Ac-cen-tuate the Positive

The last month has been pretty nasty for me. Lots of gross, sad things happening and it was all too easy for me to get lost in them and forget about the great things, the amazing things. Well my trip home this past weekend got me past a lot of that.

I'm not going to go into why I'm re-prioritizing because it's not my story to tell, but suffice it to say that the things that seemed so huge and scary just days ago have been made ludicrous. My problems are laughable and I've had a very good time the last two days doing just that.

So I've got some amazing, fantastic, unbelievably awesome news (at least for me). I mentioned earlier my possible trip across the pond to the U.K., it's now a total go. My middle sister, Meg, is already in Swansea doing a study abroad program at University. My youngest sister and I will be going over to see her on (or around) May 15.

This was all brought about by two fabulous ladies that have done more for us girls than anyone should, especially considering how terrible we are at keeping in contact with them. Our Fairy Godmothers have given us their hard won frequent flier miles.

Excuse me, I'm not sure if you heard me . . . WE'RE GOING TO FLY TO AND FROM LONDON FO' FREEZIE.

I'm going International bitches! It's Callie - the World Tour. I'm spending a week in England and Ireland with my fabulous sisters, doing fabulous things, seeing castles, going to the sea-side, and pretending to be posh.

I promise not to do a fake British accent, but I can't promise to stop being awesome.

I can feel the eye-rolls from you world travelers out there, but I'm pointedly ignoring you. I've never been farther than Canada and Mexico. I'm going to be taking a huge, international plane. I'm going to be jet-lagged. I'm going to see London, I'm going to meet the Queen (okay, maybe I'll just be a creep and tour her palace - OMG I'm going to be in a palace!!!), I'm going to make faces at the palace guard, I'm going to visit places where Jane Austin lived, I'm going to drink myself silly in an Irish pub, I'm going to get my picture taken on the bridge where The Quiet Man was filmed, I'm going to meet a handsome Irishman and have a torrid affair that will end after a drunken kiss when Meg pulls me off and reminds me about CG. I will then try to set up Meg with said Irishman because she needs to have little Irish-brogue-speaking babies.

Meanwhile, my youngest sister, Myme, will be singing Danny Boy with the best of them and will be asked to stay in Ireland to attend University there on a vocal scholarship and get her law degree in Dublin or some equally charming local.

Okay so the last bit, after the bridge from The Quiet Man will most likely not happen, but it's my dream sequence and I'll end it how I want.

So if any of you are "world travelers" yourself, hell, if you've ever looked through a book about England and thought, "well that would be neat to see" please feel free to give advice, or tell me about places of interest, things to do, foods to eat, beer to drink, or places to stay.

Thanks and YAY ME!!!!

Having Goals . . . maybe

So, my whole Katie the Dog fiasco is turning a bit hopeful. I took the monster home last weekend to my hometown vet and we decided to give her a month to heal by herself. The Vet doesn't believe it's as serious as the ER vet did. So we've got her on some anti-inflammatory and stuck in her cage for about 22 hours a day. I feel terrible, but a little discomfort for a month is totally worth it if she doesn't have to have invasive surgery.

Dog drama down to a minimum *thumbs up*

I also got my hair cut this weekend - that's one goal for 2010 down. LMAO

I'm still working on the travel thing. Since we aren't sure yet if Katie is going to need surgery in a month or not I'm in a holding pattern right now. If she needs the surgery I won't be going anywhere for a while, if not then I'll get to fulfill one of my goals for the year. I just have to get my ass in gear and get my friggin' passport. *goes to google search local locations*

In other news, I had a wonderful Valentines weekend, which included a nicely violent hockey game with box seats and a delicious Budweiser beer, and a taco bake casserole with cheapish pink champagne. I'm the fucking classiest broad EVAR. I also got my ass kicked by Current Guy at basically every Wii Sports game. Tragic.

Happy New Year (2 Weeks Late)

So we leave Nashville and begin another 7 hour trip to our final destination, a cabin on the Smokey Mountains. CG continues to drive, I feel a little bad, but not bad enough to volunteer for the position. Meg plays more college rock, Myme and I play more Pokemon (I forgot how addictive that game is and I'm only a little ashamed of how much I enjoy it).

We get there and it's really just beautiful, the cabin is big and everything that could be made of wood was. There's a hot tub and a Foosball table, a lake and a gorgeous view. Honestly, I spend half of trip sick in bed, getting up occasionally to play pinochle or rummy or cuddle next to CG feeling sorry for myself. The other half was spent reading, playing more pinochle and rummy, and then going to a cave our last day there.

I know, I know, I was in the mountains I should have hiked, explored, seen the sites. You're right of course, but two things prevented that - 1. There were snow storms in the surrounding areas that closed pretty much everything and 2. I'm lazy and like to lay around doing nothing on my vacation. Don't judge me.

On the 30th some of Mom's friends from Alabama came over with REALLY good Mexican beer and nachos. I like Mom's friends a lot.

New Years Eve a few of us went out to dig up fireworks since FES is from Germany and they always do fireworks for the new year. They managed to find some and came home. That night Dad and Meg set them off, but they were nothing in comparison to our next door neighbors. These guys were drunk and had explosives the size that a small town would buy for the 4th of July. They were nicely drunk and still managed to get a few aimed right and when that happened the display was beautiful. However, I'd say at least 40% ended up hitting their deck, our deck, our house, other houses, or a person. The next day we found our vacation agreement with the people we rented the house from, it explicitly said no fireworks - woops.

So that last full day at the cabin CG, Dad, Grandpa, Meg, and I squeeze into a car, and head down the mountain to a cavern, one of the few things that remained open and snow free. I adore caves, seriously, I'll drive hours to walk around in one. First glance this thing looked shady and we weren't sure it would be worth it. We went anyway, and it was totally worth it.

The caverns were beautiful and our tour guide was epic. He was the most useless human being I've ever met in my life, he ruined the endings to 3 movies, talked about his girlfriend's 25 pound 16 month baby, showed us parts of the cave that looked like sexual organs (Grandpa was RIGHT THERE), and was just generally the negative southern stereo type that I know to be false for the bulk of the population. He provided wonderful conversation for the ride home until Dad was pulled over and given a speeding ticket by a county mounty. Then we talked about that.

Our trip home was much the same, CG driving, Meg and her music, Myme and I reading Dean Koontz and Laurel Hamilton respectively (don't judge us, it's vacation we can read trash if we want).

I just wanted my oil changed . . .

I was getting my oil changed last night after work and was talking to the manager. Every time I come in he has something off-topic and inappropriate to talk to me about.

Last time he talked about famous people he found attractive and wanted to sex up. Then asked me the same question, males and females. Me being me, I of course immediately spouted off about my lust/love for Angelina Jolie and Scarlet Johansson. Then he got graphic and started talking about his fantasies, luckily my phone rang and I was able to end the conversation.

This time he talked to me about how he left work early the day before so that he could go to the nearest bar and drink. How he's pretty sure he's an alcoholic because of it and that he just doesn't care. He continued to enumerate on the virtues of drinking until you pass out in the middle of the day and can't remember anything.

I have no problem with either of these topics when discussed with friends, but the random ass guy that I'm trusting to change the oil in my car? Not so much.

What about me says, feel free to tell me inappropriate and off topic information about your personal life?

It happens all the time. I'm just trying to be polite in the supermarket line, say Good morning, how are you? and then have to listen as some random girl tells me about the boy she had sex with last night and how tired she is today because of it.

I readily admit to being the Queen of TMI, in fact, it's a running joke with most of my friends. However I try to control myself enough to to NOT talk about it with the man trying to repair my cable.

The End of an Era?

I went to a wedding over the weekend and it was just wonderful. As a general rule I'm not a fan of other people's weddings. I usually find them boring and pointless. The only exception to this rule is close family.

With close family I have no problem acting like a moron out on the dance floor, am usually very familiar with the venue because I've spent the entire day setting up, I've got tons of people I can talk to, and I can get the bride and groom whatever gift I want because I'm family god-damn it and I don't have to look at their registry if I don't want to.

This one was good, besides all of the aforementioned perks my cousin's band played and my cousin-in-laws father was the DJ. I also learned the Cupid Shuffle, got alcohol spit on me on the dance floor, colored a Strawberry Shortcake picture, kept the fondue table going, and had some of my aunts famous pickles (they were delicious as usual).

I got some other amazing wedding news yesterday. A very close, very good friend of mine from college is getting married on Friday. It's very small, very quiet, and at the courthouse. She doesn't want any presents, any cards, or any hoopla. She's honestly the last girl I expected to get married, just because she's always said that she wouldn't.

I'm glad that she's getting married the way that she is. I figured she and her SO would marry at some point and if they did I figured it would be very small and quiet. I also have to admit that I wondered from time to time if they weren't married already and just not telling anyone. It just makes sense from a financial and health coverage perspective.

So yay for them as well! There are weddings everywhere. That means only 1 college girlfriend, 3 high school girlfriends, and no family members (for the next few years at least), left unmarried.

They're closing ranks people. Fight the power! Or give in . . . you know, whichever you prefer.

Bachelorette Adventures Pt. 3

The final installment.

So we get back from the work out, eat some pizza, the bride-to-be opens her severely risque gifts, we drink some more and decide to go to a bar.

We start looking for a bar that is near the club we're going to later. We park and start walking down the street. At this point a scary old man comes out of a smoke filled bar and starts following us shouting, "You're whores, you're whores." At first we though he was saying, "You're home, you're home." But after he followed us into the bar still yelling "whores" at us we figured it out. He continued to hang around as we did shots, picked out music on the jukebox and generally ignored him.

At one point he cornered the bride-to-be and started talking to her about romantic songs and how soon she was getting married. I went over and not so subtly turned my back on him, cutting off his view of her and the conversation.

We hung out there for a while, played some pool, took some dares which involved me doing a short version of our lap dance in the middle of the bar, my sister asking for a random guys number, the future SIL asking a guy for change for the condom machine and another guys sock. We also danced around to a Hairspray song. I'm sure the regulars at the bar just loved us. *insert eyeroll here*

From there we went to the club, most of the party got lost on the way there so SIL and I headed in and hung out until they showed up. It was another hour until the guys joined us and we all proceeded to drink, dance, sing along, and have a generally awesome time.

Towards the end of the night the DJ put on Birthday Sex and SIL and the bride-to-be did a lap dance for some random guy and the groom. I took lots of pictures and was very grateful that CG was around as a convenient excuse for me to not shake my ass and hump a chair in front of about 200 people.

My youngest sister, a fresh faced 18 year old came very close to accidentally dirty dancing with a drunk 40 year old. How can you accidentally dirty dance you ask? I'll tell you how, some creepy as hell, drunk ass comes up behind you gyrating and taking his shirt off. I have to admit here that I was more than a little tipsy. I got up of the bar stool crossed the dance floor gave the creep my most hateful look and drug my sister up to the front and away from Creepy McPedophile.

We left soon after. It was totally awesome and on the way home there was much slurred singing and chest thrusting.

Sometimes (most times) being female is the greatest thing ever.

Bachelorette Adventures Pt. 2

So we get down to business and strippercise our little black hearts out. It's completely hilarious and a lot less uncomfortable and weird than you'd think. I mean it's cousins, aunts, mothers, in there together, giving lap dances to empty chairs and hanging from poles.

Our first 45 minutes was the lap dance. We did it to this song:



(Birthday Sex by Jeremiah)

If you listen to the song you can totally tell where the butt shaking/boob gyrating/humping sections happen. I was actually grateful to be in the front row because that meant that I didn't have to watch everyone else. Every time I picture my mother vibrating on top of a chair to "it's your birthday and I know you want to riiii-iii-iii-ide" I get a little queasy.

Then came the pole dancing lessons. Most everyone failed epically at this, which made me feel much better about not being able to hold onto the pole for more than a few seconds. It became glaringly obvious to me that I would never be a professional pole dancer. Those girls have some serious upper body strength and I salute them for their dedication to sexiness.

We all took away some valuable dance skills that we used for the rest of the night. There's the chest push-hand cover, the floor hump, the crazy leg (not to be confused with the stanky leg, which is apparently also a dance move), and of course the body roll.

On the trip home the bride-to-be decided that we should all do the lap dance at the club we were going to later. All of the younger girls were really excited about it.

I was less than thrilled.

Bachelorette Adventures

So I had a complete and total blast this past weekend. I can't remember a weekend that's been so amazing.

It started with the boys getting ready for their paintball extravaganza. They were all completely dorky and adorable. CG even wore a do-rag. AH-MAY-ZING. My father was dressed from the top of his head to the soles of his shoes in camo, the groom was wearing shorts, fuzzy wool socks pulled up to his knees and tennis shoes, my cousins looked normal, and my uncle was wearing a bright orange camo floppy hat. They looked fabulous. They apparently had a fabulous time with lots of shooting, falling, John Wayne moments, and bluff calling. Most of them ended up with some serious bruising.

Us girls went to my aunts house to start our adventure. Before we got there I tied one on for the road. If I'm going to drink I do the damn thing right. We get to my Aunts and start drinking some more, listen to music and plan for the epic-ness that will be strippercise.

We load up and head out. I'm already a teeny bit tipsy. We're all in high heels and sweat pants walking through downtown. We run across a quickly changing crosswalk. One of my hooker heels gets caught in between the bricks in the crosswalk. I start to fall, I continue to fall as I take 4 more steps. I face plant in the middle of the crosswalk, downtown, at 2 in the afternoon. It's amazing and was apparently very graceful.

We finally get to the center and head inside. It's then that I realize I'm bleeding on both knees. It hurts, like a lot, and I'll be spending the next hour or so on them. I'm very grateful for the pre-sexay dance drinks and brace myself for what's to come.

To Be Continued