bwahahahaha!

February 14, 2012 - “Put it down or I’ll scream!”

The store owner, his balding head gleaming under the fluorescent lights of our local 7-11, shook his broom handle at us.  He thought he looked threatening, but how can one really take seriously a 5-foot-nothing, 60-year-old Korean man sporting a Backstreet Boys t-shirt?  I mean, really.  Isn’t there some sort of limit to how old someone has to be before they stop trying to be pop culture savvy?  Plus, everyone knew that BSB were on their way out, to be replaced with the shiny new boyband version.  NYNC forever, dude.

“Cade. Dude.  You gonna pay for that shit?  Coz Han-gook over there looks ready to call the po-po on us and I’m not goin’ back to juvie, man.”

I glanced at Terence over the stack of munchies I held in my arms.  Sticking out from various pockets of my black trench coat were candy bars and bottles of soda.  I guess I looked a bit suspicious.  Perhaps a cart would have been a smart idea.

February 7, 2012 - "If you love me, you'll eat this."

The tranq had barely glowed red when it was jostled out of his hand by a clueless businessman too engrossed by his metafeed to even look up and apologize.  Spider swallowed a particularly obscene oath and muttered the Clan credo under his breath as he blended into the crowd.

"Stealth above all.  Stealth above all," he chanted, trying to keep his target in sight and still fumble in his coat for a replacement tranq.

The mark wasn't making it easy.  It was almost as if he knew Spider was on his tail and was making every effort to shake him.  That, or he was high on stims, if his ped patterns were any indication.  For the sixteenth time in half as many hours, Spider cursed Greebo and his kin for setting him up on such a shank assignment.  He chose to ignore his snide conscience who piped up just as frequently to remind him that he needn't have accepted the job in the first place.

"Hey, sweetness.  What's the rush?"

Spider's head jerked up, jarred and immediately suspicious.  No one addressed anyone so informally anymore, and especially not on a ped-way where any pause or deviation from the norm would get you excised.  He kept walking but the woman refused to be ignored.  She fell into step with him and her confident stride easily kept time with his, even though Spider topped her by a good foot and a half in height.

She seemed content to simply walk by him so, still keeping his peripherals on the mark, he took the opportunity to study this new variable.

She looked to be of indeterminate age but her hands couldn't lie and the freshness of her tattoo allowed Spider to hazard her to be at least twenty, give or take a couple years.  Her skin was the color of dark cocoa and her hair was knotted into a severe bun at the...

i am dog-less

there's just way too much drama to recount. how about a list?

• december 9 - sam suffers a stroke and her hind legs are paralyzed
• december 10 - sam is put out of her misery
• december 11 - the kids want a dog for christmas; the hunt begins
• december 17 - bethany the pit bull stays overnight for a trial
• december 18 - bethany doesn't work out goes back to the rescue
• december 19 - bodie/bodhi the australian cattle dog comes home for a trial
• december 25 - hubby announces bodie/bodhi as an official part of the family
• january 5 - bodie/bodhi shows aggression, provoked, toward dylan
• january 22 - bodie/bodhi attacks mom-in-law unprovoked
• january 23 - bodie/bodhi attacks mom-in-law unprovoked and draws blood
• january 25 - bodie/bodhi attacks mom-in-law unprovoked and takes a chunk
• january 26 - bodie/bodhi goes back to the rescue

we spent over $600 on bodie/bodhi, getting her better from parasites and spoiling her rotten with bed, special food, treats, etc. not to mention adoption fees and licensing.  yeah, the irony is that i licensed her with the city one day before her last attack.  coulda saved me 25 bucks had i just waited.  the sucky thing is that i really was growing to love bodie/bodhi, even allowing myself to let go of sam and heal, ya know?

and now hubby says he doesn't want to go to a rescue again, that he wants to get a puppy from a breeder so we know its history and all.  thing is, from a breeder, they're $600 and that's low-balling.  also, most of the breeders around here don't have pups available, only litters, and the waiting lists are long with no guarantee.

i hate not having a dog in the house.  hate it.  hate it.

this is the most emotion i've felt since...well, since the birth of my last child, and probably more than that coz i was drugged back then.

i miss you, sam.  rest in peace...

latest design

playing with photoshop

so del has decided to do the deed and has set the date. we're gonna do this wedding on a true DIY budget so she has asked me to make invites. let's see what i can cook up...

here's the original design:

and here's what i designed when i thought i couldn't enlarge those leaves.

del likes my design. woot! now to add some finishing touches and hope ger can print them out nicely.

keep calm and...

so it's begun. the new year. 2012. i finally got to open the year with someone - in the recent past, it's been me and my laptop while the rest of the fam slept.

anyhow, this is dylan, almost nine, valiantly staying awake with me so he can be a "big boy" and celebrate. (please try to ignore the "rice bowl haircut" his grandmother gave him earlier today. it shall be rectified. this, i swear!)

i tried explaining to him the concept of times square and the big party and the ball dropping but i guess he needed to see it to actually comprehend what i meant. i also told him that he needed to jump as high as he could at midnight - a soriente family tradition - so he'd grow as tall as he jumped. did he jump? oh, yes. he did.

***

meanwhile, back at the farm...

del and i made a pact to not spend money this year. another vow of poverty, if you will. what you may not be aware of, gentle reader, is that i made a vow of poverty only last year and i kept it faithfully until about october when the fish hit the shan and i went berserk and i bought gazillion things for me. selfish things, like makeup and clothes and shoes. and i know you're trying not to judge me and are justifying my spending by saying i work and i deserve to pamper myself, but i assure you, gentle reader, that there is no justifying my spending. it was obscene, i tell ya! online shopping just makes spontaneous spending at 1 am in the morning so effortless, you see.

so, yeah. my last expense was a modest haul from forever and two pairs of booties from amazon, made at the eleventh hour - literally! - of 2011. and now, here we are in 2012 and i'm already jonesing to spend.

to save me from myself, and to avoid the debacle of last year's vow of poverty epic fail, i'm going to attempt to chronicle everything i wanted to spend here on this blog. call it catharsis and a reality check if you will. along the same lines of journaling your thoughts for therapy, i shall list my financial drama here and hope that doing so will keep me safe and sane.

let's see if i can keep this up as i did the 365 picture challenge (which, btw, i'm still debating whether or not to do for the kids this year).

WHAT I WANTED TO BUY:
1. Goshen Yarn in navy or fawn or natural, or...

these were on sale for today only, normally $3.99/skein and no $2.79/skein and i was sooo tempted, gentle reader, but i thought of the boxes of yarn i have squirreled away under my desk at school, of all places, plus the skeins i have in my regular yarn storage and i gave myself a firm "niet!"

2. Keep Calm poster

does this even need an explanation? i mean, come on! wouldn't this poster look super cool on the wall of my new classroom? if anyone is reading this and has access to this poster or a printer who can make this poster for me, i will pay you cash money...argh! no, i can't! no spending! [insert wail of despondency here]

this is gonna be harder than i thought.

sigh.