I got a new digital camera from Kane for christmas!! It's so awesome, I can't stop taking pictures of everything. And if you don't want your picture taken, too fucking bad because I'm taking it anyway! Here's Kane after he was placed under arrest by his 3 year old neice Sierra.

Here's a picture I just sent to my dear friend Buck. His real name is Nathan. He's a crazy motherfuck.

Taryn gave me this pamphlet that arrived in the mail this morning at the office. I don't know what's worse: the title (Messages of the Stars? How new-age cheesy can you get? I know what she's trying to say, but the wording just ain't right. "Dear Polaris, Don't forget to pick up milk. Love, Orion's Belt"), or that this poor girl looks like she has a black eye. It's called concealer, Honey. Use it if your man popped you in your right eye last night because his dinner wasn't ready on time. And next time you better make damn sure that supper is on the table at 6 o'clock SHARP. You hear me?? Love, The Stars.

Here's some stuff I've been doing instead of blogging:
-got approved for a mortgage with my sister, then decided not to buy a house.
-decorated my boss's dining room at her house with red, white and pink ribbon.
-took a candlelit bubble bath while listening to songs from "Emmett Otter's Jug Band Christmas" on my headphones.
-made perfectly shaped sugar cookies, and then cursed a lot when the finished product looked like big round blobs of nothing.
-ate a lot of sugar cookies.
-almost went to the mall about 8 different times, then wisely decided not to.
-drank a beer or two.
-got a tetanus shot in my left arm.
-had a sore arm from getting my tetanus shot.
-almost finished watching "Arrested Development Season One" on DVD with Lisa. 2 episodes left!!
-listened to a playlist of "Just Dropped in to See What Condition My Condition Was In" by Kenny Rogers and "The Final Countdown" by Europe on repeat. I am doing this right now actually.

Since Lisa is posting some old family pictures, I figured I should contribute a little. Since there's such a demand for these, you know. This is from a fine day in the summer of 83, when our family went to Sesame Place. Here we are on Sesame Street, that's me down in front(I'm the white one), looking unimpressed, probably thinking about hot dogs or ice cream or some kind of food. That's my dad front and center. He's making his,"Jesus Christ just take the damn picture and let's get the hell out of here and go get a hot dog" face. And that's Lisa in the background, smiling brightly in her nautical-themed swimsuit, apparently unaware that The Count is lurking in the window behind her. The Count was like Lisa's biggest fear when she was little. When he would come on TV, she would run and hide behind my mom. Mom would usually give her a hot dog to calm her down. No wait, that was me. And I wasn't afraid of The Count, I was just hyperventilating because the neighbor's cat was in our yard.

But Hot dogs have very calming effect, that's my point.

So I'm working on our christmas cards here at work, and I ran out of ribbon, so I had to run over to Michael's to buy some more. While I was waiting in line to pay, I totally almost saw a soccer mom fistfight!!!! One of them was pushing her stuff up on the counter into the other one's stuff, and she was like, "Ummm, EXCUSE ME but I haven't paid yet..." so I guess the other lady moved her stuff back. But after angry soccer mom #1 paid, she yelled, "What a BITCH!!!" as she was walking out the door. Then soccer mom #2 dropped her stuff and followed out after her, and she was like,"What did you call me? I was just trying to unload my cart, you fucking BITCH!", and then they disappeared from my line of vision out the front door. So anyway, I paid for my ribbon and went outside, only to see soccer mom #1 getting into her car(which was parked in a handicapped spot, by the way) and I guess soccer mom #2 was waiting for her, because as soon as she pulled out of the spot, #2 was right on her, tailgaiting her and giving her the finger. I guess #2 forgot about her huge cart full of shit and decided to just leave. But wow, was that a fun sight to see! I wish some punches were thrown, cuz that would've been awesome! Ah, the pleasures of shopping at Christmas time.

I made this picture to celebrate my favorite bad holiday movie, "Borrowed Hearts". If you have any interest in seeing it, first of all God bless you, and second of all, the Family channel shows it like 100 times during their 25 Days of Christmas marathon. It's about a shallow rich guy who rents a family to impress Hector Elizondo, who is a business associate from Mexico, a fact that the filmakers repeatedly shove down your throat. The rich guy has to give up his free-wheeling, whoring-it-up lifestlye for the time that Roma Downey(who plays the rented mom) and her stupid kid are there, and highjinks ensue. The best part of this movie is that the little girl in it is probably THE worst actress I've ever seen. And her last name is Fruitman, so Jen and I used to have a great time screaming "FRUITMAN!!!!" at the tv whenever she came on. Anyway, if you have seen this wonderfully bad movie, I hope you can appreciate this picture. And if not, I hope you can appreciate this picture. Joyeux Noel, Hector Elizondo.

Today I have the biggest urge to ditch work and go home, and watch Crybaby and eat tons of ice cream. Ha! I almost wrote "dick work". Anyway I can't because I'm too damn responsible for my own good. Anyway, I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Mine was really good, and I made my very first apple pie ever. And it was good.

Hmmm. No sign of Grandma Shitz. I don't know if maybe she's taking a Thanksgiving break or what, but I'm still waiting for her.
In the meantime, I've been keeping busy. Training my new assistant has been keeping me busy, but it's going even better than I thought it would. The Christmas rush is just starting, so I've been trying to get all the orders done that have been coming in, but it's getting hard. It takes normally about 3-4 weeks to make a piece of jewelry, and these people want it in 5 days. Not happening. So since I'm the one who takes all of the customer's abuse when their stuff doesn't arrive in time, I've just been working non-stop, rushing absolutely everything that touches my desk. The other day I was filling out an order sheet and in the "Date Required" section, I wrote "7 days". This made me think of The Ring, which made me laugh, because the order was also for a ring. Then I was walking around the office all day whispering "7 DAYS.". I don't think anyone knew what the hell I was doing though.
On Sunday night, me and Kane and Lisa went to see "Finding Neverland". I totally loved it. Great movie, made me cry a little. OK, a lot. But I would be lying if I said it didn't make me think of Michael Jackson. That motherfucker ruined the Peter Pan story for me forever. There was one scene in the movie where a man is talking to J.M. Barrie about how much time he spends with Kate Winslet (character name??) and her four boys. He tells Barrie that people are talking, and implying things about his relationship with the boys in particular. Then old J.M. says something to the effect of,"No! How could anyone think that?? They're just innocent young boys...". Luckily I was able to push that moonwalking bitch out of my mind and enjoy the movie, but still, in our minds the three of us were all hearing a freakishly soft voice saying, "Nooooo, that's ignorant. You're being ignorant...".
Last night Lisa and I went to Allison's house to have dinner and watch "Family Guy". We brought dessert with us, a cookies & cream cake. It was so good, but there was a lot left over. Since Allison was on a diet she made us take it home, so we got halfway there before we decided we didn't really want it, and it would either go stale and mouldy on our kitchen counter, or we'd eat it all and get sick from it. So I rolled down the car window and chucked it out, frisbee-style. In midair the container popped open and the cake just sort of blew apart, splattering all over the side of the road. It felt oddly satisfying, throwing a cake from a moving car like that. I recommend trying it sometime, that is if you are ever in a situation of cake surplus. Good times. Anyway, Lisa and I rationalized throwing it away because it had "shmutz" all over the top. I called and told Kane about all of this when I got home, and his roommate Rob said, "Isn't shmutz Jewish people's blood?". I was referring to the cookie crumbs on top as shmutz, but whatever!
Here endeth the lesson.

The Shitting Bandit (Almost) Strikes Again!
Today the old lady came back. Luckily I was poised and ready to go with the camera, so here she is. She didn't actually "go" today, she just did a quick walk-by, but Kane and I are guessing it was only because there were two women sitting on a bench nearby, and that might have spooked her. Too many witnesses. But don't worry, I'll keep the camera ready and if I see her, she's getting her picture took! This is so messed up. This is probably someone's grandma, people. Grandma.

P.s. What's that white stuff she's holding? Innocent plastic bag, or toilet paper? You decide.

Holy crap!
Today that old lady that I wrote about last week came back. Kane was in my boss's office, and he called out,"Trish, look!!! There she is!!". Sure enough, the old lady in the green shirt was back again. I called out to Taryn, who came running into my office just in time to see the old woman pull down her pants and use the front lawn of the house across the lake as her own personal toilet. What the fuck??? This time we know she HAS to be doing this for a reason, because it was in the exact same spot right in front of a house, and the woman even peeked through the bushes of the house to check and see if someone saw her. Then she booked it out of there. The other thing is, it happened last Tuesday afternoon, now today. I think next Tuesday I'm going to have my camera at the ready and try to take a picture of this Shitting Bandit. My theory is that her husband left her for someone younger (who doesn't shit on things outdoors in broad daylight) and they live in that house. Jilted ex-wife, or chronic crapper. You make the call!

Here's a few thoughts on the Scott Peterson Guilty verdict from me and Lisa.
Lisa: "Maybe she got thrown overboard, and dismembered by the fishes. Cuz fishes are very vishes."
Me: "Fine!! You think he's so innocent? YOU date him!"

Here's something I meant to write about a few days ago, but keep forgetting to. Here we go.
I think it was on either Monday or Tuesday, Kane and I were in my office working on some sapphires. The work gets really tedious, and can strain the hell out of your eyes, so you need to take a lot of breaks to look out the window at something far away to stretch your eyes. Anyway, Kane is taking one of these breaks, and suddenly I hear,"Uhhh.......Trish? Are you seeing this?"
"Seeing what?"
"That old lady out there, across the lake?"
"What old lady, I don't see any old lady."
"Right there, she's bending down and..."
"Oh, yeah, I see her. OH!!! Is she taking a shit????!!?"
"I think so."
Yeah. There was an old woman, probably in her sixties, with her pants down either peeing or crapping on some guy's lawn. Right in broad daylight, in full view of the world. Then she pulled up her slacks(old ladies call them slacks) and briskly walked away, disappearing behind the trees and bushes around the corner.
Man, I've seen some shit from my office window before. But never REAL shit. That's new.

"Mr Healey...". This guy's now a roadie for a bunch of lame garage bands. Ah, the magic of Hollywood.

is it just me, or......

Today I was looking around on American Eagle's website for some ideas for christmas presents. I decided I really hate their logo shirts right now. Usually they have some cute ones, but these are pitiful. Here's my ideas, if they ever decide they want to hire me as a designer. I think people would totally buy these. I would, anyway!

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So we put an ad in the paper for a new assistant for me. Actually this person is going to be trained to take over my job when I leave for NJ in April. So far no one really promising has come along, but they do keep getting stranger. The ad was:
Design Asst. FT. Good w/color sorting, creative, independent. Skilled at detailed drawing & computer. Photography, Photoshop & website experience a +.
Today I got a resume from this one guy, who was a crew trainer at McDonald's. He did go to Collins College, so he's probably just a web design guy. But he had two web addresses under "Examples of my work". One was a photography website, I'm guessing his mom's since they shared a last name, and she looked a little too old to be his wife or something. The next was a Blog-style page, with a few entries, one of which was the following:

Children's fears ... me with a shovel, a trash bag, and some duct tape
Step one : find a small child preferably 3-5 years of age
Step two : lure them in to your white van with the prmise of puppies/candy
Step three : give them candy/puppy laced with knock out drugs
Step four : once they have passed out use duck tape to hog tie their feet and hands
Step five : bludgeon them to death with your shovel
Step six : make sweet, sweet love to thier carcass
Step seven : cut them into peices
Step eight : with the shovel bury their tiny little pieces
Step nine : rinse and repeat steps 1-9

Now, lucky for him I'm not easily offended, but if you were sending out resumes and wanted to show examples of your work, is this something you would want your prospective employers to see?? Also, I don't quite get what his "work" is, anyway. If he designed the websites, they are painfully basic and not at all impressive, and one of them has such a high bandwidth that it takes way longer to load than it ever should. But if he wanted me to be impressed with his writing skills he failed! I'm really looking for someone who's NOT a lunatic. Sorry guy. I guess I'm gonna have to go with the guy who was a "Fish Processor" and didn't graduate high school. And no, I'm really not making that up.