how i went from loving to hating Lowe's home improvement warehouse in under 3 minutes

Yesterday D. and I went to buy a grill. We had seen one at Home Depot that was a possibility and so we decided to go inspect the selection at Lowe's after seeing one on their website that looked promising. We won't get into how we missed the turn because we were peering at a Shoe Warehouse and then drove another 15 miles past the Lowe's before realizing (as we drove past subdivision after subdivision that all looked the same) we definitely should have been there by now. We started to realize our mistake as soon as we got back to the Lowe's parking lot. Saturday afternoon in the suburbs is prime shopping time, and this plaza had not only a Lowe's, but also: a Walmart, a Target, a TJ Maxx, a Home Goods, and the aforementioned Shoe Warehouse. Basically it was an everything-you-could-want shopping heaven for the inhabitants of the suburbs and SUPER crowded. Undeterred, we said 'let's just go have a quick look', so we parked and approached the entrance. Right by the entrance was one of those huge radio station promotional event trucks, so we walked behind it in what looked like the shortest line between where we were and the door. Right as we were coming out from behind it, about 10 steps from the door, we heard a noise that sounded like an explosion - about 2 feet away. We both jumped sideways in horror and scurried away from the truck; at which point we saw the source of the hideous noise - a nascar car. Parked no more than 10 feet from the Lowe's entrance. And having its engine revved at top volume by some asshole. I'm going to assume you've never heard the noise a nascar car makes from a distance of approximately 4 feet, but it is deafening and explosive and I'm 99% certain it caused some sort of hearing damage. D. and I were pissed, people. Our nice relaxing grill shopping afternoon was interrupted by a bunch of asshole rednecks and their stupid earsplitting nascar bullshit. I maybe could have understood if they'd put it at the other end of the parking lot and people could park near or far as they desired, but to put it 10 feet from the entrance to the store so everyone was subjected to it whether they liked it or not was ridiculous. I'd like to say we left then and there, but we really wanted a grill, so we went inside to look. We were both in a rotten mood by that point, so we walked around muttering about how we hate asshole rednecks, nascar, and Lowe's, and pointing out how shitty all the grills were. I suspect we could have seen a grill blessed by the almighty hand of god and we still would have called it a piece of shit. Needless to say, we did not buy a grill then, nor will we be buying a grill from Lowe's. And I strongly suspect we will never go back to a Lowe's. Home Depot has all my love from here on out. The afternoon was somewhat redeemed by lunch at Pizzeria Uno and the successful acquisition of new running shoes for both me and D. from the repeatedly mentioned Shoe Warehouse, but we've learned our lesson. Avoid shopping in the suburbs on the weekend at any cost.

friday cat blogging

highlights and lowlights of the weekend in a somewhat chronological order

Thursday: Family arrives bearing plants, girl scout cookies and easter candy. Easter candy includes my favorite, cadbury mini-eggs. Also accompanying family is the aforementioned Dog That Belongs To My Sister's Boyfriend. In general, I don't have a problem with dogs, especially when they are small and cute. But the distaste quickly grows when the dog in question seems hell-bent on terrorizing the cat. Not only that, my sister's earlier statement that the dog would spend a significant portion of time in its cage appears to be a blatant lie, told solely for the purpose of getting me to allow the dog to come along. Thursday night really sucked because my sister and the dog were sleeping on the couch in the living room, and she insisted that the cat needed to be kept out of the living room or else the dog would bark all night etc. Unfortunately, the only rooms in our apartment with doors are the two bedrooms and the bathroom. Locking the cat in the bathroom for the night didn't seem like a viable option, so we shut it in our room instead. We found out that it really hates being stuck in one room, especially as it's usually allowed free run of the house day and night. Result: we woke up every half hour, cursing the presence of dog, and then I was woken up for good by the dog barking for no reason at about 6:45am. Friday: We had a private tour of the Missouri Botanical Garden courtesy of my mom's old boss, which was pretty cool. We got to see lots of the behind the scenes stuff (including books printed in 1470 that we were allowed to TOUCH and their collection of 15 billion plant specimens) and we were given a couple of orchids. We found a really tasty kabob place on South Grand, and a Vietnamese restaurant that D. and I are planning to try out sometime. On the downside, my mom wanted to spend about 6 hours at the gardens. Gardening is her all encompassing hobby and while the gardens are cool, not much was flowering yet and 6 hours was just way too much. I was tired and cranky from not getting nearly enough sleep the night before, and by 2pm all I wanted to do was take a nap and pretty much everything my family said prompted me to think hateful thoughts about how they should just shut up and go away and ARGH. Saturday: Went much better since we told my sister she would just have to deal with the cat because we were not keeping that goddamn door shut ever again. So we actually managed to sleep and the cat spent most of the night on the foot of the bed anyway. We finally got out of state plates off and MO plates on to mine and D.'s cars, although this was a minor ordeal that involved drilling 3 holes in the new plates. We went to the Soulard farmer's market and bought a pineapple and other fruits and veg., then on to an antiques district that was amusing for a while. My sister seemed to think it was perfectly okay to bring the dog into antiques stores, and amazingly no one said anything about it. One store even had two hyper dogs of its own, which didn't seem like the most brilliant plan ever for keeping the merchandise in good shape, but I digress. For lunch we went to the snotty restaurant at a nearby mansion, where we ate delicious crepes and creme brulee. Our waiter was an extraordinarly pompous individual whom we all made fun of, but I should give him some credit since he brought us rasberry coulis to put on the creme brulee and didn't charge extra (I was certain he would). We then went on a tour of the mansion attached to the restaurant, and it turned out to be the best and funniest house tour I have ever been on and it in fact deserves its own post. So more on that later. Later in the day we went on a walk around nearby neighborhood and had excellent indian takeout for dinner. Looking back, saturday went much better than friday. Although, the dog was still fucking annoying, and my sister knocked a glass lamp onto the floor where it shattered into 10000 pieces and I then spent half an hour obsessively trying to find all the shards so the cat would not ingest/get impaled by them. I understand it was an accident, but my sister didn't apologize and indicated that it was entirely my fault because the cord was slightly within kicking range instead of, I don't know, buried under the floorboards. Sunday: Everyone slept in, had breakfast, went for another walk, ate lunch, and then the family departed. I'm kind of hoping they'll come back again sometime soon without my sister or the dog. I tried not to sound too bitchy while writing this but the truth is, my sister drove both D. and I fucking crazy all weekend long by acting like a spoilt rotten 12-year old and showing practically no interest in anything besides the damn dog and shopping (my mom vetoed the shopping). If I ignore the parts that involved sister/dog, I had a really nice weekend, but it's still nice to have it be just me and D. again.

friday (ahem, i mean monday) cat blogging

Somehow the cat manages to suspend itself on the vertical part of the couch cushions.

beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep

My computer speakers just started intermittently emitting something that sounds remarkably like rapid-fire morse code. Is this some new and bizarre type of virus? Intermittently emitting. Try saying that five times fast.

weekend in review

General theme of the weekend was as follows. Me: ARRRRRRRRRGH. DIE DOG, DIE SISTER, FAMILY (AND BY FAMILY I PRETTY MUCH MEAN SISTER AND DOG) PLEASE LEAVE RIGHT NOW. Because even when I'm slowly being driven insane, I'm polite and I say please.

cat, meet dog

So this morning my sister basically told me that she'll be bringing her boyfriend's dog along for the weekend. Technically she asked, but it was the kind of asking where she implied I'd be a really big bitch if I said no. I don't really mind the dog, but D. doesn't like dogs and I couldn't get hold of him at work to ask about it; and as far as I know the cat has never met a dog. Will it freak out? I supposed if it does, the dog will just have to remain in its cage, since it is the interloper. It was just kind of one of those imposing on someone things that irritates me, especially since the reason that her boyfriend can't take care of the dog is that he wants to go to U of I and drink all weekend. Ah well. We'll see how it goes. They should be here soon.

thinking

Sometimes I wish I'd chosen the type of vacuum cleaner with bags. Sure, it's nice not to have to buy bags every week or so, but cleaning out the bagless filter is DISGUSTING.

family time

My family is arriving on thursday for a long weekend visit. This means between now and then I will be cleaning, cleaning, and cleaning some more, since they will have to occupy the walk in closet and it's even junkier than usual right now. My family should be OK to have as houseguests though, they're fairly good at entertaining themselves by going off on walks and whatnot. My sister will be the biggest problem - what do you do with a 20 year old with a fake ID while parents are around? Yeah. My sister and I look fairly alike - I was taken aback by how much a recent photo of me resembled her. When you put her and my mom and me together, it's obvious that we're all related. She and I would look even more alike if a) I wore makeup and b) I didn't weigh approximately 50lbs more than her. I don't believe she ever goes anywhere without doing makeup and hair, and I've worn makeup approximately twice in the past 6 months. We're on opposite ends of what passes for a 'normal' weight; she's the pointy hipbones kind of thin, and I'm on the curvy side just shy of overweight. The similarities more or less end with looks. She likes to party and go to bars with friends, I need a compelling reason (read: a good band) to set foot in a bar. She loves to buy clothes and more clothes, I find shopping to be boring. I was an economics major, she's thinking about changing her major because it requires her to take three econ classes and she 'just can't do econ'. Unfortunately we don't live close enough for me to help her with said classes. The differences go on, but regardless of such, she's my sister, I love her, and we do get along really well. Sometimes it's just hard to find a common ground, things to have a meaningful conversation about. Perhaps I'll feed her tequila when my mom isn't looking.

i like your pants around your feet

I kept hearing a song on the radio that was all about 'liking your pants around your feet' and 'loving the way you smack my ass' and every time I heard it I thought huh, that's a little kinky. Turns out that it's not one song, it's two; one by Nickleback and one by Puddle of Mudd. I'm still impressed by how they managed to write such similar kinky-style lyrics and also set these lyrics to very similar music. Excerpts: I love the way you look at me I love the way you smack my ass I love the dirty things you do I have control of you I like your pants around your feet And I like the dirt that's on your knees And I like the way you still say please While you're looking up at me You're like my favorite damn disease You can see how I would mix these up, yes? I don't like either of the bands, but the Nickleback song is certainly the better of the two. Sometimes one wonders how the FCC doesn't get people complaining about hearing songs like these on the radio, because you know there are those people out there who think it's a sin to use the word 'ass'.

Won't you be my partner?

Two separate but related thoughts: I generally call D. my boyfriend, it's an easy description that doesn't elicit much in the way of questions. This, though, is just a matter of convenience - D. is really my living together life partner - but in this country it can be awkward to phrase it that way. Whereas in the UK it is much more common to hear unmarried but committed heterosexual couples refer to each other as 'my partner'; here it carries the implied meaning of a same-sex relationship. If I were to make passing reference to my 'partner', I suspect a lot of people around here would think D. stood for Denise, not a boy name beginning with D. This leads me to wonder, what's the difference? Is it just that Europe in general doesn't see same-sex relationships as a big deal and thus it doesn't really matter which gender your 'partner' is? Does the word just not take on the same association? Here, obviously, same-sex relationships are a really big deal, which is perhaps why we've adjusted our language to very carefully identify such. As for calling D. partner or boyfriend, perhaps the best substitute term I've heard yet is a slip of the tongue my mom made: when introducing me and D. to a friend of hers, she said 'Joe, this is my daughter, and her husb - boyfriend, D. I thought this was quite funny, and I've been calling him husboyfriend since; but I suspect I'd get some funny looks if I used the term around other people. D. and I will have been together for four years on March 21st. This is not a long time in the grand scheme of things, but it's a fairly long time for a relationship started by college freshmen. The concrete number of 4 years aside, it feels like we've been together for as long as I can remember. It seems strange to think of the time before D. was part of my life, in that I sometimes think to myself 'he wasn't there for that? I didn't tell him that in 1998?' When I was 18, I didn't think I wanted to get married. I never thought I would find one person I would want to stay with for the REST OF MY LIFE. Boyfriends and not-boyfriends always got on my nerves eventually and I conducted this mental test: was there a good possibility that one morning sometime in the future, we would get up and sit at the breakfast table and have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to say to each other. That was the image floating around in my mind that represented marriage. Then I met D., and we started talking and never stopped. Neither of us are very outgoing or talkative people, but we always have someting to discuss with each other. I couldn't (and still can't) remotely imagine waking up when I'm 60 and having nothing to say to him. And there, just like that, I had found my partner. By July of the same year he asked if I'd like to get married, and amazingly, I did. I certainly didn't expect it to happen when I was 18, and I won't lie and say that the 3 years we were going to different schools 900 miles apart was easy. But I believe that if we could make it through that, we can and will make it through whatever else life tosses our way. Note that we're not married yet. D. has asked me to marry him and I've asked him to marry me on more occasions than I can remember. I've worn a ring for the past 2 years. In all honesty, being legally wed is the least important part; neither of us are interested in a fancy wedding, or really any sort of wedding. We have family and friends spread from MA to CO and a lot of places in between and the thought of the effort required to organize a getting married event is a little overwhelming. So for now we'll stick with husboyfriend. Too bad wifgirlfriend doesn't have the same ring to it.

(slightly belated) cat blogging

This is the cat right after we adopted her. I enjoy this photo because her limbs look unnaturally long, kind of like a baby monkey.

lasagna

I really like to cook. Sometime in the next couple days, I will be making what is known in our household as the best lasagna ever. When I still lived at home, I often used to order lasagna at italian restaurants because the closest thing to lasagna my mom ever made was the Stouffer's frozen kind. Yuck. However, once I found this recipe, I can't remember the last time I ordered it anywhere. Because why bother, when I can have even better at home? So, for any of you who like lasagna, here's the recipe. Note: it's a vegetarian recipe, but I usually use chicken broth instead of vegetable broth because it has more flavor. And for those of you who really really like meat, I dare say it would be just fine if you threw some ground beef/turkey/whatever in with the sauce. Ingredients: 9 no precooking necessary lasagna noodles 1 good size onion, chopped 4 cloves of garlic, chopped 1 14oz can vegetable broth 1 teaspoon oregano (chopped, powdered, whatever) 1 14oz can of artichoke hearts, drained and chopped into about 4 pieces per heart 1 10oz package frozen spinach, defrosted, drained, and squeezed dry 1 28oz jar tomato pasta sauce (get GOOD quality sauce) 2 1/2 - 3 cups shredded mozarella cheese 1 small size tub of ricotta cheese 1 4oz package garlic and herb feta cheese, crumbled 9x13 in. baking dish Commence by sauteeing the onion and garlic until the onion is tender-crisp and nicely browned. Stir in about 2/3 of the can of broth and the oregano, bring to a boil. Stir in the artichoke hearts and the spinach, cover, allow to simmer for 5 minutes. Then stir in the pasta sauce and if it's really sloshy, simmer a little longer. You want it to be a little more watery than your average pasta sauce. Season with salt and pepper if you feel like it. (This is also where you'd put in the browned meat if you were feeling so inclined). Preheat oven to 350F. Start assembly by spraying the pan with nonstick, and then spreading 1/4 the ricotta, 1/4 the mozarella, 1/4 the feta on the bottom of the pan. Place 3 noodles on top of the cheese. Place 1/3 the sauce on top of the noodles. Repeat layers of cheese/noodles/sauce 2 more times, and then top with the last 1/4 of cheeses. Pour whatever amount of remaining broth will fit down around the sides of the dish for the noodles to absorb. Bake covered for 45 minutes and then uncovered for 15 until hot and bubbly. I don't usually bother to cover it but hey, that's what the original recipe indicated. Keep an eye on it for the last 15 minutes or so to make sure it doesn't overcook, but sometimes cooking time will be a little longer than an hour. You can stab it with a fork to make sure the noodles are done. Take it out of the oven, let stand for 10 minutes (definitely wait that 10 minutes), and then eat. Delicious! It also freezes really well, and makes 6-8 servings.

friday cat blogging

The cat's favorite place to sleep is our dining room chairs.

and now, i ramble a bit

Not much new here. D. has been sick for the past couple days with some sort of fevery coughy disease and I'm hoping I don't get it. I've been reading The Grand Tour, which is a very funny account of the author's mishaps in Europe. It's especially funny if you're british (I am) and get all the random references to british culture. I've also embarked on a knitting project with some dread. I haven't knitted since I was, oh, maybe 10 (although I was pretty good at it at the time). But, my mom found this hat she really liked and I told her I'd make it for her birthday. Her birthday was in January. I'm thinking maybe it'll be done in time for her next birthday. Suffice to say it's been slow going and I keep forgetting where in the pattern I am and having to count it out from the beginning of a row. The weather here at this time of year is kind of spastic. We'll get a string of days in the 50s and think that spring is here for good, and then we'll get a couple days where it gets up to 34, and we cry. It's supposed to be really nice the rest of this week and through the weekend, and then next week is supposed to be cold again. This is disappointing as D. has some time off next week and we were hoping to have a small vacation somewhere semi-local; but that option sounds less appealing if it is freezing cold so we will probably just stay warm at home. An odd thing: most people who have lived in at least a medium sized city will be familiar with Panera Bread - purveyors of sandwiches, bakery goods, etc. Well, in St. Louis all the stores are called St. Louis Bread Company. They're absolutely identical to the Panera stores and have all the Panera leaflets inside, the only difference is the name. The only thing we could conclude is that the company started out in St. Louis and then when it spread, they decided to go with a more generic name. Does a name including St. Louis have subpar marketing value? Apparently the Panera people think so.