Wow, it's been about a month?

So yes, I haven't posted in a long time. Sorry for those of you that actually come here. (Sorry in the sense that I haven't had new material; not the fact that I'm sorry you visit me.) We have gotten our new couch - it certainly wasn't as comfy as the one in the showroom, and I was on the verge of returning it (along with the $45 pick-up fee) because it wasn't nearly as comfy as I hoped, but since it's so big and . . . well, big, we decided to keep it. I also got to sit in the Get Bucket Brigade section for two games - which was fun, but I think I took too many pictures and annoyed the Buckets Brigade the first time, and then the second time I was self-conscious and didn't really cheer much, so it was a mixed bag of emotions for me. And now Christmas comes along, and I'd really like to wish everyone I encounter a Merry Christmas, but I don't know if they're Jewish or not or what, so I say happy holidays, and I'm proud of that, but apparently people get mad if you don't say "Merry Christmas," but I say whatever, all the semantics boil down to is well-wishing anyway, so plthhh. So I wish you all well! And I hope everyone gets to see their loved ones this season. It's going to be 44 degrees tomorrow. That's warm for this time of year.

Recap of the weekend

Now that my butt cheeks have healed from sitting on a few too many couches, I thought I'd say that we had a very nice weekend. Of course, Thursday was Thanksgiving. Then Friday we went to Bri and Kerry's for their Thanks Again party - as always, a great time. Friday night saw Jay cheering on Ricky D at the TD Banknorth Gaaahden. Saturday we went out looking at new couches - Jay and I are getting each other furniture for Christmas instead of gifts, 'cuz we sort of need new furniture. Luckily, we have the same taste when it comes to shopping for couches - it has to look decent, but it has to be super squishy and comfy.

So today, unfortunately, Jay's not feeling too well (much like Pat - hope you're feeling better, Pat!). I just wanted to say that I don't like the recent weather. It seems like the weekends are either rainy or cold, and then the weekdays are nice and sunny and warm. OR the warm days are rainy and the cold days are sunny. For instance:

Weekday: Warm, but rainy!

Weekend: Sunny, but cold!

Couch shopping and its repercussions

Quick post here: today we went looking at couches, and so we sat down in lots and lots of different ones. Now my butt is all chafed, and it literally feels like someone scraped medium-grit sandpaper on my butt for an hour or so. Jay thinks I'm weird. But man does it hurt!!

Post-Thanksgiving post (redundant?)

Hey, I love Thanksgiving, I love the stuffing, I love the turkey, I love the side dishes... but I wouldn't love washing the dishes. Haha, can you tell I just left my mom and dad to clean all these dishes?? Man, I suck!!

How was everyone's Thanksgivin'? We had dinner at my parents' house and got to hang out with my nephew - I'm scared of babies, but he's a cutie and I got to burp him a lot - and then today we went to Bri and Kerry's for Thanks Again, which seemed much more low-key than other Thanks Again parties. If you don't know what Thanks Again is, it's the day after Thanksgiving party where people bring any leftovers they have and Bri fries up some whole turkeys. If you haven't had fried turkey, your arteries haven't lived. So delicious... so crispy... so tender... oh, so fried.... mmmmmm.

Oh, so Thanksgivin's over, it was a bunch o' fun, and now we have to do the holiday shopping. Thankfully, my immediate family is doing the 'Secret Santa' thing where we all pick a person to buy for, instead of trying to buy a gift for all six of them. But we're still going to get the baby a gift, namely some Celtics clothes. Jay noticed that Mason has lots of Red Sox and Patriots baby clothes, and now we want him to represent all the Boston teams. Especially the C's. I said we should get him some New England Revolution gear (shout out to Dennis!), but Jay wasn't very excited about that....

Turkey turkey turkey

Well, here Jay and I are at my parents' house out in the WB (West Brookfield, not the TV station), and it's snowing, and the aroma of roasting turkey is in the air, and I'm in the middle of fixing a veggies and dip platter. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone - I hope everyone has a great meal and a great time with whomever you spend it with.

Last night we got to go out to Ye Olde Tavern, the ONLY bar in my hometown, where every townie congregates on the eve of Thanksgiving. I saw a few guys from my high school class (no, none of them were boyfriends; I didn't have boyfriends in high school because I was too interested in marching band), I saw a few people from the class one year behind me, and there was also a girl fight on the dance floor. Woo! It got really crowded and really surreal, so Jay and I got the heck out of there.

And here we are on Thanksgiving morn. I got to set the table. I have to go finish making veggies and dip now. (I get distracted. Look, a turkey!!)

The Publick House

I took Jay out to a place called The Publick House in Brookline last night. We found out about the place on The Phantom Gourmet, which is becoming a source of weekend entertainment for us lately. They said that this restaurant had a great macaroni and cheese, which happens to be Jay's favorite thing in the world. And plus they have like 27 beers on draft and many more I can't count in bottles. So we drove on into Brookline and got to the place at 4:00. I didn't know they don't open the kitchen until 5:00. Not to worry, though - we just sat ourselves down in the corner and got a beer. Jay picked out a throne chair. Seriously. It was this really uncomfortable wooden chair with a very high back that had intricate carvings in it. He loved it. When dinner time came along, Jay ordered the mac and cheese, and asked our server for some add-on advice: should he get asparagus and caramelized onions and add an extra artisanal cheese? Heck, why not?? He ate the whole thing, so I'm assuming he liked it a lot. We had a great time at this place! The workers were friendly, the service was great, the atmosphere was fun - not too loud that you couldn't hear yourself speak, the food was good and the beer was great.

Which brings me to my next suggestion: Jay and I decided that for his birthday in February, we're going to have a mac & cheese cookoff! Everybody you meet has a different recipe for this comfort-food dish, and Jay wants to try them all. No details are set in stone - I just wanted to give everyone a heads-up that this February will be mac & cheese-rific.

One year ago

So I was looking through our digital pictures, and looking at ones from about a year ago revealed that this was about the time we were in the middle of getting the house. It's strange, I feel like for the first time in my life that I actually have stability and can actually remember things like where I lived last year and what was going on. In the past it's been like life moved and changed way too quickly to actually put roots down and have an idea of where you'd be in 6 months. Ah, philosophising...

So yeah. Looking at my trusty PDA, I see that we put an offer down on the house on November 3rd, 2004. We went to a Celtics game on November 5th. We applied for a mortgage on November 16th. I brewed my delightfully clovey gingerbread beer on November 21st (ew, it's a year old! but it certainly has mellowed...). And I also have a note on December 2nd that says my sweater smells like poop. Well, then... Here's some pics from November 13th, 2004, a year ago from last week when we had a 70-degree day:




So anyway, it's strange to look back one year and remember what was going on. I certainly don't remember two years ago or three years ago... I see people in court saying, "Oh, I've been working there for 9 years come this February," and I have no idea how people remember stuff like that! I don't even remember when I started WORKING in court! And it's only like 2 or 3 years ago! Maybe this will be the turning point, who knows.

UPDATE: Regarding the recent post where I had my first roadkill incident (yeah, I killed a racoon with my car), I was reminiscing through the posts over at my old blog, "Erin Talkin', ye-a," and came upon this post from June 17, 2004. Animals should fear me!!

Midweek post

So we're still getting used to Abe having a nice haircut. I swear, he seems like a much more pleasant dog! It's weird. He's all clean and neatly trimmed, and he seems much better behaved. Jay bought him a new octopus toy the day he got his grooming done, and the thing's probably a bit bigger than him and with 6 more legs. Abe was scared of Wally (yes, we name Abe's toys - what?) because Wally was bigger than Abe, but just yesterday he embraced the new toy and started to bring to toy up to our laps and growl at us because we were too close to it. Abe's a weird dog.

Nothing much else going on... my new session in Worcester is going to have lots and lots of crazy trials going on, which is exciting, yet mildly scary seeing as how it's all criminal stuff. Jay's away at the Celtics game now -- well, he's actually on his way home at this point... the C's had a really bad game, unfortunately, but they showed a great shot of the Get Buckets Brigade in the 3rd where Jay was standing on the back of the seat in front of him. Good stuff.

Is everyone excited for Thanksgiving?? I love turkey!

groovy pic

I just killed a racoon!

My first roadkill experience, and wow, it sucked! Well, I guess they'd all suck... but anyway, I was just driving back from the Oriental House with my Chinese food, and right before the Mobil station on the way back, I looked down very quickly to change the station on the radio when I saw something out of the cornerest of corners of my eye, and that something was a flick of movement in front of my car. My front tires, and soon after, my back tires both hit something pretty substantial. Doh!! I turned my car around in the hopes I hadn't just blatantly killed someone's cat or dog... and as I drive my car back and flash my high beams, I see the still-flickering reflection in the eyes of a big racoon laying motionless on its back. I totally killed a big racoon. Thank God it wasn't someone's cat!

On a side note, Jay killed a possum with the same exact car pretty much in the same exact spot not but a week ago... animals should learn to not play in the road near the gas station.

Too much work

So it's silly, but I find it difficult to keep up the whole blogging thing. (A) I have to find something interesting to write about, (B) I have to find pics that correspond, and (C) I just really don't have the attention span to accomplish all that!

So anyway, this past week entailed Jay going to Celtics games (watch him on Fox Sports Net, you'll see the Get Buckets Brigade I guarantee!), me being moved to the Worcester courthouse, and Abe getting a haircut. I am going to focus on Abe getting a haircut.

Before:

after:

Wowsers!! It's two different dogs, pictures taken on the same day!! No kidding, I'm laughing my ass off at how different he looks. Oh, but he's a cutie pie...

Party?

We might have some peeps over around 2:30/3:00 on Saturday - it's gonna be nice and I want to grill! Let me know if you're interested.

Other goings-on

So my last post (a) had a random picture of Jay, and (b) mentioned something about taking classes. Well, I researched the kinds of classes that colleges/tech schools offered around here, and hell, they're not that great. Okay, granted, I have no idea what I want to do or what kind of classes I want to take, but the ones that sound interesting on the surface end up having already started or end up not being not what I really expected. I truly thank everyone for their suggestions - I looked up all the continuing ed classes at all the suggested schools offered... I think I just have to wait until next semster, and I also think I have to not be so picky... I don't know what I want to learn, so I say, "I don't want that," but when I see a class I'm on the fence about, I automatically say, "I don't want that!" So what do I want??

Well, enough about my so-called academic endeavors... Jay's getting into full force with the Get Buckets Brigade. He went to the last preseason game on Wednesday, and somehow managed to hold an Asian baby on his lap. You'll have to ask him about that. He and Matt are semi-major celebs in Celtics circles! I hope to attend a few games as a non-member of the Brigade in order to somehow document the Brigade song being played on the JumboTron. (The C's media peeps have told Jay and Matt that they'll play the song that Jay & Matt wrote about Ricky on the JumboTron during the opening day game! All I have to do is sneak my camera in...) I know that Jay works a lot of overtime, so hopefully he'll be able to put in extra hours on days when there's not C's games to compensate... but we'll see. It's all very surreal. Jay has freakin' season tickets!! C'mon!!

Well, that's it from here. October has been much too short and much too cold, and soon we'll turn the clocks back and it will be winter after that. We're coming up on a year living in the Indian Spring house... it's pretty much the same as last year, but soon there'll be some changes. Maybe. God bless saving money for a long time and then spending it in one fell swoop! (That's a reference to it costing $4000 to take trees down. That's just inhumane!! Because, shit, $4000 is a shitload of money!) Sorry for saying "shit" so much. But hey, all I gotta say is that life hits you with things you totally don't expect, and as long as you can keep up, then you're doing okay.

Classes?

I've been toying with the idea, and I think it's a good one, of taking some classes during the evening. God bless continuing education, for reasons I shall soon be enlightened by (hopefully).

So I get pretty bored very easily. My job is very boring, and most days consist of not doing anything. Literally. So I get very bored, which makes every minute feel like an hour. I leave my boring job, and I come home, where I don't have much to do, so I get bored again. (Oh, sure, I could, y'know, CLEAN or something, but that's something I dislike very much.) I realize that I've created this boredom cycle where I'm bored at work and I'm bored at home, and boredom makes my days go by soooo much slower, so I feel kinda crappy about myself by being so bored. Cure to boredom? Classes!

I've realized that late October is not such a great time to look at enrolling in classes at various schools, because most classes happening near this time have already started. Take Arnis, the Art of Filipino Stick Fighting. Oh, sure, you wouldn't think I would be interested in something like that, but Christ! that's just damn interesting! But it already started. Or Astronomy. I've always been intersted in the heavens. But that, too, has already begun... If only I had the continuing education itch one month ago.

But that doesn't mean I won't sign up at some point! I just have to be aware of semesters and such. Semesters have lost meaning to me since I left college. God, it's 2005?? I graduated in 2001? (Should have been 2000 if I didn't stop going to classes in my junior year... doh!) So four years of constant work with no 3-month vacation have skewed my concept of semesters. I shall soon get into the swing of things, as long as I keep checking in on these classes.

Hey, if you know of any college/technical schools that offer classes around the Ashland area, let me know! I find it difficult to search for such things on the Internet. But that just means I'm bad at searching for things on the Internet...

Another flooded basement

Well, we didn't get to go to the White Mountains last weekend, but we did spend some time up in Beverly with Jay's parents. When we got home on Sunday (well, when I got home; Jay had to work all day), I found the basement was flooded. Which I guess was to be expected... even though we bought a house whose basement was "guaranteed" never to have water in it. ::shaking fist at previous homeowners::

So other things going on: didn't get to go to Hell Night, it was booked up over a month ago... Jay went to his first Celtics game (preseason) last night at the TD Banknorth Garden last night, and the Buckets Brigade was on TV for a bit... we have no heat, so I'm waiting for someone from Nstar to fix it... we're getting our wedding pics back tonight yay!... I've been considering signing up for some classes at different places, who knows if I'll actually follow through... I had Chinese food last night yum!... I want to hire a housekeeper because I'm a wimp who hates cleaning... I want Jay and I to be millionaires by age 55, even though it'll only be worth $411,070 by then... y'know, same old stuff, different day.

I was also considering again joining a gym, but if I know myself well (and I think I do), if the place I join is in like Framingham or something, there's no way I'll want to drive 20 minutes there to exercise. So I noticed this place in the CVS plaza about a mile from our house, it's called "Feel Good! Fitness for Women," and I assumed it was going to be like a Curves-kind of setup or something. Well, click here. It is. I might drop by anyway to see if they actually have treadmills or stair-climbers instead of strange specialized contraptions that you sit in for 4 minutes at a time and then rotate.

Apparently, Jay and the rest of the Get Buckets Brigade got tickets to the Celtics' open practice on Sunday, and they can bring a guest. So looks like we're going to see the Celtics practice! It'll be a fun way to spend a rainy day.

Well, my fingers are cold and numb... can't type anymore... where's Mr. Nstar??

I can't think of good titles, here.

Didn't look like we had too many takers for Hell Night (see post below), but I'm going to make a reservation for 6 people for Wednesday night, and just let me know if you're interested. (I know you are, Dennis)

So this weekend we had been offered to use our realtor's condo up in the White Mountains for $50. Okay. That might sound odd. Yes, we still keep in touch with our realtor - only because he keeps sending us little notes every 3 or so months to check in (they're on company stationary), and when Jay got into the Get Buckets Brigade, I emailed him (our realtor) to let him know. (Our realtor is also a Celtics fan.) So when he emailed back saying how embarrassing that bucket-on-the-head thing is, he offered to let us use his condo for ultra-cheap. So we took him up on it. But now it looks as though we might not be able to go, because Jay's been super-busy at work. He's been working 12- to 14-hour days all week, and he might have to work this weekend. He's a damn hard worker, and I'm proud of him! Although if we do go, it'll still be raining up there as the sun comes out here. So we'll see.

Last weekend we had a tree guy come give us an estimate of what it'd cost to take down some of our problem trees. It was a very expensive quote. But we must take the trees down so we can put on a new roof (also expensive). There's many, many things we'd like to do with the house - if only we both made hundreds of thousands of dollars a year... We'll get there in about 10 or so years' time, though. Little by little...

Last night I was messing with Abe's head (not too hard because he's not too bright) - I was tossing Goldfish crackers into the air and catching them in my mouth, but he didn't realize I had caught them, so he was all freaking out about where they landed. I wanted to get the video camera - he'd look at me, start shaking, try to follow the path of the cracker, but then get all confused when he didn't hear it land. He'd just sniff around frantically, then run up to me, start shaking, start whining and barking... and then I'd do it again. He got his fair share of crackers, though, 'cuz he's so damn cute.

Hell Night at the East Coast Grill

At the East Coast Grill in Cambridge (right near Improv Boston), they are having what is dubbed "Hell Night." We saw it on the Phantom Gourmet. They serve really really spicy dishes, the spiciest being the Pasta From Hell, which you have to sign a waiver for before you eat it since they were once sued as a result of a customer ingesting it.

Jay and Matt are fascinated with spicy things. They love hot sauce, even though it hurts. It's a good hurt, apparently. So we're going to make some reservations for a night out, and if you're interested in being on the list, let me know. They will accept reservations for up to 8 people, so if we have more, we'll make two reservations. Oh. It's next Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I think probably either Monday or Wednesday. Let me know what's best for you.

I bet Jay's nose is sweating as he reads this...

Steak!

I was very, very bored last night and had just finished watching the Red Sox lose. So I was itching to get out of the house. Jay is good at deciding on things to do when we go out, and I am incapable of making decisions, so I let Jay do the driving. He pulls into Bugaboo Creek Steakhouse, which is odd because he doesn't eat steak. But he wanted to take me out and have me get a big ol' steak, because I really really really like steak. A lot. So I got myself a 16-oz. prime rib! Mmmm! So tasty!

That's my story. There were sure a lot of birthdays there. We saw the moose get kissed like 4 or 5 times in the 45 minutes we were there. But, oh, my steak was tasty. Medium rare deliciousness... thank you, Jay!

Auntie Erin

Well, at 6:50 p.m. last night, my sister-in-law had a baby! Mason Patrick Reardon. Awww... so now I'm an auntie by blood. In the span of a little over a month, Jay pointed out to me that I acquired 4 new nieces and nephews - three from his side and one from my side. Wow!

Love the timestamp...

UPDATE: His hair is SO long!! I saw him tonight, and he's a dirty hippie for God's sake!

A job interview. For my job.

Today I have to go into Boston for a job interview. I'm being interviewed for my current job. Hmmm... odd? Well, I apparently was hired as a "temporary full-time employee," and now there are "permanent full-time positions" available. I don't get the logistics of it all, but in the back of my head I'm scared I'll somehow lose my job. The stupidest thing is I'm all paranoid about what to wear. I don't know if they expect me to wear a business suit or just nice office clothes. I tried buying a suit for the past couple of days, but I absolutely abhor shopping and refuse to spend large amounts of money on clothes.

So anyway, I spent the morning mapping out my route into Boston. I don't really like the city, only because of the lack of parking. I like free parking. But they don't have that in Boston. I'm going to take the T, I believe. It takes me a while to plan things out, as I have a hard time planning ahead. But I think I'm all set.

So hopefully I'll make a good impression on my bosses, who really haven't even met me yet in the almost 2 years I've been working for the courts. We'll see! ...I think I'm just bitter that I have to get interviewed to keep my job!

Lost again!

On Saturday, our plan was to go to Mount Wachusett and have ourselves a little hike. We never got there. Instead of taking I-190, we took I-90. I noticed we were going the wrong way after I said, "Boy, I feel like this is the wrong way!" and Jay said about the same thing. He said, "North on I-90, right?" And I said, "...There's no such thing as north on I-90..." Ah, well. We got off at the Sturbridge exit, as we were about there when we realized we were going the wrong way. We remembered that at Hyland Orchards in Sturbridge, they were having an Oktoberfest event that day. So that's where we went. We had Abe with us, and he was quite the hit with the young ladies. Ages 3-5, mostly. One little girl was completely enamored with him - she kept putting her arm around him and squealing about how much she LOVED him!! It was cute.

Today we went for a round of disc golf. Well, I didn't; I just kept score. But Jay, Matt, Mikko, and Dennis played a round. It was so nice out, and it was nice being out in the woods. Surrounded by metal baskets. Then we went to Moe's for an Art Vandalay and an $8.00 pitcher of lime margaritas. Mmmm! When Jay and I got home, we took a nice long nap. Naps are cool!

Whole pizza, $2.99!

Uno's has a great thing going nowadays. You can go between 4:00 and 7:00 and get great deals on Killian's and some appetizers. A 20-oz. Killian's goes for $1.99 (yeah, it's Killian's, but it's $1.99!) and appetizers such as a mini-burger, muchos nachos, and 8 jumbo shrimp run about $2.99. Jay and I went tonight, he had the Mediterranian pizza and I had the nachos, and we each had two beers, and the check came out to a whopping $14.50 or something. You can't get ingredients for cooking a meal for that cheap! I bet the waiters are PISSED. But what a fantastic deal!

This message does not express the views of Pizzeria Uno's nor its subsidiaries.

Is it true??

I think the Alley is back!
go to alleyparty.blogspot.com - it works! I don't know how it happened, but it did.

Some wedding pics

Click here for some wedding pics recently posted - hopefully more will come soon!

The 3-mile hike that turned into 10...

So today we decided to take a hike. We looked through our Hiking Massachusetts book and decided upon Mt. Pisgah in Northborough. Now, this book that we have is the one we used at Upton State Forest, and we got lost there, as the book is not very clear and the landmarks it uses are vague. But man, I HATE this book now, because we got SO incredibly lost at Mt. Pisgah! Pissah!! I think the guy was on LSD or 'ludes or something when he wrote it. First indication we shouldn't believe this author: We immediately took the wrong trail which we thought was correct. Maybe we're just really bad map readers and we can't decifer 'trail talk,' but come on.

So yeah, we immediately took the wrong trail, which luckily was a very short loop. So then we start our hike on the right trail. We were okay up to the first lookout point. Then it all went wrong. The book said to "pass by a trail on the right." Okay. That led us to someone's house. So we backtrack and attempt to continue. From what we can tell, it says we should be coming up to the second lookout point. We never found that. We ended up in someone's driveway about 8 miles away from the parking lot. So we head back onto the trail -- or a trail, I should say, because it definitely wasn't the same one the book was talking about -- and attempt to reorient ourselves. Somehow we ended up in some fishing and gaming area which was pretty far away from the intended path. At this point we had no idea where we were going. We relied upon Jay's accurate sense of direction as we wandered in the woods. We ended up on a road which was actually on our map, and decided to just walk along the road since we were clueless as to the logic of the trails and map. We walked about 2 miles on the road back to the car.

So our suggestion is to get a very accurate trail map from somewhere and trust that. Ignore Hiking Massachusetts at all costs because the descriptions don't make sense! Our intended 3-mile hike literally turned into anywhere between 7 and 10 miles. But it was adventurous, at any rate... It's a good thing Pat and Kate couldn't come with us, because I don't think they'd be our friends anymore!

Nothin' much goin' on

Well, the Indian Spring household has been like iguanas when they see red: in a tizzy. [I'm distracted - I think there's some sort of sporting event going on at the high school... I keep hearing cheers...] Anyway, we're all still in a tizzy over Jay and Matt winning season tickets. They're going to have so much fun!

Anyway, not much else has been going on. It was tough getting back in the swing of things after the honeymoon, but it was good because it was a fairly slow week for the both of us. Tonight I'm headed over to Cuddy's new apartment to hang out on the roof deck and grill some steaks. Steaks and veggies & dip. Ain't nothin' like it.

So yeah. I just felt like I had to post something, even if it wasn't that exciting.

Don't go messin' with the Get Buckets Brigade

Congrats to my husband and my brother-in-law Matt, the biggest Celtics fans I know! Yesterday there were auditions for a fan section for Ricky Davis called the Get Buckets Brigade. Apparently 180 people were chosen to attend, only about 45-50 showed up, and Ricky Davis picked out 15 of them to win... season tickets!! Can you believe it? They wrote a great song about Ricky D... some lines were: "Don't go messin' with the Get Buckets Brigade; thank God Danny Ainge made the world's best trade." "Shoulda been 6th man, it's easy to see; he beat Ben Gordon statistic-a-lly." Good stuff!

Jay is so excited... and I'm excited for him! Click HERE for a forum about the Get Buckets Brigade. Supposedly they're going to be on Boston.com with a video clip of their song. Congrats, boys!

Honeymoon!

So we're back from our honeymoon, and here's an edited version of what it entailed:

1) in St. Thomas at the resort

2) jay at the St. Thomas resort holding not one, but TWO free rum punches - they were giving those things away everywhere!

3) our first iguana sighting - we thought we'd see a bunch of iguanas all vacation, but I think they liked the resort life, 'cuz that's where we saw most of them. apparently the color red makes them go into a "tizzy" - not sure what that means...

4) Jay at our 'eco-friendly' suite on St. John - we had a nice balcony, and they gave us complimentary champagne - but it was super hot!

5) Jay with a view from our balcony in St. John

6) there are a lot of ferrel cats, but they're all very nice - me with one

7) Jay at Francis Bay - the beaches were so beautiful and there was nobody there!

8) me at the bottom of only one set of the 168 stairs down to breakfast.... then it was 116 more to the beach... ouch.

9) I think these are orchids, no?

10) palm plants behind jay hehehe

11) they had a sculpture of a corset made of nails, and jay's posing

12) waiting a long time for Mr. Frett's taxi to take us to Cruz Bay where there's more civilization - he just sort of showed up when he wanted...

13) Margarita Phil's in Cruz Bay - $15 margaritas the size of your head!

14) here's a rainbow montage - that was our view from our balcony

15) wild donkeys at Big Maho Bay - cool but kind of scary...

16) me swimming behind an ass's ass hehehehe

17) me and the view from a hill next to Cinnamon Bay

18) sugar factory ruins

19) a nice couple that we found stranded at Cinnamon Bay took this as we rescued them and made them hike back to Maho with us

20) we went out to Coral Bay with a bunch of the workers from Maho Bay Camps to a place called Skinny Legs, and here we are

21) there's a beach called Drunk Bay, where people have taken washed-ashore coral and created sculptures on the beach that look like people - this is jay's attempt to create a stand-up man

22) back at St. Thomas, Jay won a bottle of rum in a ping pong tournament! Neat.


So all in all, we had a great time. The food was pretty expensive, but the hard alcohol was cheap - go figure. We had a great time - we actually did a lot of snorkeling, which is tough to take pictures of when you don't have a waterproof camera. We saw sea turtles, squid, flounders, jellyfish, lots of cool coral and tropical fishies... We also did some hiking, hung out on secluded beaches, and we did lots of napping in the middle of the day because DAMN it was hot and we had no AC! So now we're trying to fight our bodies from wanting to take naps at noon... that'd be tough to do at work when we go back Monday. We met some really nice people, Jay got a voodoo curse bestowed upon him, I got a boo boo when I tried to run real fast to catch a taxi and missed the fact that there was a handrail in front of me, we saw that cool rainbow, we saw lots of great nature things... it really was fun! A very nice honeymoon :)

The hurricane

It's just so sad to see and hear all the horrible things resulting from the hurricane down south. Here I am worrying about what the weather's going to be like for the wedding, and down south there's coffins being washed up onto shorelines, and people not being able to eat or drink or even go to the bathroom, and looting, and families who can't find their loved ones, and all that horrible stuff... It's weird to think that something like this could happen in the good ol' US of A. We think we're so immune to disasters of any kind, and this whole thing is just completely surreal.

What's the saddest thing is that my first thoughts were, "Jeez, those people should have just left!" when they knew a horrible storm was coming, but I was ignorant enough to not know that some people just didn't have the means, the money, the transportation to get out. All the federal relief organizations should focus their funds on actual evacuation and getting the poor and elderly and needy and their families out rather than supporting people in the aftermath, because at least then there wouldn't be so many casualties. It's just crazy.

That's my comments on the whole thing. Sorry to bring the party down... but it really is very sad.

Very soon....

So yes, this weekend is the wedding. I'm-a gonna get married. I'm-a gonna be Mrs. Bailey. Hey, wait, that's Jay's mom's name!

Apparently, women diet before big events like this. I apparently am not a woman, as I have not "dieted" ... ever. Oh, sure, I tried doing a bit of exercise a few months back, but nothing stuck... I'm still tubby in the belly. So I eat potato chips and drink beer and down lots of Coke, and I'm still doing that this week, and people at work say that I shouldn't do that, but does it really make a difference? I know my dress fits on my tubby belly, and hey, I'm okay with that. I'm not going to lose 15 pounds in a week. If I did, I'd be frightened of myself.

One more time, c'mon let's celebrate

So last night we rode on up to the Alley for a final farewell to our good friends Jodi and Felix, as they are moving to good ol' Tennessee today. It was great to see everyone, we had a really great time. Derek did some great cookin' on the grill, Dave offered up some delicious chicken with some secret-recipe marinade, there were hot dogs, beers, filet mignon (so tasty!), veggie burgers for Jay... All in all, it was a very good Alley showing for Jodi & Felix's last night.

Here's some Alley memories:






And HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO DENNIS!