almost hit two different waiters on three occasions.  we were a table of ten - my brother, sisterfromanothermister, my aunt and uncle, cousin and her boyf, and my twin half sisters.  dad talked me into sharing a porterhouse for two with him, which is a HUGE EFFING STEAK of fury.  it's like a 36 ounce steak or something ridiculous.  deliciously ridiculous.

AND THEN i got molested in the bathroom.  my aunt and i headed to the little girl's room to have a wee since we'd drank way more than we should have.  i had washed my hands and was waiting for her when the door opened into me (my fault, i was totes blocking it).  and i lead with my boobs.  and the woman who walked in shouted 'holy boobs!' and asked me how i did that.  i told her a push up bra.  then she started poking me in the tits.

i love my life sometimes.

i also ate more diner food than should be legal, drank too much, slept too little, spent too much money, and gained three pounds.

like i care.

so.  congrats to yandie, go follow her and her awesomeness.  and be sure that you're following my awesomeness or i might sic hand banana on you.  and remember, rape is almost always NOT funny.  but once in a while, it is.

asking you for money

not for me.  but for new zealand.  christchurch was FUCKED UP by the earthquake and one bloggess reader had an ingenious way to try and get some help...

i blame the earthquake - the bloggess

please read there.  do it.  DO IT.

now.  if that story has made you giggle or made you cry a bit, go here.

donate to new zealand red cross

don't think.  just do.  grab a major credit card and go.  the minimum donation is $5.

that's it. $5.  that's all i'm asking.  i know that many of you might not have extra money for things like trips or good vodka or sheeps.  but right now, you have a roof over your head (i'm presuming) and a computer or hand-held device (i know that MUST be true because you're reading this).

so, skip a latte this week.  buy the skyy or absolute this week (or sobieski, my personal fave economy vodka right now).  order in chinese intead of going out for dinner one night.  save that $5 and send it to new zealand.

i gave $20.  it's not a lot, but it's something.  and i'm challenging EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU to go here and fucking give them $5.  if you have it, give $20 like i did.  i have 64 followers, and lots of lurkers.  if you - you reading this right now - give $5, that could potentially add up to hundreds of dollars donated from my readers and blog buddies.

as i posted on jenny's blog - karma is a bitch unless YOU are the one PUTTING THE GOOD OUT THERE.

go put $5 worth of good out there for the kiwis.  and let me know by leaving me a comment with what you gave.  everyone who gives at least $5 will be entered into a drawing to win a limited edition, one of a kind, something awesome!

no, seriously.  i'll raffle off one of my custom made bags or cases from my other business.  which i won't pimp here.

you'll have a choice of a purse/tote bag or a laptop case.

you'll get to choose ONLY ONE.  so donate your $5, post what you donated and your receipt number, and i'll have a grand post with photos of me drawing a name out of a hat or something and one of you will win your choice of AWESOME one of a kind things that i made with my own two hands.

plus, you'll be doing something good.  so get to it people! you have until midnight on sunday 03/06/2011 and i'll draw a winner on like tuesday or wednesday next week.