My Year of Meaningful (2011)

I hate my futon so much. About 2 years ago we moved from the "real" bed in *that* bedroom, onto the futon in *that other bedroom over there* because my dearly beloved was having back problems and supposedly it's better and more orthopedic to sleep on a futon. Well anyway his back started feeling better, but after 2 years of compacting the already-3-year-old futon mattress (even with routine flipping), it started to get harder and harder. I don't deal well with this, and the latest adverse impact of the hard-ass futon mattress is that jill goes to bed complaining every night. I'm convinced that it's just become so compacted that there's no amount of flipping or rotating that will ever get it back to any sort of state that even RESEMBLES the word "soft".

Well anyway I've kinda had a bout with the flu the last 2 days so was able to guilt the poor boy into switching back to the *real* bed on account of the fact I ain't been sleeping I've been so damned uncomfortable the last few weeks. Which could've actually been somewhat responsible for making me get a little sick. boo hoo poor me!

Is THIS true??? Is my beloved home state truly as psycho as it seems to be turning??? You can't be SERIOUS. Come on, SERIOUSLY?!?!? I mean okay, the comic value of coming from banjo-land is pragmatic when I want to get a laugh out of my overseas social-contingent, but now Missouri is really starting to go too far, and that really chaps my hide. Come on, “It’s time to get back to the basics,” HELLO?!?!? You mean the STONE AGE?!?!? I mean, WTF!!?! Maybe I'll just revert back to being a "currently-overseas resident of Wyoming" for P.R.-purposes. Oh wait. Naw, too many people saw "Brokeback Mountain". That'll never work.

Our first tag rugby league game of the season is this sunday. The name of this year's team has officially been selected and much to my dismay, they picked my nomination (it was meant to be a JOKE): "The Scrumbags". It makes more sense when you live in Cork and the word "scumbag" is an everyday component of your vocabulary - meaning dirty, skanky, working-class THUG. Mainly attributed to our city's northside residents. I am a northsider btw. "Scrum" is a rugby term. Anyway. First game on sunday-- apparently we've drawn The Desperate Eagles as our first opponents, which is ironic since that's Ciara's housemates' team, and the only team we managed to arrange a pre-season practice game against. Man, talk about SCUMBAGS, some of the boys on their team look like straight-up Knackers! Whatever, I'm pretty sure we can take them.

I continue to be trapped under the spell of my I-pod Nano. I can't leave home without him. The working day flies by 2 times faster since GOD came into my life. It's..... Like a pacemaker-- I can't work without him, I can't go to the store without him... my husband has taken to referring to him as my "lover". Olivia and I just had a 25 minute-long conversation about our I-babies at work. It's out of control. At least I'm not the only one- - Hey SK, here's one for you... note the spec (2GB Nano) of the Pope's new I-pod... As if we needed any more evidence that we each owned little pieces of divinity!!! "The rumoured iGod aims to contain massive hard drive space for all the music that is past and to come, the ability to stream podcasts from heaven and space and a WiFi transmitter which will enable the Pope to grant indulgences and canonisations by e-mail. " heh heh heheh

I still think it's weird Mike and Heidi and Beth and Ellen all went out to dinner together this past weekend in DC. I'm not so sure about this "turning-your-random-friends-who-happen-to-live-in-the-same-city-and-you-introduced-at-some-party-loose-together-without-you"-thing.... how does that work? Do they talk about you? Do they laugh at your expense since you're ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PLANET? Do they have a better time together WITHOUT you? hmmmmmmmmmm.... I'm just a wee bit nervous over here, guys. What if someone acts like a total freak? What if someone incriminates me and I'm not there to defend myself?? huh?? huh!??! Anyway send me some sort of sign that everyone behaved. And by everyone of course I mean Ellen. And a transcript of absolutley every conversation. Word for word.

Fi and I are organizing a sponsored dog walk for the Sports & Social club's annual Family Day out in May. Money raised will go to greyhound rescue, since my idiot bastard office always insists on having an annual "day at the races", supporting the disgraceful and cruel exploitation of greyhounds in Ireland... this is our philanthropic combat technique. I'm going to try my best to organize some retired/dumped/abandoned greyhounds for the day so that people who don't have a dog to walk can walk them and see how gorgeous they are and what lovely dispositions they have as pets. Here's where my connections with the local animal welfare posse are going to come in handy. Lots of people have signed up already so it should be good.