Thursday, July 17, 2008

When Bugs Attack

I recently had a conversation with a friend about the implications of living alone, and whether the ups were worth the downs. Well, something happened yesterday that convinced me I, personally, can not be expected to live alone without some contingencies.
I was the victim of a vicious attack. In my own home. If Nicole hadn't been there I don't know what I would have done. Probably scream and cry and jump up and down flapping my hands. Wait, yeah that's pretty much what I did anyway.

As I sat barefoot at my computer the culprit sauntered into my room without even the decency to recognize that he was out of place and unwelcome. And I tell you, if EVER a spider looked smug it was this one.

Also, let me clarify. I'm not talking, "oh no. a spider equivalent to the size of a quarter hiding behind my bookcase. whatever shall I do." I'm talking, "what is that small hamster doing in the middle of my room and OH MY GOSH THAT'S NOT A HAMSTER OR ANY VARIATION OF CUTE FUZZY MAMMAL AND FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY WHY DO THESE THINGS ALWAYS HAPPEN TO ME?" It was a beefcake in the worst sense possible.

Although I registered some movement in my periph it wasn't until Nicole alerted me to his presence with an informative, "holy crap that thing is HUGE!" Somehow within two milliseconds I was on the other side of the door, peering into the room and trying not to convulse as I curled my toes under my feet as tightly as possible.

After some failed shoe-squishing attempts it was decided that the only way to catch this mongrel was to call in the big guns (read: vacuum cleaner of death.) I'm sure this is what vacuum engineers had in mind when designing the hose attachment. After letting the bug-sucker run for about 5 minutes we finally consented to switch it off, and store it in the garage lest the mutant crawl OUT of the vacuum and resume his reign of terror.

For the rest of the night every stray hair and every wisp of dust was in my mind a blood sucking hell-monster bent on tormenting me for his evil purposes. Luckily I made it through the ordeal unharmed. Well, mostly. The next morning I discovered something on my leg and for the first time EVER I prayed for a pimple.

No. This was not something I could have handled on my own. I think it's finally time to invest in one of these. Or reconsider my fall-back plan: a bee-keeper outfit marinated in bug spray.

Monday, July 07, 2008

Working For the Weekend

What does a normal Ladies Night entail? Pillow fights and facial masks and brutal waxing sessions? Hmm. Occasionally. This weekend I had one long, extended Ladies Night with Nicole. It went from early Thursday night until the wee hours of Monday morning. And there was not a single facial mask through the whole thing. (Although there's a small chance that we wore these matching "Ladies Night" t-shirts most of the time. No way to confirm it.) Really, I guess the only thing that qualified it as "a time for ladies" was the fact that there were no menfolk present. Which is a shame.

-Movies watched includes: I, Robot; Star Wars Episode III; The Island; The Witches; and a documentary on Andre the Giant. Normally I wouldn't go to Nicole for my SciFi fix but she really pulled through for me on this one. Ok, so there may have been several episodes of Saved By the Bell stuck in there somewhere too.

-Food consumed: S'mores; teriyaki chicken kabobs; the most amazing chicken, bacon and artichoke pizza; corn on the cob; potato salad; wonderful, greasy Italian (followed by an explosive episode in the bathroom); an entire bag of frozen rolls (we cooked them first); and loads of various candy-type products. We ate on plates decorated with American Flags so that it FELT like 4th of July weekend. Move over Martha.

-Books Read: We both finished off the remaining books in the Sisters Grimm series (I had two left, Nicole had 4) which gave the weekend a magical, enchanted type of feel. Also we smelled pretty bad from postponing showers in favor of reading.

-Topics discussed: The hubris of all singles wards; the creepiness of all humanoid robots; the endearing quality of Ewan McGreggor's bad American accent; the relief we feel because we didn't end up with any of our ex-boyfriends; the sole-wrenching effect of Hayden Christensen's acting (Nicole disagreed);and what all-around awesome people we both are.

-My Favorite Moment: A strangely heated debate about which is more deadly, a vampire or a werewolf. This took place while waiting for the lady at WalMart to tell us where the wooden skewers (aka small wooden stakes) are located (next to the spatulas FYI) and if they had anymore in stock (they were sold out). Nicole's theory was based on the fact that vampires have more weaknesses (garlic, crosses, wooden stakes, holy water etc.) because they are more deadly. I took the opposite view arguing that because the werewolf can only be killed by a silver bullet, it is harder to kill, therefore more deadly (girls can be geeky too). In the end we realized that this was all a ruse for our true, underlying opinions about Edward vs. Jake. Nicole roots for team Jake, I cheer for team Edward. Tragically, no matter who wins, we both lose.