fearlesstemp | weekend update

All about the cut tags, because I'm crazy long-winded tonight.

Friday:

My mother and I declared Friday to be a snow day. I put the extra day off to good use and spent almost all of it sitting around in my pajamas, staring slack-jawed at the television. Anna was having dinner at her house in celebration of her 23rd birthday, and I had a day full of nothing to do, and still – still! – I ended up racing around the house getting ready and leaving late. Why? Why do I do this? I know Dr. Phil has an explanation, and I know I've gone on about this in my LJ, but I still don't quite understand it.

I can hear the chorus of frustrated punctual people out there yelling at their monitors, "You just DO IT! You GIVE YOURSELF PLENTY OF TIME! It's NOT THAT COMPLICATED!"

I know! I know it isn't!! I don't know what my problem is.

Anyway. So I was late! I raced on the no-longer-icy roads out to Anna's, stopping at the grocery store on the way, and was faced with the not-insignificant task of finding a parking spot on a city street during a potential snow emergency. I was all nervous about being late, and having to meet new people, and hating myself for being late and for being nervous about meeting new people (will I ever be cool about such things??), so I wasn't really paying attention to what I was doing when I pulled into a driveway to turn around. If I had been paying better attention, maybe I would have noticed the gaping hole on the right side of the driveway, and perhaps chosen a better place to turn around. But I didn't! And I got stuck! With half of my car out in the street, half of my car in the driveway, in the middle of a rainy cold awful February night, on my way to a party for which I was very VERY late, probably holding up dinner!

I wanted to commit ritual suicide but, instead, settled on calling Anna.

"I know I'm late and I'm so sorry but my car is STUCK in a DITCH and I don't know what to DO and will you come help me? Please? I HATE MYSELF! Oh, and also, happy birthday!!"

Because Anna is the bestest, she only gave me the bare minimum of a hard time, and arrived mere minutes later with two of her dinner guests to dig me out. Can I just pause to say what an awesome first impression I made here on these guys? "Hi! I'm Jess! I'm horrendously late! Help me push my awesome, electric-blue, dented as hell ten-year-old station wagon into the street on this cold, wet, wretched February night!"

Anyway. They did get me out of the Godforsaken driveway and into the street so that I could park and finally join the little dinner party.

"I brought ice cream!" I announced, as if that made up for the rest of things, while we were walking back to Anna's apartment. "It's really good ice cream!"

And it was.

But I still feel bad about the whole being-late-making-them-perform-manual-labor-thing.

Saturday:

Was pretty much a nonevent. Nice day, though.

Sunday:

On Sunday my parents, my grandmother, and one of my aunts decided to go to this Irish pub nearby for an early dinner. We were having a merry old time, discussing whether or not Oprah's birthday party had been over the top, and how Teatgate would affect Janet Jackson's career, when we heard this voice drift over from the bar.

"You people are DISGUSTING," Random Drunk Guy said. "You make me SICK. Kids are dying in Iraq every DAY and THIS is what you talk about?"

Because I'm slow on the uptake, it took me a minute to figure out who he was talking to. My mother, not so slow on the uptake, instantly spun in her chair and said, gesturing with her glass of Chardonnay toward Random Drunk Guy, "ExCUSE me? Are you talking to US?"

Random Drunk Guy looked shocked for a moment that someone had answered, but recovered nicely and said, "Yeah, I was!"

To which my mother declared, "Well that was VERY RUDE!"

And he said, "Well, you people need to get your priorities straight! Kids in Iraq, your brothers and SISTERS –"

And my mother said, "We're trying to have a nice evening! What right do you have to tell us what to talk about?"

At this point my father and I, wimps that we are, were yanking on my mother's sleeve, trying to get her to stop engaging Random Drunk Guy, who was saying something more about how wrong and ridiculous we were.

My mother would have nothing of it, and yanked her arm away from us. "It's a shame you're here all by yourself or else maybe you'd have someone to talk with about Iraq, instead of bothering us."

At this point I was almost positive Random Drunk Guy was going to whip out a gun and blow us away. Instead he just got kind of flustered and said, "Oh, real nice."

"Yeah," my mother said, and turned back to the table where the rest of us were all gaping open-mouthed at her balls. "What?" she kept saying, as if calling out drunk guys in bars was something she did every day.

At some point the guy did apologize, but not after he'd given our table the one-fingered salute. Good times, people. Gooooood times. Also, further proof that you can't take my family anywhere.

Monday:

This morning I got up super-early and was still running out the door with about 45 seconds to spare. Because of this rushing, I didn't have time to put on my boots (they need to be tied! Who has thirty seconds to tie boots? Not me!), and so I wore my clogs. Naturally ended up flat on my back in the driveway and, let me tell you, it hurt like a mofo. My neck and shoulder are killing me right now and I'm almost afraid to go to sleep for fear of what I'll feel like tomorrow.

Whine whine! I did an embarrassing backflop in my driveway and was in pain all day! Whine!

Also today, while in the middle of some work, the boss attorney I work for came out of her office with a flourish and stopped at my desk, asking, "What does semi-monthly mean?"

I sat there for a second and said, "Uh...not...monthly? I mean, not every month? I'm not sure!"

She nodded, sighed, and went over to the next cubicle and said (I am not making this up), "Now *this* is the intelligent corner – what does semi-monthly mean?"

My mind was stuck on a loop of "Oh my God! Did she just insult me? No! She couldn't have! I'm right here! But wait a minute – oh my God! Did she just insult me?" so it took me a minute to process Big Boss Partner's answer of, "Every 2.5 weeks," which is, I found out when I looked it up on the internet minutes later, pretty much correct, of course.

Whatever.

Anyway, semi-monthly is a confusing phrase! Right? If it isn't, don't tell me.

And now, I sleep.