big favor (again)

Hey, remember when I asked you guys to send good thoughts and vibes and prayers to Heidi and her family? I hope you didn't use them all, because I really need you to send some more. Virtual hugs are good, too.

Thanks, friends.

Crazy Cat Lady talks to her cat

The other night, I got a text from Heidi. I opened it to see a picture of Phoebe sitting on Heidi's bed. In front of her was a huge pile of puke sitting smack dab in the middle of Heidi's new Wittenberg blanket. Heidi's text said: Can I throw her out the window? and I answered: Yes, of course. Because it was a GIANT pile of barf. I'd post the picture, but it's really gross. I made Joe look at it and he was all, "why would you show that to me?" and I was like, "why WOULDN'T I show that to you?" Anyway, the best part of the picture is Phoebe sitting behind the puke all, " . . . did I do that?"

So now Phoebe is banned from Heidi's room and GUESS WHAT? She is not a fan of that decision, but it doesn't matter because she licks her own butt and you know what? We make a point never to listen to someone who licks her own butt.

The biggest problem is that Phoebe hates it when doors are closed. She's very particular about it. And by particular, of course I mean ANNOYING AS HELL. If my bedroom door is closed and she's outside, she'll scratch and scratch and meow and meow until I'm finally like OK FINE and I open the door, let her in, and close the door again. Five minutes later (if that), she is scratching on the door again to be let back out of my room. WHAT THE HELL, CAT? She also does this to us when we have our bathroom doors closed. I don't know why she wants into the bathroom when I'm in there. If I let her in with me and close the door, she acts like I'm locking her in there because I'm going to drown her in the bathtub or something. Which I would NEVER do. It sounds too messy.

This morning, I was getting ready and I heard Phoebe in the hallway scratching and meowing and just generally being annoying. I opened my door, thinking she was scratching to get in, and saw she was instead scratching at Heidi's door. Then I had this conversation with her:

Me: Phoebe!
Phoebe: Meow!
Me: Phoebe . . . come here.
Phoebe: I want to go in there.
Me: You can't. The door is closed.
Phoebe: What's a door? I want in there. Meow.
Me: Come in here. I will pet you.
Phoebe: Why won't The Other One let me in there?
Me: Because you puked on her stuff.
Phoebe: You guys don't like that?
Me: No. No, we don't.
Phoebe: It was a gift.
Me: It sucked. Come in here. I will pet you.
Phoebe: Meow!

And then I let her into my room, closed the door, and tried not to throw her out the window when she immediately started scratching to get out again.

don't you be a traffic light

Did you know that today is the most depressing day of the year? Not only that, apparently it's the most depressing day in ALL OF HISTORY. Which, you know, OK? I don't really buy that. Most depressing day of the year -- I'll give you that. It's cold, it's gloomy, blah blah Christmas credit card bills are due, blah blah something something, but they're trying to say that, in all of history, today is the MOST DEPRESSING DAY EVER? I'm all for hyperbole, Britain, but I have to call shenanigans on this one. Maybe they're trying some sort of reverse psychology or something. They're all, "Hmm, let us TELL everyone today is the most depressing day in all of history and then when it's not so bad, people will be HAPPY. Or pissed. But mostly HAPPY." Tricky Brits.

I don't feel particularly depressed today, although it IS flipping cold and I am at work, but so far it feels about the same as any other cold January workday. I feel pretty energetic actually. I've been getting up early every other morning to let Jillian Michaels try and kill me and I'm sorry to say that it has actually been pretty beneficial. Sure, my knee hurts like hell and it means less sleep, but I'm all ALERT at work, which hardly ever happens. Not only that, but I'm even more productive than usual. Earlier, I could hardly even sit still in my chair and sure, I could blame it on The Ting Tings or the two giant cups of coffee I drank this morning, but I prefer to give the credit to Jillian. Mostly because I'm afraid if I don't, she'll hunt me down and make me do walking push-ups until my arms fall off. And I need my arms. I use them almost every day.

So, this morning, while I was being productive (obviously), I ran across this article: How to Avoid Wasting Time on Facebook. To me, this seems ridiculous, because what is Facebook FOR, if not for wasting time. The article offers such helpful advice as "bring a timer with you to the computer." Um, what? Don't ever do that. You will get made fun of. Loser. It also says to avoid games, maybe because the author of this article has never had the joy of playing Scrabulous Wordscraper. Or they hate life. Either way, as a former how-to-article-writer, all I have to say is FOR SHAME, Mr./Ms. Article Writer. You do a disservice to all Internet time-wasters. Good day.

I SAID GOOD DAY.

(cue Janice voice)

OH. MY. GAWD.

somebody needs some hot chocolate (psst, it's me)

Wii Fit yelled at me again yesterday. A couple of times. First it was all, "what, you didn't have time to work out yesterday?" Fuck you, Wii Fit! I got up BEFORE WORK and let Jillian Michaels try and kill me! Suck it!

Ahem. I only got on Wii Fit to see how much I weighed, because when Heidi, Joe, and I played the other night, I didn't want them to know my weight (which . . . who cares?), so I hid it! I hid it forever! So I weighed myself again and it turned out I'd lost a pound. Here's the thing, losing that one pound moved me from "overweight" to "normal." Awesome. However, the other day when Wii Fit told me I had to make a goal, I said I'd lose a pound in two weeks, because I like to set my goals HIGH. Wii Fit, apparently, does not seem to realize that this was a ridiculous goal, so it told me to be careful and not push myself too hard because I'd already reached my goal after just TWO DAYS. Wii Fit is kind of stupid. Maybe that's why it's so mean. It's all, "I may be dumb, but at least I'm not fat, FATTY." Anyway, good news, everyone! On Sunday, Wii Fit told me I was 36 (yeah) but yesterday I was 20. I caught Benjamin Button disease and it's awesome.

Have you noticed it's really cold? Here anyway. It's like negative a billion degrees which is COLD for those of you who live in places that are not Ohio. Or other cold places. Like, there are people in our Florida office that call me sometimes and they're all, "it's SOOOOOOOO cold here," and I'm like, "yeah?" and they're like, "OMG it's only 50 right now," and then I yell at them to DIE DIE DIE and I smash my phone into a million pieces. Then I have to call IT to replace my phone and they're like, "Jennie, this is your fourth phone this week, what is going on?" and all I can tell them is that maybe they should have my phone block Florida numbers. True story.

and then I fell over

Oh, right, I have a blog. Hi, blog! Sorry I've been neglecting you. The thing is, I don't have time to blog at work and when I say blog at work, of course I mean during my lunch break and not when I'm supposed to be doing actual work. Because I've been spending my lunch break WORKING. Not today, though. Today I spent the first half of my lunch break going to Kroger to get wine and baking sheets (not to use together, though) and now I'm ignoring my phone and email, listening to the Dr. Horrible soundtrack, and BLOGGING. Heh, at first I wrote this: BLOGGIN. Which I think I like better. Anyway.

Heidi got a Wii Fit for Christmas, and last night we hooked it up. Well. Heidi hooked it up. I sat there and watched. To be fair, though, hooking it up meant putting in some batteries and pushing some buttons on the Wii, so I really think I'd have just been in the way if I had tried to help.

The Wii Fit started out by grunting in pain when I stepped on the board. That was nice. And then! It told me I was overweight. Ouch, Wii. That hurts. I mean, it wasn't exactly breaking news or anything, but hearing that I did, in fact, eat too many Christmas cookies and drink too much egg nog (fact: I did not drink any egg nog because . . . gross) was the opposite of fun. I watched Heidi do a balance test and dodge some soccer balls, cleats, and panda heads (what?) and then it was my turn.

Well. I did the balance test and the Wii Fit was all, "WTF? Are you 80? Do you find yourself tripping over stuff a lot?" OK, it really didn't say all that EXCEPT for that last thing BECAUSE IT TOTALLY DID ASK IF I TRIP OVER STUFF. This is when Heidi and Joe almost died laughing FOR REALSIES because the Wii knew how clumsy I am after just one test.

Then. I tried to slalom and it went about as well as it does when I try to for-real ski. I ran into more flags than anything else. Honestly, I'm surprised I didn't fall off the board (although, I did when I tried the step aerobics) and when I finished slaloming (is that a word?), the Wii Fit told me I was unbalanced. Which, duh.

I redeemed myself a bit during the hula hooping, I think. I made it all the way through and spun the shit out of some hula hoops. Sure, a couple hula hoops hit me in the head, but you know . . . baby steps. Anyway, here is something brand new. Conversations Between My Roommate and My Boyfriend:

Heidi and Joe: HAHAHAHAHA JENNIE IS UNBALANCED AND LOOKS FUNNY WHEN SHE HULA HOOPS!
Joe: My favorite part was when the hula hoop hit her in the head.
Heidi: Me too!
Joe: Because I feel like . . . if someone threw a hula hoop at her in real life, that's what would happen.
Heidi: Definitely. I also liked her granny-hula-hooping hand gestures.
Me: Thanks, guys.

Can you feel the love? I can. It's cold and hurty.

I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day.

First things first.

1. Happy New Year

2. Happy Birthday, Sister

I am at work today, although my body tried to hold me hostage and NOT get out of bed. I also went to bed at like 7 o'clock last night. Sort of. I needed, um, a lot of recovery from Wednesday night's festivities. I think I learned some important lessons that night. One, if you cannot even read the words to a song on Rock Band, it's probably time to go to bed. Two, if you have been drinking champagne and rum & cokes all evening, don't mix your own drinks. Or BETTER YET, stop drinking and go to bed. Things reached ridiculous levels that night. Jon spun Miguel around in circles and then Miguel ran headfirst into the bookcase. True story. It's on video. Also. I said things like this:

Technology ruins EVERYTHING.

And this:

Joe: Do you want some water?
Me: No, I'll wait for them to bring ice cubes.
Joe: ...what? Who is bringing ice cubes?
Me: [unintelligible]

I don't really remember that last part, but Joe assures me that it happened.

Anyway, around 1:30, Heidi, Joe, and I managed to drag ourselves to Wendy's, and then home. I was supposed to be at my parents' house around 4 and getting ready was like torture, which is why I ended up going over there in my pajamas. Honestly, they're lucky I showered. Then I ate way too many mashed potatoes, felt like dying, and so I went home to die in my own bed. Good times.