Bloggarrhea

Well, lookie here. Guess it's about time I update this thing. Here's a little rundown of the latest.

Bat-scapades. So the other day I'm at work, and Pat calls me and tells me to listen to the voicemail he has left me seconds earlier, then hangs up. Upon checking my voicemail, I am informed that I best not come home for lunch, because there is a BAT flying rampant in the house. Greeeeaaaat. Apparently, while Pat was in the shower one day earlier this week, he hears the dogs going absolutely balistic downstairs in the living room. He runs down, and sees the area rug in a rumpled ball (mind you, this rug is rather large and held down with those rubber anti-skid thingies.) So whatever, by the time he gets down there the activity has lessened but the dogs are clearly freaked. A few minutes later, Pat ventures down to the basement in his underwear to get some jeans out of the dryer. As he starts to stand up.... flappa, flappa, flappa---- flapflapflap flappa... there it IS. The bat. In the flesh. Pat screams like a little girl, and proceeds to run upstairs and slams the door. The bat is now trapped in the basement. Super. I call later and tell him he MUST catch the bat before I get home from work, or else. A kind lady at work brings some bat-catching nets back to me, so I arrive home armed, just in case. Good thing. The bat is still on the loose. Now, my family has an age-old method for humane bat-trapping, to be followed in this consecutive order. 1. Obtain canister vacuum. 2. Place rag over tube end of vacuuming rod, and secure with wide rubber band. 3. Sneak up to bat. 4. Turn vacuum on, and suction bat onto rag-covered vacuum end. 5. With vacuum still on, place hole-poked paper bag over bat. 6. Secure end of bag with string or rubber band. 7. Turn off vacuum, releasing suction. 8. Call animal control or liberate bat outdoors, far from chimney opening. Now while that seems like a swell plan, our bat is very advanced. The Harvard educated bat. Today is Sunday, and he is still on the loose in the basement. He's still alive... we can hear him rustling around in one specific wall of the basement. Sounds like he's rustling papers. I'm thinking perhaps he's opening an office down there and has a lot of filing to do. Needless to say, I'm a little spooked to go down to the basement right now. I know it's generally harmless, but there's just something about a tail-less flying rat with sharp fangs that's extra creepy. Eeew!!

I'm an HTML wizard. Yeah, right. You may have noticed that under "archives" on the left side of my blog you are no longer able to click on anything. Well, thanks to my brilliant experimentation, I have managed to screw up my template. I'll figure it out. All I was trying to do was to create a "previous posts" section and a "blogs I read" section, and bammo. Poof. Archives are gone. I hope you're enjoying the "clicky, clicky" links because I was able to add at least that much. I wish I knew more about programming and creating web-based pages, but I know just enough to be dangerous... to mess up my whole system and have to re-set my settings to the day before I starting fiddling with everything. Yep. So if any of you out there know how I can fix this and why the JavaScript icon keeps appearing, please advise. I'm not as clever as I once thought. Hrrrumph.

Pukefest. It's two days before Christmas, and a friend at work is telling me how her little girl has been sick with this synchronous vomiting/diarrhea thing. Nice. I'm hoping I don't get it. Without fail, at precisely 4:00 a.m. the next morning, I awaken with near certainty that I am on fire. No biggie. This has happened once before. I'll just get up, go pee, and go back to bed. I'll be fine. Right. Thirty minutes later, it hits full-force. I am mortified at just how much projectile substances the body can produce and apparently hold, awaiting a launch at any given moment. No biggie. I'll get it all out and I'll be fine. So I take a shower and get ready for work, feeling better and pretty pleased at my heroics in overcoming my illness with such great speed. Yes, I can do this. I'm all ready and dressed for work and.... swooooooooon...... gluhhhhhhhhh. Blorsccchltpletthhfthhhaaaackblaaaaagh!!!! Okay. I have been defeated. I call my boss and tell her I'm ill, worried that they'll think I'm yanking their pre-holiday chains with a fake illness. I'm told that I need to go to the doctor and get a note, otherwise I won't be paid for two full holidays. Whatever. So about 1:00 p.m. I drag myself to Eventual Care (why they call it Urgent Care is beyond me) and manage to hold it together just long enough to get my stupid note and get the hell out of there. Close to 36 hours later, I am finally able to eat something, keep it down, and am starting to feel better. Ugh! That was awful. I can't remember the last time I was that sick, but I know it's been several years. Before moving back to IL, I was pretty proud of my immune system of steel and think I only missed 1 or 2 days of work at my last job in Phoenix.

I'm relieved the holidays are over, as I was pretty much a major Grinch this year. I stuck to my guns and didn't even put up a tree. On a holiday-related note, however, I told my friend Kelly that I was going to steal a part of her (partially edited) blog because I liked what she had to say so much. This may be offensive to some people, but I couldn't agree more. Here goes:

I kept hearing people gripe about how people are trying to get rid of Christmas or making people say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas. I’m irritated at the people who are griping. I’m REALLY irritated at the people who are griping about Target not letting the Salvation Army person ring the bell in front of their store (I’m sorry. I find this extremely annoying and think that if someone has time to be spending in front of the store ringing a bell, they could be picking up trash off the highway or visiting sick people or volunteering in a soup kitchen or at a homeless shelter or adopting a family to get them what they need.)

So anyhoo, sorry folks. Christmas is still my favorite holiday and I usually look forward to it every year. The Grinch just temporarily took control of me this year. No worries, Grinch-control can only affect the same person once every seven years, so I should be back full-force next year.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! I am still accepting belated birthday gifts, people. HA!! Man, I'm getting old.