Mortality

I do not acknowledge that my soon to be 84-year-old grandmother is mortal. She is an earthbound saint, and that's all there is to it. The deaths of Don Knotts, 81, Darren McGavin, 83, and Dennis Weaver, 81 are making my delusion very hard to maintain. On top of that, Super B.J.'s grandfather died this morning.
Mortality has always disturbed me. I don't handle death well, whether it's someone I know and am close to, or someone I've feuded with in the past, the news of someone dying always makes me very sad. The sadness isn't always for me. The sadness I feel is for the loved ones of the deceased, knowing that they've lost someone close to them, that they won't ever be able to look at, touch, talk to that person ever again for the rest of their life, that's what makes me sad.
I have a hard time letting people get close to me because I know, no matter what, some way, some how, the relationship will end, and I have a hard time dealing with the pain that goes along that. It's so much easier just to keep people at arms length. The less attached you are, the less it will hurt when it's over, ya know. It's can't be that way with grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, etc. though. You've already let them in and are attached to them before you can understand the pain losing them will cause you. I've been lucky. I haven't lost that many people close to me, which is going to make it even harder when it starts happening, because inevitably it will happen. Don't get me wrong; if I'd known in advance the pain I would feel for the loss of my grandfather, I still would have loved him just as much, gotten just as attached to him, and hurt just as much when he died. I guess that's just another one of those mysterious ways The Big Man works.

Hope I didn't bring y'all down. Have a nice day. Call SOMEONE and tell them that you love them. It'll make their day.

Grey's Anatomy

I'm a recent convert to Grey's Anatomy, and watching last night's episode got me to thinking. Why is Dr. McDreamy so dreamy? I'll admit, in 1987, he bought my love, but now, 20 years later, in 2006, why are we as women so drawn to him, or, even worse, what he represents? What is so mind bogglingly attractive about a man who's unavailable? He's married; he cheated on his wife with Meredith. And, she's no saint herself. She had an affair with a married man. Did she know he was married when she was sleeping with him? George is a really good catch, and a sweet sensitive man. What she did to him is unforgivable. There are women out there who do stuff like this all the time. On one hand you have the sweet, sensitive, caring, attractive available guy, and on the other hand an asshole in every sense of the work, womanizer, cheater, liar, and 9 out of 10 times, women pick the bad guy. It doesn't make sense to me. And, here's what happens to the good guy: he's continually rejected for the bad guy, so he starts lying, cheating, womanizing, and turns into the bad guy to protect himself from the rejection. Before you know it, they're all going to turn bad, and I'm never going to be able to find a good one. It's not fair! Stupid women are ruining it for everybody!

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Librarian Pirate has been drunk blogging. Go check her out. Please.

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Also, my sister may be interested to know that her boyfriend is divorcing his wife. Good luck with that sis.

Lazy Sunday

I'm feeling very lazy today, so here's what you get:

Visit Librarian Pirate. She has a Green Tea Cheesecake with Peach Raspberry Macedoine recipe that looks scrumptious.

Random Good Stuff has an awesome video you MUST check out. Have your Kleenex® ready.

Postsecret has some good secrets today. The tennis one cracked me up a little bit.

I added some links to the blogs I read. One of them is Bad Hair Day. She has a funny post about K-Fed's new dreads.

Dan has a story about paratroopers being court-martialed or discharged for having sex for money. Naughty naughty boys.

Karissa has some adorable pictures of my brother & my niece. Sean & Karissa left for Vegas yesterday. Stop by and wish her luck.

Princess Melissa has a whole new look.

There was an "incident" at Jake's family poker game. He needs some feedback.

I kinda stole borrowed this idea from Brian's Weekend Roundup. Thanks for the fabulous idea, Brian. Your roundup is way better than mine.

Hope everyone else's Sunday is as lazy and unproductive as mine.

Have a nice day!

Blog Explosion

In case you haven't noticed, I'm kind of a follower some times. Monty is sort of my blog mentor, and she rents her blog on Blog Explosion, so, in true follower form, I followed her lead, joined Blog Explosion, and am now renting my blog. This week's renter is Librarian Pirate. You totally have to go check her out. It's easy. Just click on the picture under where it says email me. You don't want me to be a blog renting failure, now do you? She's a library student, so she's super cool. I've also added her to the blogs I read list. Enjoy.

Super B.J.

There's a guy I work with, and I'm pretty sure he's a super hero. He just got new glasses that make him look like by day he's a mild mannered library worker that goes by the name Ben. But his mom works here too, and I know all of his family calls him B.J., so it's totally possible that by day he's mild mannered library worker Ben, and by night he's SUPER B.J.

I'm pretty sure the gay men of America aren't lucky enough to have a super hero named Super B.J., but it gives me a giggle.

The book I just started

Last night I started reading Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. This was Oprah's book club book last summer. I'm a little slow on the pick-up. If you go here, there is a full text copy on line. We can read it together! If you're interested, let me know, I'll try to figure out a way for us to discuss it.

There are a lot of other "classic" books available at the same site (Classic Bookshelf) if Anna Karenina doesn't interest you. It's a really cool site. It opens the book in Java, and you can pick your font color, size, background color, etc., and they will email you a bookmark to where you left off so you don't have to search for where you are every time you have to take a break.

I'm also taking suggestions for the next book I should read after this one, if you have any ideas

Have a nice day!

The book I just finished

I just finished reading The Cider House Rules by John Irving. It was amazing. It's about adoption and abortion and life. The character development is really good. You really get to know the characters. I haven't seen the movie, but if you've seen the movie, I still recommend that you read the book. I'm sure that there's a lot more detail and character development in the book than the movie. The main character, Homer Wells is very easy to fall in love with. He's an orphan who has trouble getting adopted. He's a very noble, heroic character, though he does have his flaws. Candy is also a great character. She's got a lot of flaws, but you can't help but like her. Also, if you're on the fence about you feel about abortion, I would recommend that you read this book. It may help shed some light on the issue for you.

I had a 4 day weekend...

...and I accomplished absolutely nothing. That's an accomplishment in itself.

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I came across these at Snozzberries, and couldn't just do myself.

Amanda -- [adjective]: Tastes like fried chicken 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

karissa -- [noun]: A person who falls into an outhouse and dies 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

sean -- [adjective]: Like in nature to a kangaroo 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

brion -- [adjective]: Pretentiously academian 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Leslie -- [adjective]: Extremely flatulent 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Hey, Pooter, that means farty.

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I learned something interesting today. Apparently, I'm intimidating. To men. That I work with. This is not a goal I set out to achieve. It all started when one of the girls I work with (jokingly) said that if I got promoted to her boss, she'd rather go on welfare than work under me. (Really it was funny at the time.) So, from that the conversation turned to am I intimidating. I asked the guys that walked past if I was intimidating. They said yes, then skittered away as quickly as they could.
I don't see myself as an intimidating person. I think I'm really nice a majority of the time. And, I've toned it down a LOT. It's not like when I was cutting hair, and thought I was queen of the beauty shop. That's because I knew all there was to know about running the beauty shop, and I knew I was the best at it. (Hairdresser Amanda is kind of cocky about her mad skills.) Here, I understand that I don't know everything about everything, and try to fly under the radar as much as possible. I guess it's not working.

Oprah's web cam warning to parents

Parents, if your child has a web cam, you need to be aware of what could happen to them. This could be your kid. It COULD happen to you, and if you believe it won't, it WILL. Child porn is huge on the web. The availability of it is unbelievable, as is the way the pedophile predators seduce children into participating.

Remember back in November when I had jury duty? I haven't really discussed it, here or with the people in my daily life, because it was a very disheartening experience for me. I was assigned to a jury in a child pornography case. There were 100 counts, 88 photos and 12 videos of explicit child pornography that we as jurors had to view and review to reach a decision. We found the man guilty and sent him to prison, not for as long as I wanted to, but still, for a long time. The abhorrent images of these children performing hardcore sex acts with other children, and with adults, still haunt me. I'm not trying to scare you, I just want to make everyone aware of the dangers so the proper precautions can be taken to prevent your children from being victimized in the same manor.

I took a personality test

Let me know how accurate you think it is.

Advanced Global Personality Test Results Extraversion |||||||||||||| 53% Stability |||||||||||| 50% Orderliness |||||||||| 33% Accommodation |||||||||||| 43% Interdependence || 10% Intellectual |||||||||||||| 56% Mystical |||||||||||||||| 63% Artistic |||||||||||| 43% Religious |||||||||||||||||| 76% Hedonism |||||||||||||||||| 76% Materialism |||||||||||||||||| 76% Narcissism |||||||||||||| 56% Adventurousness |||| 16% Work ethic |||||||||||| 50% Self absorbed |||||||||||||||| 63% Conflict seeking || 10% Need to dominate |||||||||||||||| 63% Romantic |||||||||||| 43% Avoidant |||||||||||||||| 70% Anti-authority |||||||||||| 50% Wealth || 10% Dependency |||||||||||| 50% Change averse |||||||||||||||| 63% Cautiousness |||||||||||||||| 70% Individuality |||||||||||||| 56% Sexuality |||||||||||||||||||| 90% Peter pan complex |||||||||||||||| 63% Physical security |||||||||||| 50% Physical Fitness || 10% Histrionic |||||||||||||||| 63% Paranoia |||||||||||||||||| 76% Vanity |||||||||||||| 56% Hypersensitivity |||||||||||||||| 70% Female cliche |||||||||||||||| 63%

Take Free Advanced Global Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

Valentine's Day

I was going to write a post about the origins of Valentine's Day, but I started doing some research and got bored with it, so I'm just going to write a post about how SUPER LAME Valentine's Day is.

Valentine's Day is super lame. The end.

I had a yucky week

I had a really bad week last week. I was cranky and mean, and I hated EVERYTHING! I had a fabulous weekend, though, and I'm feeling much better now. On Friday I went to my Grandma's house and stayed the night. It was great. There's no feeling like saying the night at Grandma's house. When I stay there, I try not to be a burdon, but she loves nurturing people! 5 times she asked me what I wanted for breakfast. And 5 times I told her I don't eat breakfast. Especially not at 10 in the morning. After I get to work at 2 I usually grab a bag of chips and a DP from the vending machine, but never anything breakfasty. Sean yelled at me, he was like, "Dumbass! Grandma will make you french toast!" Yeah, I know.
Leslie came over with Mason and Paige. They're so cute, and rotten! Some people came over to look at the puppies. They had a little boy with them that was probably 7 or 8. Mason, 3, walked right up to him and head butted him. Insane!
For lunch Grandma got us KFC. I think baby Paige ate more than the rest of us did. All of her chicken that she ate was the skin, in one bite. She chowed down on some mashed potatoes though.
I ended up selling the last 3 puppies to a little pet store in Bartlesville. It seemed like a good pet store that really cared about it's animals.
Saturday night we went out for Karissa's birthday. It was off the hook. I was sober most of the night, which is not a role I usually play, but after new year's, I'm a little scared to drink again. I did learn that I don't have to be drunk to act like Drunk Amanda though. I'm pretty sure all of Karissa's friends who had a camera with them that night have a picture of my cleavage.

The Wonders of Television

Hi, my name is Amanda, and I'm addicted to television. I love my TV, everything about it is awesome. I have a DVR, so I can pause live TV, rewind, record, all that stuff. This last week has been a wonderful week for television. Let's get started.

ER - James Woods(not my favorite actor) guest starred as a patient/professor suffering from ALS. It was a very poignant episode; it made me cry.

Survivor: Panama-Exile Island - A new season of Survivor has begun. This season they started with 4 tribes: younger guys, younger girls, older guys & older girls. Every week one of the Survivors is sent to "Exile Island" where they have to spend a couple of days all alone on the scary island. There is a hidden immunity idol on the island though, and whoever finds it can use it at any time. I play a fantasy Survivor game, and 2 of my team members are on the younger girl tribe, so I want them to do well, other than that, I don't care. The older women lost the first immunity challenge, and had to vote out the first member. They voted out Tina, probably the biggest mistake they could have made. Tina was kind of nutty, but she was really strong, and contributed more than her share at camp. The 3 remaining members are going to have to work a lot harder now that she's gone.

Superbowl XL - I recorded it because I had to work until 8 o'clock last night. I fast forwarded through the game, and watched the commercials. The highlight for me was the Leonard Nemoy Aleve commercial. It was really cute. I also liked the Sprint/Nextel commercial where the guys couch caught on fire, and he had a song for that too. I tried to watch the half-time show, but, Stones fans forgive me, The Stones are really old and twitchy. I wasn't impressed at all.

Oprah - Susan Saint James and her husband Dick Ebersol talked about losing their youngest son in a plane crash. It was very sad, but their other son Charlie was super hot.

Tonight: Skating with Celebrities, The King of Queens, & How I Met Your Mother

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This weekend was the last weekend of my Government class. I went Friday, got 100/110 on my test, and didn't go to the last class on Saturday. I'm still pretty sure I pulled out an A.

Friday my aunt Terri went to the hospital. They thought she was having a heart attack. It must not have been that serious, because they sent her home already. I do know that they are going to perform some more tests, though.

I think that's all for now. Have a nice day.

I went shopping!

Shh, don't tell my mom, or my boss, or the IRS, or anyone else I owe money. I'm giddy right now. I love shopping. I'm a power shopper. I go in, get what I want, and am out of the store in less than 20 minutes. Today I got a $99 jacket on sale for $35, a $45 pair of jeans for $12, and a $45 blouse for $12. That's almost $200 worth of close for only $60! I also got 2 new pairs of shoes. They weren't on sale, but I got such a good deal on the clothes that I had to reward myself with shoes. I got a pair of really cute black loafers and a pair of white canvas mules. I don't think anything could darken my mood today.

Hope y'all are having a great day too!