show me that smile again

I went to Zumba (yes, ZUMBA) on Saturday for the first time. While I spent several songs marching in the wrong direction and flailing my arms about wildly, I enjoyed it and I'm going back tonight. It tricks you into exercising and it turns out exercising is good for you. Who knew? Anyway, the plus side of going to this Zumba class is that there's no set cost, it's all just donations to the instructor, AND it's really close to my house. The negative is that it's at a church, not that that's bad, but there are some churchy elements. Like scripture reading before the class starts (but it's short) and I'm pretty sure there were one or two Christian rock songs played during the class, but I was too busy trying not to run into people or fall down to really notice. This said, I don't really care because while I am not churchy, I do not begrudge others their churchiness (I don't know).

AND. The instructor told us before the class started that Kirk Cameron was coming to give a talk about marriage or preparing for the End Times or something, I don't know, I wasn't really listening because I was too busy mouthing, "OMG MIKE SEAVER MIKE SEAVER!" to Nancy while my 18-year-old cousin just stared at us blankly because I'm pretty sure she doesn't know who Mike Seaver is. The shame, the shame.

Anyway, I'm trying to decide if it's worth the price of the ticket to possibly accost see Mike Seaver in person. Probably not.

So, yeah, since I went to Zumba, it meant getting up early (on Saturday!) and regretting my decision to drink coffee beforehand. It was fun, though, and the fact that I keep telling people I'll meet them there means I can't flake out unless I have a really good excuse. Wanting to stay home and watch The Soup is not a good (enough) excuse.

After Zumba, I went home and was faced with this tough decision: Do I continue being productive since I'm already up and aboot? Or do I reward myself for getting up early with TV and loafing? The answer was a little of both, because Joe and I finally went to the bank to begin the long, arduous process of merging our moneys, but when we got home, I watched an episode of Doctor Who and two episodes of Grey's Anatomy (from season 2, when it was still good...ish).

I was about to start the next episode when Joe called and was all, "...um...so...I found a dog," and it was one of those times where I just wasn't sure how to react. I thought he was calling to tell me he was on his way home, not that Max might soon have a new friend. But, no, this dog was wearing tags, so we couldn't in good conscience keep her forever and hug her and squeeze her and call her George.

At first I was like, "take her to SICSA, maybe?" hoping they'd know what to do and then I remembered that I had a computer in front of me, and everyone knows that Google can solve anything. I got on SICSA's website, which led me here in a matter of CLICKS. Apparently, if you find a lost dog, you can find the owner's address and phone number just by entering the dog's tag number. I had no idea our county did this. I'd imagine your county does the same.

I plugged in the tag number and luckily the owner's current information was in there. I called them and a little girl answered the phone. I told her my name and that my husband had found a dog and that's when she squealed, "THEY FOUND CHRISTY!" and my heart melted. They didn't live far from us so I called Joe and told him where he could return the dog, and he said the whole family was outside in the front yard, waiting for him to bring their dog back. I want to cry a little, you guys, WHAT THE HELL. Anyway, I think our Dog Karma is really high now, so hopefully if Max ever gets lost (NOOOOOO), he'll find his way back to us, or someone will find his way back to us FOR him.

"Smart" Kids: new Lois & Clark review

New review on Joe & Jennie in the Morning! Lois and Clark investigate some super smart kids who are trying to take over Metropolis, but they don't really seem all that smart. Sure, they outsmart Lois, but how hard is that, really?

i am totally bogarting delurking day II

Sometimes when I find a new blog, I get really annoyed if there's not an "About" page somewhere, because I'm nosy and I like to learn everything about that person RIGHT AWAY, rather than, I don't know, just reading through their archives or something. Who has that kind of time? Wikipedia has ruined me forever.

Anyway, my point is that I'm a big hypocrite because I didn't even have an "About" page! WTF? I've fixed that, though, mainly because I recently discovered how to add Pages in Blogger. I know. I KNOW. So if you look under the header, you will see an "About Me" page and it's all about me, although I'm not sure how informative it is.

There's also a Links! page because did you know that Blogrolling went away? I guess it's been gone since November but I only recently noticed because ALL MY LINKS DISAPPEARED. It was good, though, because I've discovered a lot of new blogs since I last updated my Blogroll, so now those have been added. Please let me know if I forgot you.

BTW, I mostly stole this whole idea from Kate over at Effing the Ineffable, who has declared her own Delurking Day. So if you're a lurker, DELURK, because I am a whore for comments. Also, if you delurk, then I can add your link to my Links! page. Win win win! Also also, I really want to add a FAQ page but no one ever asks me any questions, let alone FREQUENTLY, so if you could delurk AND ask a question, I will send you a virtual hug WHATEVER THAT MEANS.

Also! Here are some recent posts at Joe and Jennie in the Morning! that you may have missed:

1. Joe is going to be recapping Sports Night. Here's the first episode!
2. I recapped episode 3 of The X-Files AKA Squeeze AKA the greatest episode ever (until, you know, the next one)
3. Joe recapped episode 6 of Lois & Clark...Lois dresses up in a chicken suit. Yeah.

let's talk about gym etiquette

I know I was just complaining about the movies but now I'm going to complain about the gym and I'll tell you why. Our condo complex has a fitness room and, as far as I can tell, it's hardly ever used. I have seen other people in there maybe one or two of the times I've managed to drag myself to the treadmill, so whenever I walk in the room and see other people, I feel like they're trespassing in MY gym.

When Joe and I walked into the gym a few days ago and there were two (TWO) people already there, working on their fitness, I was perturbed. But, you know, whatever, it's their gym, too (HARRUMPH) so I couldn't really complain. Or throw them out, even though I totally wanted to. BUT. Then! They were gross. And here's why:

The guy on the treadmill who I usually see running outside no matter what the temperature had decided to move his workout indoors that day and was running super fast, was really sweaty, smelled bad enough that I could smell his BO from two machines away, and ran for at least 40 minutes, getting his sweaty-stinky-man-hands all OVER the treadmill. He finished his workout soon after Joe and I started ours, went to get a drink at the water fountain, put on his jacket, and left. Joe and I looked at one another in complete horror.

"Did he clean off his treadmill?" I asked.

"NO!" Joe exclaimed.

GROSS. YOU GUYS. THAT IS GROSS.

So meanwhile, there's this lady riding a bike in front of us. She's not wearing earphones or anything, so I know she heard us talking about how gross it was that that guy was sweating all over a machine and didn't clean it off. But what does she do? Finishes her workout, gets a drink of water, puts on her jacket, and leaves! WHAT THE HELL?

The craziest thing is that there are antibacterial wipes provided RIGHT THERE in the gym. You don't have to bring your own towel. You don't even have to go get paper towels out of the bathroom and then spray them with cleaning solution before you wipe down the machines. No. You just have to pull a wet wipe out of the container. It's so easy. I don't understand people who don't clean off their machines. If you don't clean your machine when you're done with it, YOU ARE AN ASSHOLE.

Gym Rules:

1. CLEAN YOUR SHIT

The most important rule of the gym is to clean up after yourself. If you sweat all over a machine, CLEAN IT OFF. How is this a difficult thing to understand?

2. GET OUT OF MY WAY

Don't stand in front of a machine or just, like, hang out on a switched-off treadmill and have a conversation with someone. Get out of the way so someone else can use it. I HATE YOU.

3. DON'T BE GROSS

When Heidi and I were members at Fitworks, we would often note that working-out-noises were eerily similar to having-sex-noises. Please be aware of the noises you are making and, um, stop making them. I should not have to give you a side-look to make sure you're not pleasuring yourself over at the bench press.

4. WTF, I WAS WATCHING THAT

If you go in the gym and someone is already there and the TV is on a certain channel/show/whatever, DO NOT CHANGE IT. Not without asking. That's rude. I don't want to watch real athletes on ESPN while I work out, I want to watch models fall off a runway on America's Next Top Model.

5. NO SERIOUSLY, CLEAN YOUR SHIT

Hi. Did you just finish your workout? Yeah? Cool. Did you clean off your machine? No? Oh. GO CLEAN YOUR SHIT.

Let's all go to the movies and STFU.

We went to the movies last weekend and not the giant movie theater that has a billion screens, but the teeny tiny one downtown that only has, I think, three? Joe, how many screens does The Neon have? I don't know. I do know the theater we were in had the smallest screen ever, which was fine, because we were seeing The King's Speech and not, like, Tron.

There were maybe like fifty seats (I really have no idea) in the theater, which is teeny tiny, but it wasn't even full during our show. I don't understand why every showing at this theater isn't standing room only because The Neon serves beer. And wine, I think. Maybe people just don't know.

The couple sitting next to us, in the innermost seats of the aisle, knew this because the guy left in the middle of the movie to get more beer. Which, fine, but he also got up before the movie started to get beer and that meant climbing over four other pairs of legs on his way out. There were plenty of seats on the ends of the aisles, so I'm not sure why they didn't sit there. Whatever, I could have overlooked that had they not been so annoying. The lady kept getting on her iPhone to...I don't know, maybe update Facebook that Colin Firth is still a damn good-looking man? What is that? Get off your phone! And the guy...I don't know what his deal was, but he kept sort of talking to the screen. I think? I mean, he'd just randomly be like, "Ohhhhhh," or, "Uh-huh" and he wasn't even whispering, he was talking louder than the movie.

And he wasn't the only one! There was a guy in the aisle across from ours, sitting in the corner with his companion, and he was SO LOUD. Like, he was almost yelling, I'm totally serious. Joe eventually shushed him and then the beer-getting guy sitting next to me LAUGHED. I chose to believe he was laughing because shushing movie-talkers is hilarious, not because it's funny to talk during movies, otherwise I would have karate chopped his face off.

There are a lot of people in this world that I don't understand, but, Teabaggers aside, movie-talkers are the most mysterious to me. I'm of the belief that once the previews start, you should not say anything unless you're on fire. And even then, you should calmly make your way to one of the exits and wait to start screaming until you're safely out of the theater. That's called being considerate.

So the person who totally disregards the fact that he is not actually sitting at home in his living room? He completely baffles me. What goes on in his head? Anything? Does he think we can't hear him? Or that his comment is so witty that the room will erupt with laughter? Or maybe he just doesn't give a shit...being considerate to others is for commie liberal pussies anyway.

I have been known to shush a person, but only if they're sitting near me. I would actually get up, find an usher, and TOTALLY TATTLE ON THEM if it didn't mean I'd miss part of the movie. I once told the teenage girl in front of me to "get off her fucking phone," during a showing of Mean Girls, after shushing her twice to no avail. I shushed the people behind me during The X-Files movie (the new one) because even though I was BORED OUT OF MY MIND, it's the principle of the thing, you know? And I openly rejoiced when a group of teenagers was publicly shamed by the usher for being obnoxious during Half-Blood Prince BECAUSE YOU DON'T TALK DURING HARRY POTTER.

That said, if you have something really important to say, it's OK to WHISPER it to someone sitting next to you. And when I say "whisper," I mean even the person you're whispering to should BARELY be able to hear you. Like, during The King's Speech, it was obviously really important that I lean over to Joe and tell him that the actress playing Myrtle Logue played Elizabeth Bennet opposite Colin Firth's Mr. Darcy*. But you know what? When Bertie and Myrtle finally meet in the movie? In my head I was all, "MR DARCY AND ELIZABETH BENNET REUNITED," but I squeed in silence, OK? SO SHUT UP.

*I waited until the movie was over to tell him that Mr. Collins was also in it

The latest on Joe and Jennie in the morning!

1. Joe reviews Lois & Clark: episode 4!

2. I review Lois & Clark: episode 5!

3. I review The X-Files: Pilot! and! Deep Throat! (as Joe said, The X-Files episode, not the porno)

big ball of wibbly-wobbly...timey-wimey...stuff

I changed my ringtone to the Doctor Who theme and waited and waited for someone to call me so I could hear it and guess what? Not a lot of people call me. Or if they do, they somehow wait until I'm sleeping or in the bathroom or whatever.

Also! My text alert noise is now that VROP noise that the Tardis makes when it appears. Or disappears. Whatever. I forgot about it until Monday, when I was sitting on the sofa and SUDDENLY THE TARDIS WAS LANDING IN MY LIVING ROOM. Except not. Because it was just a text. I may have gotten excited and this conversation may have happened:

Me: I heard my new Tardis text message noise today for the first time.
Joe: Um, OK.
Me: I forgot I changed it, though, and for a minute I thought the Tardis was landing.
Joe: Sigh.

It could happen, you guys, I swear.

So I started writing this yesterday and totally forgot about it. I blame the drugs. For real, the drugs. It's cough medicine, sure, but I still think it's a valid excuse. I was home sick on Monday and took an actual sick day, rather than trying to get work done from home which is what I normally do. Instead, I finished season 5 of Weeds and watched The Office (British version) Christmas special because I wanted to see Tim and Dawn get together. Yeah, that's pretty much the only reason I watched it. Anyway, I was home again on Tuesday because of all the weather and by weather I mean COLD AND SNOW. There are some perks to working so far from home, and being able to work from home because the roads are too snowy/icy is one of them. If I had an SUV or something, I could probably make it in easily but I don't, I have a car that is basically a glorified sled and while I don't mind sliding around all lanes of the highway, the other drivers do. I can't imagine why. My car is bright green, JUST GET OUT OF MY WAY.

I totally forgot to tell you guys something really important, probably because I was too busy talking about Jack Black the time traveler and cat poop, but Heidi (and Nicole!) got engaged over Christmas. You may remember Heidi from such entries as Upside Down Oven Knob and inappropriate conversations about Full House. Sometimes I wonder how we turned into people who get married and adopt animals and buy houses and remodel bathrooms and I get a little sad remembering our crazy days of drinking until 5 in the morning and eat cupcakes for dinner. Then I remember that I spent New Years Eve running around the beach acting like a dinosaur AND I legitimately thought that a time traveling police box might be landing in my living room and I realize not so very much has changed.

GOALS, GOALS, GOALS!

It's that time of year when you're supposed to vow to be a better person, even though last year you vowed the same thing and how did you do? Did you do as terribly as I did? I was going to post my resolutions from last year to see how I did, but when I looked back at what they were and saw that I'd accomplished very few of them, it sent me into a spiral of depression and self-doubt and that's good for no one. Except for people who like it when I'm sad but those people sound like assholes. Anyway.

I think I really just hate the word "resolution." It's stupid. So these aren't my resolutions for the year, they're my GOALS. Let's go with that.

1. Write with purpose

Not that I don't find it enjoyable to spout complete nonsense on my blog, um, all the time, but my blog is not so much what I'd call "publishable." And I'd very much like to be "publishable" so when people ask me what I do for a living, I can answer with something like "such and sucha writer" instead of how I normally answer, which is with an anguished cry, followed by me bashing my face into a wall until I pass out.

This means less internet time, I think. Not necessarily less blogging time, but less time falling down Wackopedia rabbit holes and watching weepy videos on YouTube. This is probably not specific enough, so I'd like to commit to writing for at least 30 minutes a day. That's about the same amount of time it takes to watch an episode of Weeds, and I've been watching like two or three of those a day. I can probably, PROBABLY, give up at least one episode.

2. Be more active

I have a tendency to become hermit-like, especially in the winter, because it's cold outside and also?  My home is awesome, why would I ever want to leave it?  But I can't use the cold as an excuse forever because it's cold for like four months here and that's a long time to wait to start having a life. 

When I say be more active, I mean physically, of course, but also more active in the community.  I volunteer but I'd like to get involved a bit more with that, as well as finding more stuff to do in Dayton.  I realize that sounds crazy, because I always complain about how there's nothing to do in Dayton, but that's really not true at all.  Whenever we look for stuff to do, there are always a lot of options, but I'm so indecisive that I usually end up doing, um, nothing. 

But not tonight!  Tonight we're going to a bar!  On a school night!  To play trivia!  Because we are nerds! 

3.  Cook more, cook healthier

This is always one of my goals, and I think I've been getting better but there's definitely still room for improvement.  I got a shitload of cookbooks for Christmas, so I have no excuse for not accomplishing this one.  Things are going well so far because I've eaten pretty well since we got back from Florida.  The other night I made some yummy raspberry glazed grilled chicken OMG IT WAS SO GOOD.  And healthy.  Win win win.  I don't know.

4.  Save more money

Ugh, I'm so bad at this one.  Admittedly, I've gotten a lot better than I used to be, but still...the amount of money I blow on crap I don't need is just, well, stupid.  I think this will be a lot easier once Joe and I get a joint account (joint checking and savings account, not like an account where we save money to buy joints) because we'll have to have a budget and blah blah blah money stuff is boring.  I would like to have more money saved in case we want to ever buy a house or move somewhere awesome or just go on more trips. 

5.  Figure out how to get Max to stop eating Phoebe's poop

Seriously, dog?  Gross.  Why are you doing that?  We feed you plenty.  We play with you.  We take you on walks.  WHY ARE YOU EATING POOP? 

I am taking suggestions on number 5.  Like, please, hurry.  And nothing obvious like, "clean the litter box more often," because I'm already doing that.  I would like to be able to leave it, though, for more than 12 hours, depending on Phoebe's poo schedule.  Yes, I just said poo schedule.  This post went downhill really quickly.  STANDARD.

WHOA

YOU GUYS. Look at the picture of Paul Revere on his Wackopedia page and tell me that Jack Black is not a time traveler.  GO AHEAD.  TELL ME.

gonna fly this boat to the moon somehow

I have sand in my shoes. Sarasota sand, to be specific, and it's such a tease because it's about 30 degrees outside right now. I was wearing these shoes on New Years Eve, which I suppose still doesn't explain why they have sand in them SO HERE GOES.

Joe and I went to Florida last week to visit Lampl and Jon, who moved down there last year to live by the ocean and get away from the Ohio winters. I can't say that I blame them, all the warm weather would be nice, although I think I might miss watching Max play in the snow. But, really, their move was our win, too, because we now have somewhere to stay that's within walking distance to the beach.

We ended up driving down because plane tickets were waaaaaay more expensive than gas, which is kind of sad, really, considering gas is at least three bucks a gallon at the moment. We drove over two days, which ended up working really well because we got to stay in two different hotels, which meant I had two different ice machines to find and play with. Mmm, ice.

We stopped to get gas at some point once we got into Florida and when we got out of the car, it was too hot for a jacket. TOO HOT FOR A JACKET. IN DECEMBER. You would have thought that we'd just witnessed some Harry Potter magic or, like, a band of pixies lift up our car and fly away with it, such was our wonderment. And EVEN BETTER, when we got to Jon and Lampl's, we discovered they had stocked their fridge FULL of Yuengling.

(Sidenote: Guess who forgot to buy any Yuengling on her way out of Florida? THIS KID. Sigh.)

Anyway, when we got there, Lampl was all, "We booked a sunset cruise for all of us on New Year's Eve...it's free...and we get free drinks...but we don't have to do it if you guys don't want to," and I was all, "Lampl, what about that sentence leads you to believe we wouldn't want to do that?" So we did that. And despite all the free drinks and the rocking of the boat, none of us fell overboard. Whoo! We still had a few hours to kill until midnight once we got off the boat, so we hung out at Jon and Lampl's for a bit (after restocking their fridge with beer), ate some pizza, and then went to the beach for midnight festivities.

Once there, we plugged in an iPod, blasted some Girl Talk, and rolled up our jeans so we could frolic in the ocean. The frigid, frigid ocean. I don't know what happened, but I think that beach was some kind of time machine or was blasting immaturity rays or SOMETHING, because we spent most of our time there running around like tiny children hopped up on sugar and caffeine AND CRAZY PILLS. I have been told that I'm like a belligerent (and energetic) four year old when I'm drunk, so maybe it was catching? I don't know. I DO know that when we got there, I started running around in circles, and then we asked for some fireworks from some people down the beach (which we couldn't light on account of the wind), and then Danielle's bra fell off, and then we ran some more, and then we all pretended to be velociraptors and T-Rexes (with teeny little arms) BECAUSE OF COURSE WE DID. We gathered around someone's phone at midnight and I think we celebrated a minute early but whatever, that just meant we got an extra minute of celebration.

We got lost trying to find our way off of the beach, Lampl dropped five beers, and we played a bit of Beatles Rock Band before everyone fell asleep. I got super sad face when we left, not just because it meant I would have to go back to the cold and my job and, you know, REALITY, but because I was leaving behind the warmth and the fun and my BFFs, all of whom were headed in different directions, ALL HOURS AND HOURS AWAY from each other.

But I still have some sand in my shoes, the same shoes I was wearing to ring in the new year (well...they were sitting on the blanket while I ran like a crazy person through the surf, but I think it counts), so I'd like to think a part of me is still on that beach, shouting with laughter (and dinosaur roars), just happy to be with people I love.