"...but you don't even have kids!"

This phrase was recently said to me not once, but twice. Twice negating the value of my time.


When do you wake up in the morning? I wake up around 6:45, allowing me time to eat breakfast, check my email (and by email I mean facebook) and get pretty for the day. 6:45, which was fifteen minutes after the suggested meet time. I don't think so. It was assumed I'd be up for the early morning task, which was met with a big fat "Heck no!" from me.


"But you don't even have kids"


That's right. I also don't have influenza, rickets, a mold infestation or a host of other things that might make it difficult for me to get up and out of the house at such an ungodly hour. I don't have kids, but what does that have to do with anything? If I have children I have a legitimate reason to wake up at 5:30 in the AM, but if I don't have kids I don't have a legitimate reason to not get up at 5:30 in the AM.... As I struggled to wrap my brain around what this meant I couldn't reach any sort of logical conclusion. I can only guess it is because people who have children feel very validated by their ability to reproduce. A validation that supercedes anything I might have going on in my life.

So I've decided I need to fabricate some reasons for the future as to why I will not be able to meet my coworkers 2 hours before the work day begins...

... because my religion forbids me to drive before sunrise...
... because my inner city outreach program requires me to hand out coffee until 7:45...
... because I'll be too busy punching you and your kids in the face...
... because I'm memorizing New Moon word for word, which constitutes at least an hour of heavy reading every morning...
... because my dog ate my homework...
... and your kid...
... and just because it's called a "quick getaway" doesn't mean it doesn't take time to plan...

If you've experienced any sort of discrimination due to the fact that you are not a mother or father feel free to use any or all of these excuses against your critics. After all, the best use of your time is what you decide, and that should be apparent to us all.

I want...

- Equality
- One of those California Pizza Kitchen personal sized Sicilian pizzas sitting in my freezer
- For Emmy to brush her own stanky teeth
- To figure out something to wear tomorrow
- To wake up in my parents house to the smell of coffee and the sound of Winston barking while Tim & Nan talk over each other
- some gumbo
- For the couch sized pile of laundry sitting next to me to wash and fold itself
- A kinder disposition
- More focus at work
- To move to a respectable dwelling and...
- Some sense of organization when it comes to that dwelling
- You to have a good day
- A margarita on the rocks/patio/beach
- A family of my own someday
- About a dozen Cadbury Eggs.... self control, self control, self control....
- To be blonde again
- This to last a very, very long time....

Wham That Lamb!

So I was scrolling through my past blogs and realized there has been no fluidity to my blog "labels". Generally people categorize their blogs, whether it be "gossip" or "work" or "relationships" .....my labels are as random and meaningless as my blogs. They are floating freely in the cosmos. In an attempt to bring some sort of balance and purpose to my blog I have chosen to revisit said labels, and expand on each one. My first choice is "Lost Childhood Memories".

When I was younger I had a thing for stuffed animals. No, not like "a thing", but in true young girl fashion I thought stuffed animals were the end all, be all of cool. I had an endless stash of plush which was dominated by my comprehensive Pound Puppy collection. Something you should know about my Pound Puppies is that they all had names, voices and specific rolls. They were a family, but not just any family - they were the McPuppies. We (my brothers and I) developed this name after the beloved Marty McFly of Back to the Future, so of course there was his stuffed doppelganger Marty McPuppy. With the character profiles in place we were primed to play "dolls" with my "Loveable, Huggable Puppies who need a home"

The fun was not limited to those of the puppy persuasion though. There were others that joined in on the action, first and foremost a pair of stuffed, bean-bag sheep that had a Laurel & Hardy thing going on. They spoke in an incoherent dribble of "Bah bah-bah bah, BAH-BAAAAAH!!" You think I'm kidding.... I'm not. And all the animals lived in the happy existence that we made for them, working at McPuppies (that's right, they owned a restaurant) and just being cool. There were slow times, and in these slow times the puppies yearned for something more. We obliged. So we devised a game show for the pups to play. The game show was called "Wham That Lamb!" and went a little something like this:

The two lambs (one was named Lamby, and I'm not positive but I think they both might have been named Lamby) were hung by shoelaces in my brother's closet. We then rubber banded mouse traps to a board and propped the board against the back wall of the closet. The stage was set, and all we needed were some participants from the audience. Bruiser, Marty, Biff, Whopper, they all took turns answering "questions" from the host, and if they answered correctly (which they always did; my pound puppies were no fools) then the host/audience (my brothers and I) would all scream "WHAM! THAT! LAMB!" and the player would hit the hanging lamb as hard as they could, launching Lamby and/or Lamby toward the mousetrap. If the trap was sprung, and an appendage was caught in the trap the contestant would win! If the trap was not sprung.... we would just keep trying until it was. And thus "Wham That Lamb" was born, and the three of us discovered another way to misspend our youth.

Thanks mom and dad.

9 times (in the voice of Ed Rooney)

This was the ninth Valentine's season I have worked at the Candy Wrapper. Ninth. I'll spare you all the grim details of enduring this manic holiday in a 10x30 fluorescently lit box, mostly because I've already recounted it with most of you. You can't fully appreciate how intense it gets unless you've worked it. If you've ever waited tables on a game day you have a small idea of the horror.

Every year is a little different; every anxiety attack slightly more alarming. Just kidding... kind of. Valentine's hasn't given me an anxiety attack in, ohhh at least 3 years. But seriously folks, it's good to be on this side of the nervous breakdown. Especially when I got to work with such a lovely bunch of high school girls.

So, as another Valentine's Day comes to a close I am resting easy. There were no tears, no under the breath expletives, no freak outs, no weeping in the fetal position on the bathroom floor, no shaking caused by exhaustion or loss of faculties due to hunger..... at least not by me, save for the expletives.

Until next year V-Day...

And I? I took the one less traveled by.

Oh, how the roads of living wind us mercilessly about. Turning through cities almost untraveled only to arrive at a familiar end. I can't help but wonder as I travel the roads, arms outstretched like a childish airplane, where they will be taking me next. Yes, I wonder....

I was walking a trail eleven months further along in the year two thousand and eight when I found myself rinsing hair color out of my newly blond locks. Blond matched this journey perfectly, but it seemed fate, or inertia or some... thing had a different idea. The warm water touched my head with a familiar comfort. Primarily the wonderful sensation of clean, but secondly a firm reminder of home, of routine, of - blond. Water pooled into the dye for a brief second before running down my back, into the tub, down the drain... goodbye... I stepped forward, perhaps in some tiny moment of precognisance, only to feel a sharp thud between my shoulder blades. I realized before I had fully revolved what had happened...


Yes. In a true Cosmo Kramer moment the shower head tore away from the pipes leaving me defenseless against the overwhelming water pressure. Unable to divert the violent stream (after all, a primary function of a shower head is to direct the flow of the water. No head, no direction) I pressed my body against the shower wall, scarcely avoiding my foe. My hand darted with stealth like precision to cut off the water supply. I was safe - for now.

It was here my journey took a sharp turn. Imagine me, meandering somewhat carelessly down a dirt path, my blonde hair lightly wafting behind me in a breeze. Then I am stopped by a sudden shift in the path. I pivot on my heels and face my body down the long, inescapably straight highway laid out before me. I pause briefly considering my options, but there are no options. In a very cruel turn of events I am faced with one and only one choice. My eyes fix on what awaits me, never straining for I already know of what I will see. The festering cesspool that is Wal-Mart on a saturday afternoon. Seriously life? Was this turn really necessary?

It was poetic I suppose that I already knew where the shower heads were located. Not because I'd bought one before, but because years before during sleepless nights (sleeplessness caused by some other woe of a young woman) I had wandered the aisles looking for something to spend my money on. Something that, for however short a time would bring me solace. I clearly had not found that before on the shower head aisle, but today I would. I speedwalked around old women in motorized buggies, and dodged single mothers, cowboys and shoplifters. I grumbled and cursed under my breath (not very far under) at my present circumstances: wet hair, splotchy skin, and the noticeable smell of Nice 'n Easy. People stared, not that it was tricky to figure out my situation. They watched with annoyed wonder, as if I was somehow bothering them. Because, afterall the greatest burden of this entire situation was the inconvenience I placed on the unsuspecting people of Wal-Mart. And then the coup de grâce.... with the hostility growing ever heavier in the air I, in one fatal blow shattered the patience of all those around me when I, ever so graciously, pardoned my way across the check out lane to the register next to me and grabbed *gasp* the daily newspaper. That was it. I had pressed my luck once too many. I sought sanctuary with the cashier, fumbling to complete the transaction but not even she offered an olive branch as I had commited the unforgivable sin of reading current events... in her check out line no less.

I ran as fast as I could out of the gates of hell, down the long, stretching highway I had weathered. I ran as fast as my feet could carry me until in a startling instant I was back on my path. I took a moment to stop my dizzying mind. The loops and curls of the day had proven too much for me and my newly blonde hair that didn't seem to sparkle quite as brightly now. I didn't like the direction I had chosen. A direction that earlier had seemed so unavoidable, but now in the afterglow of my misery seemed so carelessly unnecessary.

Cautiously I faced myself forward, brushed my yellow hair behind my shoudlers, and kept walking.

Greetings from the dark side

Hello blog-o-sphere!!!

I apologize for my extended absence. Forget about the great crash of '29, let's talk about the great crash of '08. I'm speaking of course about my computer. Yes, after so many semi-faithful years my desktop has bit the big one.

I'm so anxious to get back and talk about all the ridiculous goings-on of my absurd life. Hopefully my tax return will prove large enough to purchase a fancy schmancy new desk top (or dare I say... a laptop...).

Until then peeps!

My inadvertent John Voight-a-thon

They say good things come in three's (or is it bad things?). Perhaps that explains how I found myself nestled into the third installment of a weekend long John Voight Trilogy. I know what you're thinking "Sarah, with all the wonderful movies Mr. Voight has given us how could you choose just three?!" Well the answer is I didn't choose them, they chose me.

Yesterday I was watching my Netflix. After polishing off Shrek: the Third I moved on to Bratz: the movie. Can it, all of you. This brings us to act one of our J.V. saga. Although he only had a small supporting roll (with an inexplicable prosthetic nose) he did not disappoint. Whilst I was watching this great cinematic accomplishment I received an invite to see 4 Christmases at the movie theatre. I was excited to see this fine holiday flick, but I was even more delighted to discover Reese Witherspoon's father was played by none other than *drumroll* JOHN VOIGHT! Twice in one day? Christmas had come early!

The two events individually meant nothing, it wasn't until tonight that the trifecta was complete. I decided to toss in a movie for some background noise. Having recently purchased National Treasure 2 I thought this would be a nice choice. The previews didn't even run their course before I realized what I'd done - that's right. John Voight... you omnipresent bastard. As my findings began to soak in I experienced a whole 'nother kind of enlightenment....

Jack Skellington danced before me, his big black eyes staring through the tube....

As I glossed over the preview I was flooded with memories of the first time I saw The Nightmare Before Christmas. I was 10, and I had just been released from the hospital (true story, although it does add a nice dramatic effect). In the children's hospital patients are allowed to choose their menu in an effort to make things just a little more exciting. Unsure of what to order I turned to my mom for guidance. Chicken strips or meatloaf? Jello or ice cream? There were plenty of acceptable options, but one I didn't recognize. I asked my mom what "chicken teriyaki" was. All of the sudden the room grew dim and a spotlight beamed down over my mother. It's as if God himself were describing this delectable dish..... the brown rice was nestled all warm in it's sauce while visions of snap peas danced in my head...That's sounds good. I'll have that. I grabbed my orange crayon and drew a thick circle around the words. Crayola approved, and so did I.

The next day I was released... without warning, and without my chicken teriyaki. At this point I should've been happy I was going home, but all I could think about was my taste of the Orient lost. That weekend my mom, being the grand mother that she is, allowed me to venture out of the house. Still fragile and worn by my two-week stay in the hospital, Nan and I went to Movies 16 to see The Nightmare Before Christmas, but first we grabbed some lunch. There was a new restaurant in the mall called "Mandarin Express". It was there I tasted my first chicken teriyaki; it was there my love for fine Asian cuisine was born.

...Jack Skellington danced before me, his big black eyes staring through the tube... What did it all mean? Was it Tim Burton that lead me to one of the great loves of my life, or was it my mother who lead me to John Voight? It all flowed together in a David Lynch-ian sort of way, and it tasted good.