I’m still waffling on the damn iPad. I played with one last night and it was super cool so now I don’t know what the fuck. I have decided that I will Save Money for it – if I want one, I have to scrape together the money instead of whipping out my mighty Visa. And if I decide I don’t want one or one falls out of the sky at my feet, I will still have Saved Money for the next shiny new toy that I want.

I have a long way to go. At this rate, the 4th gen iPad will be out before I reach my goal.

The $90 is the contents of my Puggy Bank. I will update this thing when I find more monies.

I should have used the church graphic.

Eating jalapeno poppers at midnight can officially be filed under Bad Ideas, no matter how delicious they are and how much fun it is to squeeze all the cream cheese out before eating them.

I had the WEIRDEST DREAMS. At one point, I kicked both Lemon and Ed while running away from a weevil (who appeared as claymation Sphynx crossed with this thing). There were two of them; the second was mean and had a gun and said I was lousy in bed. I do not like the weevil. It is not nice.

Worse than the gun-toting mean-spirited weevils though; I dreamed I was pregnant. It was no good at all, but it was also funny to note how my dreams play out exactly like my waking life. When I discovered I was 4 months pregnant, my thought patterns went like this:

• Well, fuck
• I should call Ali and find out what to expect
• My stomach hurts
• If it’s a girl, I’m totally going to call it Dora
• Maybe I can give it to Kim; she wants to adopt
• OH MAN I CAN’T WAIT TO BLOG THIS

It’s good to know that my nightmares can retain some sort of connection to real life; no matter how terrifying.

I didn’t get an iPad in Portland, to my surprise – I could have easily done it, and Ed even said we could get one as my birthday present – but I turned it down. As cool as it is, I’m still not sold on the necessity of the thing (and I didn’t really want to spend the money). I’ve heard the novelty of it wears off pretty quickly, and I’m afraid that it’ll just be another expensive toy that ends up collecting dust when I move on to the Next Big Thing.

I like to have options, though. I listed a bunch of things on Craigslist – if I can sell some of my extra stuff, maybe the price tag will seem a little more viable. There’s always the iPhone 4, too. And of course, the completely boring option of not buying anything at all but instead using the money to pay down my debts. That’s a last resort sort of thing, because it is the Sensible Thing To Do but is no fun whatsoever and is therefore my least favourite option of them all.

Anyway. Need some stuff?

• Oscar the Awesome Scooter (asking $2500; down from $3500 last year)
• 16GB iPod Touch (purchased in revenge for not being allowed a pug even after he promised)
• 4G EEE PC (who needs 5 laptops? not me, apparently)

I might be selling my Macbook, too. Upgraded OS, RAM, two adapters, various cases .. prolly would ask $800? $750? Dunno. Don’t really care. Feeling strangely detached today.

Anyway, comment if you’re interested in any of my random crap. Don’t get me wrong, it’s all excellent crap – maybe I shouldn’t call it crap. This is why I don’t work in sales.

And like that, vacation is over.

I’m glad to be home, but I like being out there in the big scary world. It took two showers to get the travel stank off and I definitely didn’t miss our water-saving wuss shower, but I’m clean and awake and ready to take on the last official day of my time off. I’m trying not to be sad about it – I still have vacation days left and am thinking about taking a week off in September based around PAX, but the thought of going back to work on Monday is making me kind of nauseous. No offense, work, but you kind of suck compared to wandering around downtown Portland without a care in the world.

We spent the last night of our trip in Seattle, visiting with Doug, Ali and family. We met Hazel, who is small and cries a lot. River is as cute as ever, and enjoys being upside down. It was a relatively low key night for me; Ed and Doug went out for a Fancy Dinner while Ali and I stayed in with children and pizza and TV. I was introduced to the exciting world of Nick Jr and the Wonder Pets have invaded my conscious; something I’m not sure I’m ready to forgive Ali for. We watched some terrible sitcoms and some less terrible reality TV, then went to bed after the boys came home. I tried to get up early the next morning, but my head wasn’t having any of it and I had to fight off a migraine with additional snoozing. We said our goodbyes before noon, and headed north and for home (with a quick stop at the outlet mall so Ed could buy a wallet and I could buy a pretzel). The border was a small wait but a breeze, and by 5pm we were home with all our travel dirt, three happy/indignant cats, and several hairballs.

Our homecoming was sadly traumatic though, as Lemon appears to be sick. After an early evening of roughhousing and smelliness, he started making some horrible noises and appeared to be in a lot of discomfort. We didn’t really know what to do for him, and still don’t – but he slept through the night and morning, and seems happy. He’s purring and responding to attention; even rolling over to allow me access to his belly (usually completely off limits and was untouchable last night with a panicked meow of pain). I won’t be happy until he uses the litter box without issues to make sure we don’t have a stopped-up Lemon – I don’t like it when the cats are illin’. It makes for a sad Kimli.

Lola is all fixed up and ready to go, so I need to make my way over to Granville Island to pick her up. Hooray for warranty repair; boo for large service bill (she was in for her 4500km tune up). I’ll be glad to have her back, though. All I need now is some sunshine, and I’ll be totally set for Adventure!

we bought 5 pounds of salt water taffy. please come eat some.

Tonight was pretty much my dream night in Portland: Mexican food for dinner, Rock Band night at an awesome arcade, and an hour spent wandering around in Powell’s Books. This afternoon we also had haunted pizza, Voodoo Doughnuts, and hip coffee at Stumptown. We’ve done more than just eat in Portland, though – we’ve walked *everywhere*, and our feet hurt.

Tomorrow we’re off to Seattle to spend a night with Doug and Ali then home on Thursday. It’s been a great vacation so far, but I miss my cats and scooter.

domo is wooing ms. pac-man, but she's taken

domo out-hipped the hipsters at stumptown

not shown: domo's subsequent heart attack

I do not understand how Ed is not deaf and bow-legged.

I borrowed his scooter to run an important errand – picking up dinner from Anton’s – because Lola is still in the shop and I didn’t want to try to find car-sized parking on the street during the dinner hour. I still have Oscar but he’s uninsured, so Ed’s ride was my only choice.

I don’t think I’ve had a more awkward scooter ride; even that time I tried to scoot in a PVC skirt as a mockery of rain gear was better. His scooter is UNBELIEVABLY LOUD! As annoying as I find his ride because of the noise, it’s even LOUDER when you’re on it. Holy shit, I thought I was going to go deaf in the 6 minutes it took me to get to Anton’s from Sparta. How can he stand it? And the stance! His seat is so wide it felt like most of West Burnaby was privvy to my underpants. The whole thing made me feel really exposed – the seat, the stance, the fact I couldn’t use the mirrors, the wind up my vagina. My helmet is at the shop with my scooter, so I wore my backup half  helmet and that didn’t help the whole “feeling exposed” thing. It was awkward. I’m glad the food was worth it; you can’t go wrong with that much sausage.

We’re off to adventure bright and early tomorrow morning! I don’t know where we’re stopping for the night tomorrow, but I will check in with stories if the hotel has wi-fi. If not, I’ll check in from Portland. Hooray!

I can’t take it – this is so fucking cute I am going to explode:

hobble and lemon

they normally keep to themselves

oh god why are they so cute

Click the images to see the rest of them. They’ve been sleeping like that since ten am, and it’s now three hours later and neither of them show any sign of moving. It’s got to be illegal to be this cute. I can’t take it.

To cut the treacle, here is a clock made of lies:

it "runs" on "steam" aka LIES

Justification(s) of the Day:

• If I drive the car to work, I can get cat food on the way home – we’re completely out, and they’ll appreciate me getting the food BEFORE I come home (and also I won’t have to take the stupid fucking bus)
• If I get an iPad, I can get electronic copies of a lot of the books on my shelves meaning I can donate them to others AND free up some precious shelf space – the Harry Potters and Stephen Kings take up most of one bookshelf alone! Buying an iPad would mean I have a CLEANER HOUSE!

Last night at the Police Museum, I got double-teamed by John Biehler and Tris Hussey. They both pulled out their iPads and spent a goodly amount of time showing me the many cool things you could do with it, and I could immediately envision where I could use the thing in my everyday life. I hadn’t actually ever played with one before last night, and was a little taken aback at how gorgeous the display was. John brought up the Marvel Comics app, and I nearly jizzed in my pants – godDAMN, that looked fine. It didn’t help my resolve all when John showed me the camera attachment either; instantly importing the pictures I had just taken with my Tiny Cam and editing them on the screen. Damnit, I already said I didn’t want or need an iPad – and now it’s all I can think about; the number of ways I could use it and how incredibly sexy it was (and would make me by association).

I am pretty much ruing in advance our trip to Portland; home of the tax-free shopping and plentiful Apple stores.

I’m officially on vacation as of 5pm today, and it’s not coming a moment too soon. I am perpetually annoyed at work, and I need a break – time to clear my head, shake off my angst and think about what I want to be when I grow up. I’m really frustrated with a lot of things right now, the least of which is not the fact that I was docked a day’s pay for being sick last week. We get sick days, but our HR person put me on some kind of sick day probation for being absent too much last year. Okay, fine – I get it; I’ll come in when I feel like shit and be useless for the entire day. Unfortunately, our HR person left the company a few months ago and her replacement doesn’t start for another two weeks. In the meantime, I’m flagged in our system as “sick = unpaid” and no one can remove it. I seethed for a little bit, then did some research – according to the office assistant, I took 10 sick days in 2009, and 1.5 days so far in 2010. 10 sick days is a LOT, but 5 of those don’t really count – I had the Piggy Sniffles, and the company-wide policy was that H1N1 didn’t count towards your sick days and for the love of god, don’t come into the office until you’ve got the all clear. Since I had The Talk, I’ve actually been really conscious of my absences and have worked through many migraines and sniffles so I wouldn’t be penalized. I’ve taken 1.5 sick days in 6 months, which I don’t think is out of line at all – yet I’m still being docked a chunk of pay for it, which bites.

Using this new thing called “Confrontation”, I talked to my boss about it then emailed him the cold hard facts. He’s passed the info along to the Ghost of Karen (our HR person is working on a contract basis until the new person starts), who will hopefully a) lift this ridiculous probation on how often I’m allowed to be sick and b) credit me back those 8 hours of pay. After tax, that’s a good-sized piece of the iPad I don’t want. They should give it back to me.

Tonight I pack and do laundry. Tomorrow, I get rid of this Dora the Explorer haircut. Saturday, we leave .. for FORKS. Expect pictures.

The Bad News: Darth Lola needs both her head and base gaskets replaced; something that requires a complete engine rebuild (a 5-hour job)

The Good News: The parts are in stock – if they weren’t, it’d have been a 1-4+ week wait.

The Better News: Lola is still under warranty, for another two weeks – this couldn’t have happened at a better time (assuming it had to happen at all)

The Best News: I’m going on vacation, so they’ll work on Lola next week and she’ll be done by the time I return next Thursday so I’ll have her back in time for a glorious summer of two-wheel fun!

HOORAY!

<3 <3 <3