I’m nothing if not a copier. So Janet, I’m stealing this from you, baby.

Loving: apples and cinnamon instant oatmeal.

Hating: that I want to eat two packs of it every morning.

Loving: this post from HollowSquirrel. Which proves that her PowerPoint skills are far greater than mine.

Loving: the preview for next week’s episode of Veronica Mars.

Hating: that it’s a week before it airs.

Loving: the necklace I’m wearing today that I bought for $1.97 last night!! (Dude, the beads alone are worth at least $5.00. I made money on this purchase.)

Hating (squared): that the ring The King gave me for our anniversary this year BROKE yesterday!!

Hating: that our water was turned off all last night for “construction”.

Loving: that I was able to use that as an excuse for being an hour late to work today.

Loving: food

Hating: that my pants aren’t fitting so well.

Hating: teething (my boobs also hate this, as they are being torn to shreds by said teeth).

Loving: MySpace. I did some internet stalking yesterday and found multiple profiles for people I know in real life. AWESOMENESS.

Hating: that I can’t stop looking at MySpace.

Loving: that my exhusband updates his MySpace profile all the time with pictures. He is so bald. And his new wife is so…not me!

Hating: that my toilet backed up last week. And even though I mopped the floor, I know it’s still tainted and can’t bring myself to walk on it. Gross.

So tell me, what are you loving/hating today?

(I promise to have a better post tomorrow. One that includes love and deception. And maybe even sex. Ahhh….who am I kidding?!)

I’m really into my little sister right now. I mean, I’ve always loved her. But I’m really liking her lately.

(I can just see The King rolling his eyes at me saying this.)

My sister is 7 years younger then me. That doesn’t seem like that much now, but when I was 20 and she was 13 it’s was a million years apart. As much as we are alike, we’re very different. As much as we look alike, we really don’t.

We never really paid any attention to each other growing up. She was just my bratty sister that I had to take with me everywhere. Thankfully Marci also had a bratty little sister that we had to take with us. It wasn’t ideal, but it worked.

As I got older I longed to have a good relationship with my sister. At that point she was a teenager and not really into me. I remember asking her if she wanted to hang out with me and my hott lady friends. She said, “Why would I want to hang out with a bunch of old ladies?!” I didn’t get it. She didn’t get it.

I moved away to Seattle before she even graduated from high school. I wasn’t there when she met the guy she would later marry. I wasn’t there to see her try out for Miss. SmallTownWhereI’mFrom. I wasn’t there to see her graduate. I wasn’t there when she got engaged. I wasn’t there to attend her wedding shower. I wasn’t there to help her plan her wedding.

I was there to help decorate for her wedding and to watch her get married to her awesome husband. I even smiled in the pictures, even though I had just gotten my braces on. I was happy for her and her husband.
But still, she really could have cared less. I was still an old lady to her.

Now, she likes me. She really likes me. She calls me all the time. She wants to know my opinion about things. She asked for advice. She values my thoughts. She even shares things with me. Personal things.

I lap it right up. I think it’s great. I love the attention from her. I love talking to her on the phone. She makes me laugh. Yes, she’s mildly abrasive, but she’s my sister. I’ll put up with it.

(I tried to not cover up her nose piercing or our matching glasses with the black-out. I think nose piercings are cool.)

She calls me to talk about her job, she calls me to talk about the latest news from the O.C., she calls me to tell me what color her hair is these days. Dude, sometimes she calls me just to ask about a recipe. (She calls me a lot.)

I like to think that age has brought on wisdom and she’s realized just how cool her older sister is. That maybe she finally understands that I might just know what I’m talking about. That maybe I have been there, done that and can help her along the way.

I’m pretty sure the reason she likes me so much lately is because she likes what comes along with me:

(I wish that I could better put into words my feelings for my sister. I love her. Love is too weak a word for what I feel - I luuurve her, you know, I loave her, I luff her, two F’s.)

My sister (who I love with all of my heart) and her husband (who I also love) are looking for a new apartment to rent. They both recently got new jobs and are anxious to find a place closer to their jobs. They’ve been looking at a ton of different apartments trying to find just the right one.

My sister called me on Friday night to tell me they found it and are just waiting to hear if their application is approved.

Isabel: So what’s it like?

Sister: It has a separate dining room!

Isabel: That’s nice. You’ll be able to use your kitchen table again.

Sister: It has a huge living room!!

Isabel: That will be good, since your current living room in tiny.

Sister: They accept pets!

Isabel: Hooray, now you won’t have to hide the fact that you have a cat.

Sister: The best part is that it has its own storage unit!!!

Isabel: That is great. You can keep all of your Christmas decorations and junk in it.

Sister: Yea, the storage unit is the perfect size. It’s shaped like a long square!

Isabel: Um..you mean a rectangle?!

Sister: Shut up. It’s been a long day.

I get lots of junk emails. They even started to come to my work email at my last job. My co-worker and I would laugh when they came in (he got them too) about possibly investing all of our 401k money in the next big stock “runner”, or a pile of prescription meds big enough to stop a truck. It used to be lots of porn emails, but I think that porn finally got smart and decided that nude pictures on the internet wasn’t really something that needed to be advertised to be sold. They kinda sell themselves through the whole “your first one’s free” policy I think. Maybe the drug emailers should try the same approach.

Anyway, I got a junk email from a semi-reliable source the other day that said in the subject line, something to the tune of “What makes a marriage last.” Since I’m always interested in avoiding divorce at all costs, I bit and opened the message.

It was clearly written by a female since when I opened it I noticed words and not just an image of two people screwing or the single simple message “Hump all the time”. In fact, after reading it, I realized that it never once mentioned intimacy, so clearly, not taking all involved parties’ opinion into consideration.

What it did say was don’t nitpick. And that struck me as a little odd since its usually the wife that does the ‘nitpicking’ in the team. “Pick up after yourself.” “Don’t slam the door.” “Quit farting on me.” Generally not the phrases that come out of the husband’s mouth.

I am the nitpicker in our relationship. I’ll admit, it drives me crazy to hear the microwave door slam and to see someone step around huge messes or a filthy floor. And I probably should spend less time griping about it, according to the article. Silence rarely evokes change though, so I tend to
voice my thoughts rather than shut up.

I’m trying to reinvent The King this year. He needs to be a happier and more easy going person. He wants the people he is around to benefit from his change. He wants what is good for the team. (Okay, he wants to get it on like 4 or 5 times a week too, but that and unicorns are simply fantasy.)

So I’ll take the advice from the email and give it a shot. We’ll see how it goes. Its not going to be easy, but if it works, I’ll write a book or something.

-kk

———–

Not to take away from The King trying to be a better person, as I’m all for that. But check out my other blog for my New Thing for this week.

There’s a lady that works on the same floor as I do, over on the side the restroom’s on. She works in a different department, so I don’t even know her name. Of course we’re friendly with each other. If I see her in the kitchen heating up her lunch, I’ll ask about her weekend or what she’s currently working on. You know, the usual office small talk that we all do. But that’s it. Nothing more, nothing less.

Lately I’ve been running into her in the restroom also. There aren’t many women here at my office, so it’s odd to even have another person in the restroom with me at the same time. It seems that when this woman is in there, we’re always washing our hands at the same time. There are two sinks next to each other. So again, we exchange polite office small talk; are you having a good day, how is your project going, how’s your baby? We chat for a second and then she follows me out of the restroom and we both go back to work.

Last week I began to notice that she’s always in the bathroom when I’m in there.

This week I noticed that as soon as I walk by her cubicle on my way to the restroom, she jumps up and follows me in.

Again, she’ll hang around the sink chatting with me and then she’ll follow me out. I started to find it a little odd. Okay, a lot odd.

Then I figured out what the story is. She’s a germophobe* and doesn’t want to open the restroom door. She wants me to get it for her!

She’s totally using me. I don’t like it. But what can I do about it?

*apparently Howie Mandel is also a germophobe. I find this very interesting. Frema, I know you love him. Did you know this?

My friend May has a 2 year old daughter. Babboo loves May’s daughter, as do I. She’s hilarious, and always makes Babboo smile. She says things to him like; baby Babboo want some crackers? And then stuffs crackers in his face. All the while, he smiles and reaches out to her. It’s cute, really.

May tells me that on the days we’re planning on hanging out her daughter will ask for Baby Babboo all day long. She wants to know when he’ll be there and what toys they can play with once he gets there. The ladies love Babboo.

A few weeks ago May and I went shopping. As always, we took the kids with us. It’s what we do and it usually works out just fine. That is until recently when this little girl decided that she didn’t want to ride in her stroller any more. Makes sense really. I mean, why be strapped in a stroller when you could be walking around touching everything?!

Unfortunately, you can’t let you kids run amuck in a store. At least not if your trying not to lose them. May found that she was spending all of her time trying to keep an eye on her daughter and not looking for sweet deals.

Since May has been a Mother longer, she is much wiser than I would ever be. She decided that instead of worrying where her daughter may be running off to, and instead makes her wear tap shoes.

It was awesome. We never wondered where she was. We could hear her at all time. Seriously, so awesome. Tap shoes are very loud.

So instead of her daughter looking all goofy like this kid:

She looks awesome like these ladies:

Now you tell me, which is cooler??

(it’s the dancers. I promise.)

(don’t forget to check out my other blog for two posts about last night’s new Veronica Mars episode.)