Life as now

After being sick pretty much all winter, I went to the doctor to see what the hell was up. I was nauseous all the time, my stomach hurt, I never ate so I lost a bunch of weight. The doctor originally prescribed some kind of antacid which did not help. I hate drug companies. Anyway, after it didn't work my doctor took a bunch of my precious, precious blood and ran a bunch of different tests. Apparently one was a really expensive one, but good thing you have health insurance! That's what the nurse said to me. Yeah but I have to pay my deductible. So I'm still paying for it. And that turned out negative, I want a refund. But what it did show was that I have H. Pylori. It's some stomach bacteria that like 50% of the world has but symptoms aren't always present. I could have picked it up when I was younger and it never affected me until now. I looked it up and I had EVERY symptom except one, vomiting. Luckily the nausea has never gotten to that point. But it was like a ray of light shining down. I know what's wrong!! I know what's wrong with me! So they prescribed this crazy (read: expensive) treatment of antibiotics. Which funnily enough have the same side effects as my symptoms. Actually worse. On top of all the regular stuff I had a horrible metallic taste in my mouth for days. Really, really horrible. But the treatment should make me right as rain.

My doctor also send me to a surgeon (who I like way more than my regular doctor) and she scheduled me for an ultrasound to rule out ovarian cysts and gallstones. The ultrasound was on Tuesday and then I had a follow up with her on Thursday to discuss the results. Apparently I have polycystic ovarian syndrome. Lots of little cysts on my follicles basically. The doctor said my primary doctor would be prescribing me birth control as that's how it's treated. I don't know what this will mean as far as the whole makin' babies thing, we're just gonna have to wait and see. Most of the sites I've found say exercise and a low GI diet are good ways to combat PCOS. Which sounds a lot better than hormones.

On top of all this, I'm sick. Like bleeeh flu sick. After my doctor appointment I only made it two hours before I had to come home and crawl into bed. And I couldn't get up today either. I suppose it's the antibiotics lowering my immunity. Although I did make it downstairs once today and I might make it down again. We'll see.

But for now I have two lovely kitties keeping me company. We got a kitten! And not just any kitten, oh no! My beautiful K had to drive to Anchorage for work and was up there a week. The day before she came back she send me a bunch of pictures of cats in a shelter and told me she was getting one. I was sick and exhausted from the meds and super deep cleaning the house in prep of the surprise party I was throwing her the next night, so I didn't really believe her. But she said she picked one out and she was bringing it home. Luckily I only had one more day to wait to see them and plenty to do to keep me busy until then. At the same time K was picking out a kitten and visiting her fam-damily up in ANC, I was planning her golden birthday party. She turned 28 on the 28th and all she said she wanted was a party. So the roomie and I went to every store ON EARTH to look for gold decorations and things that could pass for gold. I was really impressed with what we came up with actually. It was a super fun theme. We had gold, orange, yellow snacks, drinks, a "special" four layer lemon cake, and fixings for fancy shmancy grilled cheese panini's. And gold crowns and Ed Hardy tattoos that I found at the last moment.

Below I give you party and new kitty pics. And a shot of the art I framed for K, found on my interweb love, etsy. Our little kitten's name is M.C. Lou for Mama Cass because we both love Mama Cass. And it also stands for Micro Cat because she is TINY! And the other crazy thing about her is her front feet. They both have extra feet, or at least the start of extra feet. The "thumb" toe on each of her front feet have more than one claw. One has three and a little pad below them and the other isn't quite as developed. We should have named her Chernobyl. Jack thinks we should have never adopted her, but what does Jack know? She's just mad she has to now share us. But it's been about two weeks now and they get along much better. Not quite BFF's but they'll get there.

I am a lucky girl.

Invention of Briday

We are still discussing the right date for the Big Day. I think we might stick with May 28th, but June 18th is in the running. It's so tricky because of my birthday on the 12th. I really don't want our wedding to be so close, but it could be the best time of year for it. Especially since we want to have it outdoors. Eek I know, what a crazy idea for this rain soaked town. Bleh I don't care, I'm gonna make it work. We have a very loose plan for the day, contingent on two locations that may not be available as we need them. So that's also scary. But ya know, we've been pretty damn lucky thus far in our amazing universe built for two that I think it will all work out.

Ideas that are floating around the ol' noggin. Here are a few things I've found on e.sty... I really like the idea of blue birds or just two birds for our cake topper.

But then there are these cuties! I love all the designs from this vendor.

But this is the one I really want. Unfortunately it's ridiculously over priced, but I could just see it on our cake. Le sigh.

I would like to have little people on top of the cake as long as it definitely looked like two girls. I think this last one is perfect, all you would have to do is change the hair color and add eyelashes and freckles to the groom. So cute.

And I found these awesome champagne flutes...
Following the bird theme..

Or following my love of sugar skulls...


And for table decorations, etc...
More birds!

And just to cement my nerd-dom...cootie catchers with bride-bride trivia.


And here is a sketch I did of a possible tying the knot dress pour moi. I'm thinking tea length and retro but posh with a little veil and flower/feather fascinator.


So those are some of my ideas so far. I'm sure I'll get many more ideas tomorrow, Briday! So until I get a job Friday's will be turned into myself and another to be wed chickie sitting around talking weddings and drinking. Aww yeah! I love me some fun-employment. Not really though. Give me a job. So I can pay for the wedding I'm planning! :)

Pictures of Awesome Epicness

The lovely superbly amazing K and myself...


Moments after getting engaged!


Our fantastic living room...


The incredible view from said living room...


Got all crafty last weekend and made her a hat, Jack a cat toy and three beer/ diet coke coozies.


Lovely ladies, err gentlemen from the drag show!

Weekend of Epicness

It started Thursday as all epic weekends should. Thursday was beautiful outside, Little G Man's first birthday, and my ex dude and his gf and her kids came to town. So it was pretty rad. We went to the park and lil G loved it. It's amazing to hear that super laugh from babies. Like absolutely pure happiness. Awww melts my bitter heart. I hung out with Harm and Jess and helped them get ready for the family baby bday dinner that night. Then Jess and I went out because she randomly had Friday off. And we got to meet the drag queens! And I was told I get to be Grand Duchess of Juneau. Holy fucking awesomeness! I was seriously floating after they told me.
So Friday night I had to work the drag show bartending. I was third on but they needed me pretty much as soon as I got there. We were slammed. Ran out of just about every glass we had. It was fabulous. Plus by trying to keep up with the dishes I was able to have a good view of everything. It was so packed I had to hop over the end of the bar when they called me up on stage to be sworn in. Glad I had a few shots, I was way nervous. And luckily there was a huge spot light in my face so it was like there was no one there. Not a PACKED bar. It was just plain great. I felt so amazing after. And it was towards the end of the show, so I didn't have to work much later. Spent the rest of the night chillin at the then almost empty bar with some new to town fucking rad ladies and then called it a night.
Saturday was crazy. Happy birthday to Ver and my fave sissy, Jen. Woke Ver up to give her her presents cause I had to go help Harm with G's big bday party. Bought a bunch of balloons and set the place up. Then babies started showing up. Lots of babies. Luckily S showed up too and we turned her jeep into an open bar :D Then she and I decided to head downtown to find the queens. Never found them before we had to head to the show. S said she'd be in charge of the sound so she could get in for free. And it was in no way her fault but the sound was horrible. The mic's kept reverbing and the cd's wouldn't play. At one point the queens brought out a boombox and put a mic next to it and then did her routine. It was rad. The stupid sound made the show go later than Friday night. So it wasn't until 2 that we were able to get the queens back to the rondy. Oh but we did. We packed the place and danced and it was so very superb. I wish we could have stayed open later, it was seriously just getting started and we could have made the bar way more money.
I helped do the dishes since they had just got slammed. S apparently went and broke up a fight and came back with blood splatter all over her face. Eww. Fucking drunks.
Didn't really get out of bed till 3 on Sunday which is what I needed after all that. Had the worst service EVER at Donna's. They weren't even busy! Effers. Then I finally got to come home and shower. Oh glorious shower and my bed. Ahh.
And today is the final day of the weekend, thank you Mr. Seward for purchasing your folly! Let's see what it brings to end the epicness.
Oh yes, on a not good note, Friday I come home to get ready to work and Ver tells me they haven't seen Frank in a few days so they called the pound. He still hasn't come home :( Last night I had a dream he was in my room, it was so real. And then I woke up and he's still gone. If some family found him and loves him, by all means, KEEP HIM! He's evil and hates me. But in no way to I wish him harm and I'm a worrier and ugh. I hope he's snuggled up somewhere safe.

February, really?

Cause it looks to me like it's late April and those cruise ships should be headed up the channel in no time. But they'll be here soon enough. Time to enjoy the strangely sunny fair weather of Feb without the waddling tourists. I did enjoy the sun and crazy low fog-cloud-thing hanging over the channel today. Every time I went outside to smoke.
I've had so many things to blog about and they roll back and forth in my head. Trying to decide if they're actually blog worthy. Taking into consideration I've blogged about a virtual panda I've adopted, not much should get turned down. I just keep putting it off until whatever blog fodder seems outdated and then I don't. Like how it would make no sense to blog about going to Las Vegas for the Shot Show. Meh that was like years, ok 3-4 weeks, ago.

Trip in a nutshell: I twisted my ankle two days before I left. Fog delayed leaving town by half a day. Got to eat at 13 Coins, LOVE it. Walked about a zillion miles across the Sands convention center looking at knives and guns and grip and grinning with vendors. Filled my bag with knife swag. Played slots. Drank. Went to huge porn shop. Played more slots. Drank even more. Ate sushi with mango. Did I mention drank? Started smoking again, damn casinos. Rained the entire time, never got wet, gotta love parking garages. Realized I have a fear of parking garages. Shoved my carry on full, had to leave free knives. Flew to Seattle for the night. Hit another convention. Went out to drink, err I mean, eat. Went to two gay bars. Danced my ass off despite my twisted ankle. Came home. The end.

Maybe I should always blog like that. Much more efficient. Or something. Ooh crappy, that's it, much more crappy :) Let's see what else? We hosted a tattoo and piercing competition at the bar. That was cool. It was great to see so many different amazing tattoos. And most of them were on old ass gnarly bikers which made it even sweeter. It was a good turn out. The bar was supposed to be done being renovated for the party, but it is the bar. So liiiike half of it was done. But it's a start and it's really looking good. Way less piss smell.

Then there was the Super Bowl. My job was to cocktail but I mostly wandered around pulling off a 24oz heiny trying to get people to drink or buy shots and giving away raffle prizes. So at the end of it I had had a bagazillion drinks and not much food. That equated to me going to a friends boat, I do remember looking down the boat stairs...and falling down them. Nice cut on my hand, awesome sobbing on my part, friend luckily sober enough to drive me across the street and up the hill. Woke up to a nice throbbing hand and huge bruises. It wasn't a good day needless to say.

Which leads to Saturday, the next time I went out. I obviously needed a break after that super Sunday and had a week to dry out until Sevanni's bday. So I got all hotted up, gotta say I think my make up was extra smoky eyed and fierce. Added a sweet blonde streaky thing to my hair. It was good, it was all good. Went out and just got stupid. It was dumb. Not as bad as super bowl but still just plain lame. Which leads up to the real meat of this blog post. I quit drinking.

Forever? Doubtful, but who knows? What I do know is that this winter has been mostly shitty. A lot of it has been beyond my control but a good amount of it has been made worse by me. And drinking, ever the depressant it is, isn't helping. And I have the awe inspiring talent of being able to drink considerable amounts of booze and still "function". I'm sure it'd be more of a talent if say I was in college and not pushing 30. But as it is, it's not really doing me any favors by being able to down a dozen shots and not care to stop.

In some ways it would be easier if I just couldn't function without a daily drink, if I was a classic alcoholic. At least easier for people to say, dude you need help. I don't know what the future holds and whether or not booze will be a part of it. It definitely freaks me the fuck out to think of never, ever drinking again. But maybe. My goal for now is to just dry out till spring. See where my head is at then and maybe try it out again. But more short term I've been holed up in my apartment working out and watching the Olympics all day. It's kind of all I can do right now. And it's helping. One, I now understand the fine art of curling and kind of want to try it. Two, I've been kicking my ass daily on my elliptical machine and it feels good. It feels effing fantastic. Even when I go outside to enjoy the sunshine and smoke afterwards. Baby steps yo, baby steps.

Going up

So I guess things are back to normal. I was more worried than I needed to be. But in fairness to me, I had no idea what to expect, so I think I worried a normal amount. I am afraid though that we are back to normal, and that wasn't right before. We still need to communicate and be on the same page. But at least this has taught me to speak up. I have such a hard time talking about important things, but now I finally realize I have to. Letting things slide by isn't how to live life.

In more fun news, tomorrow night we have a burlesque dancer at the bar. Apparently her theme is that women are goddesses. So me and other bartender are supposed to dress as such. I have no "goddess" type clothes, so I don't know what I'm going to do. But I just got my hair cut and it's really easy to get it curly and sexy, so I'll have hot goddess hair. And my wild eye makeup I love to do. But this dancer should be way fun. She was just on the Conan show last week, so I guess she's a big deal. I don't know exactly what she's gonna do, but she did ask for some local girls to dance with her. Who wouldn't mind making out with her. So I'm pretty excited about that.

Then next Thursday is the 3rd of July. I am kind of scared, I've never bartended in the summer, so I don't know what to expect. Up here the 3rd is the big party night because they set the fireworks off at midnight. I'm not that worried regarding my capabilities. I've worked super busy nights. What I am worried about is that we have a very green crew right now, and the other good evening bartender usually works at another bar that night. So I don't know if he'll be there. And they are currently putting in new shelves, so the alcohol is a mess, which doesn't make for very effective bartending. We have Wisconsin Slim playing, so it's gonna be packed with good people.

I had a dream last night, a long and weird one, as they all usually are. But part of it was that the bar was putting on a drag/strip show. And the event was HUGE, it wasn't at the bar, it was more like an outside concert. Just packed with people. We had a huge bar, a real stage sort of like the place were romeo hangs out in the new romeo and juliet. That outdoor amphetheatre kind of thing we don't have here in town. But it makes me want to do it.

We have a drag show that comes to town once a year, and it fucking rocks. But it's always at this shit ass bar in the valley. We are going to try and snag them for next year. They would have a better time, better people would come to the show. I would request the night off. But before that, we should do an amature drag night. I think that would be so fucking fun. You could be a guy dressing like a girl, you could be a girl dressing like a guy, or my fave you could be a girl dressing like a guy dressing like a girl:) I want to talk to the bosses about it and make it happen. It would be rad. Oh yes, rad.

In completely unrelated news, from our lovely ghetto apartment, I can hear someone playing the banjo all day long. Isn't that neat? And amazingly I don't mind. I think it's kind of funny and random. Back to our apartment. On Monday I had some freak burst of cleaning energy and cleaned the whole apartment. Which doesn't sound like much, but trust me it was. I even got the laundry off the floor in the bathroom and bedroom. And I finally hung most of my pictures. Threw away paper clutter, made the couch look nice with it's makeshift blanket slip cover, basically made it look like a home. And it does. I'm pretty proud.

And in hanging my pictures I've realized I need more. I need one more from a local artist to make her other two make sense. I don't know where to put my collection of russian orthodox church pictures. They don't fit in the living area and I sure as hell don't want them in the bedroom. What I really want is black and white body part pictures for the bedroom. Which is damn harder to find than it should be. It seems most of them were taken mid nineties and you can tell. They're just all cheesy, especially if it's two girls. So if I can't find anything good, I might go with this artist that takes xrays of flowers. They were pretty cool looking and they'd be nice and calming for a bedroom. Not as awesome as a close up of a hip, but whatever. Maybe I'll go search the net for them now.

Fun o rama

This weekend has been jam packed o' fun! Friday night we had a four band benefit concert at the bar, along with a silent auction and wine tasting. First off, let me tell you how the benefit started. My friend Will Muldoon (I don't usually use last names, but it's the only way I say his name, I can't help it) had decided to split his stimulus between two local charities, a homeless shelter and a domestic violence shelter. That's damn amazing in itself, I just wanted a flat screen. But then he decided to put the $600 to better use and organize a benefit to make more money. He ended up raising close to 3 grand, way better than $600!
I was first on at 8pm. When I got there it was practically full. An hour later, I had three other bartenders behind the bar! That is pretty much reserved for New Years, Fourth of July, big drinking holidays. So that was great to be so busy, and my boss was one of the bartenders, so we only had to split the tips three ways. She's so great, most bosses would take a cut. And I got to get off early and have a couple of shots with a friend before going home. Super duper.
Saturday we had an amateur night that I thought I might have to work. Turns out they didn't need me. Sweet, I was finally able to drink on the weekend. Of course half of my friends weren't out that night, but it was still great. The acts were awesome. Mostly singing, but there was also a fashion show, photography of artsy naked women in nature, a reggaton rapper, two comedians (painful to listen to) and my two favorite two acts. The first favorite act was a guy named Stanley who sang an original song that was awesome and a love song about a guy. So fucking awesome. He sorta sounds like Jay Brannan and looked like a little heavier version of him. By the way, Sarah went to high school with Jay, neato huh? Anyway, this guy Stanley sings this song and I keep thinking, "Why isn't he a part of the Rendez crew? He needs to hang out with us!" Later on he came up next to me at the bar to get a drink and I gushed to him how great I thought he was. I invited him to our Half a Ween Friday the 13th party next week and he said, "Oh my birthday is Thursday." I practically flipped seeing how MY birthday is next Thursday. So we're pretty much BFF's already:) So we hung out for the rest of the show talking about how he really needs to come do cool stuff with us. I'm pretty damn excited to find a neat new person to add to our fold. Anyway, on to my next favorite act.
This totally talented lady, Colette Costa decided to do Thriller. SO FUCKING AWESOME! She came out in a lab coat with a body covered by a sheet. She sang a song about necrophelia to the music of Thriller. Then the body gets up, starts to zombie walk around the dance floor as half a dozen more zombies start coming out of the back. They all attack her and turn her into a zombie, then you guessed it, they danced! The whole Thriller dance. It was beyond words. I was freaking out, as was the rest of the bar. Maybe it's just me but I love the 80's, I looove Halloween and I really really love zombies. So it pretty much rocked my world. Big suprise, she won. The prize? $500 bucks!
After the show, Sarah and I stuck around and continued to drink. I am very happy that we both got nice and drunk for under a hundo. I mean, we could obviously get drunk for under that, but when I'm out and drinking I get very generous with the buying of shots for others. We left at bar close, stood out in the almost daylight for a while talking to various drunk friends, then finally went home. I don't know when we finally got to sleep but I almost slept through my alarm on accident. I totally heard it at 7:30, but immediately turned it off, thinking "Why the fuck did that go off? Good thing I get to keep sleeping!" Then my head popped up realizing that the alarm was set for a reason and I had to be to work in half an hour. Lame-ola! And let me tell you, I never like going to open the bar at 8am. Never. But it's usually tolerable. Today, after a weekend of huge events, the beer and liquor was trashed. I had so much stocking and general tidying up behind the bar do. I'm glad I wasn't really hung over, then nothing would have gotten done.
Sarah came down because I lured her with the promise of Newsies in Hi Def on our new big ol' flat screen. Turns out, we don't get the channel it was on. Whoops, sorry babe. But I did have a fun craft project for her and Lee to do. For Half a Ween we are using empty alcohol bottles and putting candles in them. To make them look extra awesome and creepy, I had them drip candle wax down the sides. They turned out really good. Now we need to go to the beach to get sand to fill the bottles with. And we still need to get all the branches and spray paint them so they can dry before we have to hang them. We decided our decorations are going to be haunted foresty. And I still need to figure out my Jackalope costume. Damn I can't believe it's so soon, I'm way behind.
Anywho, that was my super duper fun weekend. Oh and after work we watched the lakers celtics game. Which I do NOT care about. But it made me very very happy to watch the Lakers lose and I hope that continues. I dislike the Lakers almost as much as the Raiders. So go Celts! Plus I was born on Cape Cod, I should root for them anyway.
I'm done. My hung over fingers are not connecting with my brain signals, this post has been about as many backspaces as letters.

Baby I can plan your party

So this weekend was a huge success as far as parties go. I am exhausted, but very proud. After my crap shift and no sleep on Friday, I had to get up and get all the party supplies. But the person I was going to do all this with bailed on me. Thanks. Then a friend who just moved in upstairs needed help installing blinds. Me being the procrastinating co-dependant obviously agreed to help. While helping, I got a call from the friend who was too tired to go shopping. She had to take her brothers cat to the vet because it was possibly dying. And she needed me to go with her. I love procrastinating and there is no way I would have let her go by herself, so I go.

We spend forever at the vet, turns out the cat might have had a stroke (she's 17!), but should be fine. My friend drops the cat off at home and we get tons of green supplies for the party. We went to this balloon novelty / adult shop and got 30 balloons. It took the lady forever to blow them up, so we looked through a catalog of stripper shoes. Awesome! It was so funny to see the weird ass shoes. And tons of them came in sizes up to 17, so they were also for cross dressers or drag queens. Which is way cooler than strippers any day.

So we get the supplies, head downtown and try to decorate before my boss, the birthday girl gets there. She knew something was going on, but didn't know the extent of it. If blogger wasn't sucking balls, I could show you how awesome the decorations were and how happy she was. I got her favorite candies, Hot Tamales and Cherry Cordial Kisses and played her favorite movies, Labyrinth and Lost Boys. She was very impressed. Maybe I'll get a raise. I thought I had to be second on that night because we have no bartenders, seriously. But someone volunteered, so I only had to work for an hour or so behind the bar. Which was good because I had to bartend at 8 the next morning. And that's when the fun really began.

The 30 balloons I got were for Sunday. The plan was for everyone to day drink at our bar until I got off shift at 2, then pub crawl around town, head back to our bar for a live band. I told the bday girl I would give her a dollar for every balloon not popped by the end of the night. So it was open season on balloons and 30 is a lot to protect. I think she only popped one herself on accident. But by the end of the night, I didn't owe her any money. It was so fun watching her guard them, especially as she got drunker throughout the day. When we made it back to our bar, everyone was fairly buzzed but doing good. So we played Twister. Lots of ass shots, and not as much falling down as you would expect. Hilarious fun.

Then the band started up and by then I was getting too drunk. I apparently missed the band juggling. Lame. We brought out the cake and Sarah shoved some in the bday girl's face and then it was on. Cake everywhere. I still have cake on my shoes. Again great pics, I'll try and upload them later. Back to the band, dancing, having a great drunk time. I fell, could have been the drinking, could have been our uneven floor. But I rolled both of my ankles and damn it hurt! I'm a crier anyway and it didn't help that I was drunk and Sarah had run across the street so I was alone. And that was the end of the night for me. I felt like a fool for being the drunk girl who fell and for getting a little teary, so I called Sarah and told her it was time to go home. I went to another bar where a bunch of our friends where to wait for her, and of course I get shots from them. But luckily Sarah showed up before I had too many. It was a fun day, shitty end, and even shittier shift the next moring at 8 AM with my hungover ass.