Another One About Cats. DEAL with it.

So someone had commented to me (outside of the blog world) about "the Wink guy" (mentioned here), and it's actually kind of funny because I never mentioned that this Wink guy is still kind of around... like, in my life...

....yup.

He laughs about me and my blog. Because of course I told him that I mentioned him one time. I toyed with the idea of sending him the link, but that can wait for another day. Maybe.

Anyway. So, last week, the Wink guy and I got into our first "fight." It wasn't a fight at all. But I've been extraordinarily emotional lately (I almost cried during an ASPCA commercial, and it wasn't like I was alone in the room... damn Sarah Mclachlan), and so I pulled some completly girlish move... oh terrible. I am so anti-girl when it comes to bullshit, but hey, it happens, right?

So I end up making him feel really bad... whoops... haha (obviously I am super apologetic... not). He calls (it's about 10am, and I don't have class until 1:25). He's going to stop over. Do I want anything? Coffee? No. Tea? No. Hot chocolate? No. Freeze pops, candy, random list of things I would normally want because I like treats? Nope. I really don't want anything. The sad voice keeps coming out, but I can't help it; once I've slipped in, it's hard to get out.

So I'm laying on the couch watching daytime tv, being totally pathetic but secretly happy that he stopped by. He comes and sits close, almost halfway bent over me, and I guess I have to talk to him. I don't really want to talk about it because I'm embarrassed: I've only recently learned how to really express my emotions like this. So of course I have to pull the "No, it's stupid.. I don't want to talk about it..." thing. He takes it, probably knowing that I'll break down sooner or later (which is also pretty new for me). JesseCat comes over and rubs his head on my dramatically hanging hand.

The Wink guy knows that Jesse has been comforting me all morning. He shifts to an upright position and says, "Since you were so ademant against me getting something for you, I got something for your little guy because I know he's been being there for you." He pulls out a little, bright orange mouse that rattles when you shake it and a bag of kitty treats. JesseCat is very excited and very happy with his new things. And I have to admit that it was really sweet of the Wink guy to get my cat things. He says that he knows he can make me smile.

I'm mad that it works.

But not really mad at all.

* * *

In other cat news, my roommate Ashley bought this book "Stuff On My Cat." I guess it started off as a website, and it's just a book of pictures. Pictures of cats. With stuff on them. Some of them are funny-- showcasing the laziness and/or the lethargical nature of some cats. You know, a cat with a curly mop of plastic hair on its head... a cat sleeping on its back with a bottle of Jose Cuervo strategically placed against its side... a fat cat with a cheeseburger on its back. Hilarity in book form.

Some of them kind of bother me. Like the cover has a cat with a pile of whipped cream on his head (and a cherry). I guess that's kind of funny? But like, the binding little costumes people shove their cats into... that's not even really stuff on your cat. It's putting your cat in something. Stalking around your house to place all your Kill Bill figurines in an epic battle scene on top of your cat is fine... because you're not trying to wake him up or anything. You snap the picture and go. After looking at the book I had to try it. Jessecat was awake, but I still managed to put a bunch of spongey dinosaurs on him and have a really good time. Whatever.

Here's some pictures of stuff on cats. You decide if it's cruel or not:

Creeping on cats is pretty funny... if you can manage to put things on your cat without him waking up, then well done. But I'd imagine stuffing your cat into a little outfit doesn't happen while it's asleep. And I doubt your cat likes it at all.

Spring Break: Fun Tuesday (real pictures to come soon)

So my “social experiment” got put on hold, and I have learned the drawbacks of planning a blog post. See, I rarely make plans. Ever. Because I always break them. So disregard my last entry, but just know that Seven O’s is fun, and we will be there this Wednesday.

Last week was spring break (wooooo! Show us your boobs! Yeahh!). No, no. It wasn’t like that. Now I have to refute the statement I previously made: I can plan things, but they have to be big things, and planning big things with lots of people is difficult. So for my last spring break, I did not do the whole “woo/show us your boobs/Cancun rocks” thing. About two weeks before break, I decided that I was going to take a plane to Florida. My friend Matt (read: ex-boyfriend with a soft ex) has an apartment down in Clearwater because he’s a big deal with Monster.com and is doing big things and making a lot of money. Good for him. Anyway, my roommate and I flew down with Matt basically just not to be in Massachusetts. We were stoked to trade in dead stupid trees for lively palm trees.

So we had a free place to stay AND Matt’s friend lent us his car for the week. Um, can we say nicest kid ever? So we took advantage of the beach and the warmth and the fact that we were hundreds of miles from home. But if you know Jenna and me, you know that we are down for whatever random-ness we can get ourselves into. So I guess I’ll give the top three (random) things we did. Funny thing is that they all happened on the same day.

Clearwater/St. Pete: Fun Tuesday

1) We started our day with a trip down 19S into St. Petersburg. There were only a few things I actually had “planned” on doing and going to the winery was one of them. I had found it online while googling the area, so I had the address and phone number written down. Of course we didn’t call for directions or anything; we just drove until we were in St. Pete (Jenna’s got a great sense of direction). So you know, 45 minutes later, we had only seen a billboard for this place, and it didn’t help us with directions. So we stopped at a gas station and bought a map. The man behind the counter asked us where we were going and then offered directions. We took his directions. They led us to a drawbridge. . . that wasn’t going down. We waited for a while before turning around and getting back on 19 and looking at the map.

“Okay, Central Ave. runs right into Pasadena Ave South. I remember seeing it up there; it was the only one that wasn’t a numbered avenue,” I explain to Jenna. I am her trusty copilot for the week because I can’t drive stick. We find the turn and take some guesses. Finally we start seeing little green signs with outlines of grapes on them: WINERY. Yes. After some crafty maneuvering (Jenna never just turns around), we make it to the winery, which pretty much resembles a little grey shack (nothing compared to the winery I went to in Sicily, but that’s a whole different ballpark).

So we hop out of the car. I tug on my little black and white dress as I slip on my strappy, kitten-heeled sandals. Of course the first question Jenna asked that morning was, “Ooh, what do we wear to a winery?” She went for the black gauchos and a tan tank top with a long necklace of random stones. We are quite classy broads.

Jenna insists that she has a sweating problem as we approach the door. She has me check out her back, but I don’t see any wet marks. Seriously! She tells me that she will kill me if there are any. We walk into the winery silently but smiling as we both fold our sunglasses up from our eyes and into our front roots.

We’re busted as soon as we walk in. A lady greets us as we peek around the gift shop. A tasting bar sits against the far wall. “Have you ever been here before?” she asks with a light Southern accent.

“No,” we shyly smile like a cute boy has just kissed our hand.

“Well, this is our gift shop. We make all of our wines without using any grapes. We offer a tasting, that is if you girls are over 21, which it looks like you might be,” she tells us as we try not to let our eyes light up, “and there’s a little tour you can take-”

“I want to do that first,” I quietly interrupt. I don’t know if she hears me, but I know Jenna understands because she likes order to events, too (first we learn then we booze).

The “tour” ends up being a little DVD thing to watch, so we pretend to watch intently. Jenna already knows all about the fermentation process because she’s a Hotel Management and Tourism major, and she’s taking a class in beverage management (we took bartending and got TIPS certified together). After the show is over, a younger gent comes up to us and asks what we thought and if we wanted to partake in any tasting today.

We’re already on our way to the far side of the shack.

Another young gent is behind the bar. He has a ponytail and glasses and a sleeve of bluish-green flame tattoos covering her right forearm. He starts by questioning our “normal” wine drinking habits, and we joke about anything that comes out of a box or jug. Taking into account our girlish giggles and taste for something light, he decides to start with a mystery wine. His hand covers the label as he pours two tastes. Since the DVD had taught us how to taste wine, we play connoisseurs as we try to figure out the mystery of this light yellow liquid. I want to say “apples” because of the crispness of it, but I doubt they have any apples down here. Jenna guesses some sort of citrus because, duh, we’re in Florida. We’re wrong. It’s made from carrots.

“It has more antioxidants than pretty much anything ever,” he tells us. I think about my mom because she’s always drinking pomegranate juice and the likes for the antioxidants, but I decide that we can do way better than the carrot stuff.

We taste a good amount of wines before poking around the shop and tasting a few more. Your pallet gets all muddled though, so tasting lots of different wines without a food cleansing in between doesn’t offer very much.

We settle on “Mango Mama,” which the bar gent refers to as “happy girl wine.” I buy a bottle for the fam and a bottle of Mango-Mama-champagne for when we graduate. We grab a couple little souvenir glasses as well, and we’re out the door. Florida sunshine just gets better with a little sweet wine (I don’t know why I just typed that. I don’t know why I felt the need to wrap that all up like that. I think I am getting back into travel writing mode, but I’m not going to edit this, and I am totally rambling blog style right now… weird…).

2) Jenna stole some tourist guides from the winery, so I looked into a place to eat for lunch. She had already mentioned Hooters, and I was obviously game-on (sprrrrring breeeeeak!!!!). So there happens to be one on Gulf to Bay Boulevard in Clearwater. I recognize that road because it’s near Drew Street… and that’s near Matt’s apartment. So we follow our instincts (well, I look out the window, it’s Jenna who has the instincts), and all of a sudden, she points out, “Hey, do you think those orange letters are it?” Beat. Yessss. So we head into the grey shack-like building (weird how many shack-like grey buildings there are around this place). We obviously judge the waitresses because, like, you just have to. I am all about inner-beauty and stuff, but like, if you work at Hooters… anyway, our waitress is just kinda scary, but she is nice. We order a pitcher and talk about the happy hour laws that Massachusetts doesn’t allow. In fact, there are lots of drinking laws down here that we wished we had… 2-for-1’s and the likes. We think it’s smart that our waitress comes back with a baggie of ice to put in our pitcher, but obviously she doesn’t know how we Northern girls can drink. Pitchers shouldn’t be allowed to get cold.

As we look at the menu, we notice that it says “The Original” on it. No. Could it be? We read the history on the back. Oh my. We have landed ourselves on a physical piece of American history! The Original Hooters! We enjoy our meals but now it’s kind of naptime. We look for some sort of cool merch at the store, but it was all pretty lame (on our ‘senior skip day’ in high school, we all went to Hooters in Boston [after the science museum] and bought shirts [mine said ‘Hooters Girls Think I’m Hot’—it was for little boys]. Then the next day we all got in trouble for wearing them. Apparently one of the teachers was offended. And by “we all,” I mean my music teacher was like, “Kris, sing your part… all your friends are being called down to the office” [Thanks Mr. Nick!]). So we left empty-handed but super-full. We pulled out of the back of the parking lot only to discover this beautiful, big, pink building with large windows: the Hooters Corporate Building! Hahaha. I love the fact that they kept the restaurant a shack and hid the expensive building way back behind it. We took pictures on their sign.

3) Our afternoon tradition was to go back to Matt’s apartment and chill out while watching a bad movie on TV. In one of our little tourist guides there was a dolphin cruise being offered… with unlimited beer and wine… and we had a coupon for $2 off! So back to Clearwater Beach for this little excursion. $18 for a boat ride to see dolphins was justifiable I guess, but the free beer and wine were what tied it all together. The boat holds up to 125 passengers, but there were about a fifth of that number onboard. We had planned on going to on the sunset cruise, so you can imagine how romantic it was for Jenna and me. We did see a bunch of dolphins. And it was really cool because they were all jumping in the wake (a whole family of them… totally sweet).

So as if being the two girls on the cruise who were obviously in it to drink wasn’t enough, I think everyone assumed we were a couple (or at least that’s what some of my comments made them think… muahaha). And on top of this, right as the sun went down behind the water, they started playing the Titanic song! I almost died laughing. After crying a little. Crying from laughing. Guys? Come on.

Anyway, the boat cruise was about 75 minutes long, and we both managed to put down about 6 drinks. So we were all fired up for a night on the town. Not to mention we forgot about eating dinner. And not to mention that we only spent $10 on drinks for the rest of the time we were in Clearwater…

It was a good time.

The Prequel

So I don't usually plan what I blog. Sometimes things are just on my mind or I reach for random things and see where they take me. This week, however, will be different. I don't want to give away too many details because there is a chance that my little "social experiment" won't work out (or that it just won't be very interesting).

One of my good friends (back from The Palladium show days) had been living elsewhere for the past few years, so I didn't get to see him very often. He actually moved back to West Springfield somewhat recently, and we were all stoked that we'd get to hang out a lot more now, but I forgot about the fact that I am constantly busy during the week with tons of homework and such, and then I tend to get lost in my weekends (it really is nearly impossible for me to make plans because I break them). Since I have been being neglectful of my duty to hang out and have fun with Mr. West Springfield for some time, I decided to actually make an effort; oh yes, look at me being all forward and plan-formulating.

So I come up with this idea: Wednesday night - dinner - Seven O's - Fun. (In case you didn't feel like clicking that link, it's a bar that offers karaoke on Wednesday nights). ((Probably no cats allowed))


I throw this idea out to my roommate Sharon (the one in the middle), who has recently filled our apartment with Guitar Hero, Dance Dance Revolution, and Karaoke Revolution (the Playstation2 Workout triathlon). She is game on. I said we could go to the GoTen, but then somehow we started talking about food (surprise, surprise) ((and by "surprise" I mean I am a sarcastic broad)), and then we started talking about "Billy's Chicken"-- her mom's recipe that somewhat resembles Chicken Divan, minus the Worcestershire, garlic powder, and lemon... oh and tons of cheddar cheese on top instead of whatever that recipe suggested. Basically, Sharon volunteered to make this dinner for us all-- saving everyone money that will probably be spent at the bar.

So it should be a pretty entertaining night. And my "social experiment" involves this guy:

...and that's all you're getting for now.

"Yeah, and you're really working that dimple!"

I had talked about potentially bartending at the Palladium a few weeks ago. It actually didn't work out, which is fine because it gives me more weekend nights at UMass. But the other night, my friend called and left me a message about potentially waitressing at there for Friday night. It paid $100 plus tips, and since I'm leaving for Florida in a week, I was game on. I have never waitressed before in my life, and I didn't really understand how it'd work in a venue like this, considering I'd only ever been to concerts there. But I didn't really ask any questions.

It ended up being a boxing thing, which was interesting in itself. Joe Siciliano, a local police detective from central Mass, was to fight Eric "Butterbean" Esch-- a professional boxer that every guy seemed to know... I guess he was in Jackass or whatever. Yeah, whatever. I won't even pretend to know what I'm talking about here, but this guy knows a lot about this stuff, and I actually stumbled upon his blog while trying to figure out what the hell I was getting myself into. This pretty much sums it all up.

So I cocktail waitressed from 7-10. It was an interesting experience... and I made more money than I really should have. I kind of knew what to expect, but I was just so out of my element that I couldn't even pretend to be flirty: I was more on the defense (haha). But I did what I had to do, and maybe people could tell I was new at this because, as the night went on, people just kind of threw money at me.

I hung out for a while after the fights were over. I actually knew a few people working, and I also met a bunch of new people-- all of them were really great, so working was a good time. Since I had lost my phone a few weeks ago (and purposely didn't try to re-fill it with all the numbers I had), I thought about going to the bar by myself... but decided I still wasn't ready for that. A (somewhat random) kid had called while I was working, seeing what I was up to. I'm terrible at making plans, but doing things on the fly is where I excell. So I called him up, and he was surprised that I was in Worcester. He was meeting his friends at Mahoney's Pub on Park Ave, so I figured I'd meet up with them.

But first, since I hadn't eaten all night, I stopped at Taco Bell (check out this Nutrition Calculator for the place). And waited in the Drive-Thru line for way too long, but that $1.35 burrito (which wasn't even that good) was still worth it. So I eat said burrito in the parking lot across from Mahoney's and call my friend to come meet me outside because, for whatever reason, I didn't want to walk into a bar by myself.

His friends were nice, and we made jokes about syphilis because apparently syphilis is hilarious (and I just had to look up how to spell "syphillus"). His friends were heading down to Irish Times, which is right across from The Palladium (where I thought about going until I realized that I am very over this bar and covercharges and overpriced drinks). We had a pitcher to finish, so we stayed behind, and this is where it felt like I accidently went on a date (he even said at one point that he felt he was "on an episode of Blind Date").

I'm not an awkward person, so I have no problem shooting the shit with "strangers." He (his name is PJ) is the "cousin" of one of my really good friends from home ("cousin" in the sense that they aren't blood related, but their dads are best friends, so they grew up together like cousins). We laughed because my friend told me that if PJ wanted to hang out, I shouldn't (I also don't bullshit about things-- people either love it or hate it, but I just like to throw everything out there).

So I don't even know what we talked about. But he thinks I'm funny, and I let him know that I'm really not a funny person (I know funny people, and I am not one of them). But I'm biting and sarcastic, so sometimes people find it charming (ha ha ha). Anyway, I think it got to the point in the night where I felt the need to put him on the spot, so I threw out the statement: "So tell me something interesting." It's actually quite an arrogant move, like I'm someone so important that I need to be impressed by "something interesting" instead of regular conversation that comes up.

So I'll get to the point of this story. I think I mentioned before how I think of "blog life" and "real life" separately for the most part, but sometimes things I blog about come up in real life conversation (I think I summed it up in the first paragraph of this guy). So when the "tell me something interesting" was reversed on me, my mind went to The Sun Also Rises (and my boy Hemingway), so I told PJ about the 6-word challenge and how I took it on as a mantra. So, we needed the figurative drumroll before I could actually tell him what Hemingway came up with, so he went and got a piece of paper and a pen, and I wrote down Hemingway's story.

He looked at it, and I think he saw what excited me (I mean I told him that I could see it at work on so many different levels). He asked if I wanted to know what he thought. Of course I did; I'd never thought to ask anyone else what they felt when they read it. So he took the pen and wrote one word underneath it: Opportunity. I almost freaked out because that is the farthest thing on my spectrum, and his explanation would take it even further away. It was incredible. After we talked about it for a little while, I asked him if he wanted to see what I saw in those words. I took the pen and wrote above the story: Miscarriage.

Needless to say, we had more to discuss, and I fell in love with the story even more. I can't decide if it's his business or masculine side (okay I can, definitly the business background said "Opportunity"). I can't decide where MY interpretation came from. Maybe it's a woman thing: you know, that whole having children thing. Maybe it's something else. I don't know, but I'm glad the blogosphere made an appearance on my accidental date.

Just A Quickie

On the bus this afternoon, I happened to overhear just a couple things from the boy sitting behind me. I was counting the words of one of the things he said, thinking it could be cool as a 6-worder, and then he said something else (about a completly unrelated thing), and I thought it worked really well:

Stays up all night: Oh Jesus.

Yeah, think about it. I mean, it's not as brilliant as Hemingway, but you can go a lot of directions with it. Hm. I like it.

Name Drops Like Whoa

Are there any other graduating seniors out there? I feel like [adult ]people ask me all the time, "So how do you feel about graduating?" Um, I don't. In fact, I'm too busy to feel anything about anything right now, and when I do have the time to think about stuff, it's just weird.


And then comes the next question: "So what are you going to do after graduation?"

Maybe grad school? But I don't know if I want to do that right away.

But what would you study?

Rhetoric and Composition.

Blank stare.


I don't know if I want to go right away. My mind goes back and forth. And I'm not as excited as I once was about the whole venture, but that could go back to just not having time to feel anything about anything right now.

So there's that. After last week's Adventures in Blogging class (I'm the only one who calls it that) ((and by the only one who calls it that, I mean I just wrote it for some reason right now and didn't delete it)), I stuck around with Kevin and Brett, and somehow my future came up. We were talking about spring break and Brett's plans to go to Las Vegas, and I came up with the idea that I should be a professional poker player. Who cares about teaching kids to write... I should be coming up with witty catchphrases and planning out what outfit would say "I'm a serious player but I came here to party as well." (Brett actually nailed how I really feel about the wit of the professional poker player in his blogpost here)

But then there comes that whole skill thing... and the effort... oh right. And the fact that I would probably suck and lose a lot of money. But they said I could easily make $70K as a poker correspondent (?) or something like that...? And Kevin knows all about movies, so of course he knows about these kinds of things, too.

So I told Brett to make me some contacts out in Vegas. You know, because it is that easy.

If grad school (right away) and being a poker slut don't pan out, I do actually have something I've come across. Actually, one of my professors emailed our class about it, and it's been in the back of my mind all weekend.

I guess the job title is a "Culture Assitant." I'd be living in Spain, teaching English, and working on my Spanish. It's 12 hours a week in a classroom with elementary or secondary school kids for 8 months (October-May). I'd only make about $820 a month, but I have no idea what the cost of living there... and I'd have a lot of free time to pick up some other kind of job...

I don't know. If anyone speaks intermediate to advanced Spanish, maybe you'd like to check it out.

You know what? I'm just not feeling very bloggy today. It's been a long week, and I've been getting these really intense headaches, but that's enough about that. Read Brett's blog and give me the Cliff's Notes on what I need to know about poker.