1. Fallen out of a tree and had the ER triage nurse insist I tried to kill myself.
2. Had a woman call me at 11:45 at night and insist I worked at Taco Bell and was sleeping with her husband.
3. Laughed so hard I passed out.
4. Got dehydrated to the point of needing two liters of fluid pumped into me via IV.
5. Watched Garden State six times in one weekend.
6. Fell in love with a baby in a Philippine orphanage and wanted to smuggle her home in my suitcase.
7. Sang a solo from inside a 2 story tall artificial Christmas tree.
8. Flown to other states to visit bloggy friends.
9. Learned how to deliver a baby at home.
10. Had a woman in McDonald’s think my best friend was my daughter.

Last night I went to the Sharks game. It was very last minute, but fun. I had a project that needed to be done by today (some details on an SCA outfit that needed to be hand-sewn), so I figured I’d just take it with me and work on it at the game.
I know what you’re thinking, but contrary to that, I actually did get some done. Not nearly as much as I would have had I been home, but still, some. I did the rest when I got home. I was very, very careful not to let the coat I was working on touch the floor of the arena, because, ew. Even so, when I was working on it at home, I smelled beer. I don’t drink beer. I had asshat teenagers seated behind me, but they sure as heck should not have had beer. Where the hell was the beer smell coming from, and ohmahgah was it coming from the coat??
I gave everything that had been near my project at the game a thorough sniffing, but nothing seemed to be the source of the smell. Really, as long as I had not gotten beer on the coat, I wasn’t all that concerned, more curious than anything.
Fast forward to a few minutes ago, I was looking for my ipod case in my purse (had the ipod but not the case) and spied a piece of paper I needed to shred. I pulled it out, and didn’t really look closely at it, but there was the beer smell again. I looked more closely and there was a discolored line on the paper that was damp. It smelled vaguely of beer, but also faintly of soy sauce. Neither of those things should have been anywhere near my purse.
I pulled everything out of my purse, since damp + the amount of electronics I keep in my purse = verybad. I smelled everything, but nothing else smelled like beer. Nothing else was damp, and there was no moisture damage to my leather calendar. It was only on the papers. WTF? I mean, good that it wasn’t on anything else, but where the heck did it come from?

My post today was going to be a picture of my “I Voted” sticker, but it fell off at some point without my noticing. But I voted. Did you? Because if you want to complain about the way our country is being run, first you have to do your part to try and change it.
*Five for Fighting- World

For there was much of it tonight. But in a good way. Dee and I went to go see Five for Fighting at the Great American Music Hall tonight. And we were close enough to touch the stage. Close enough to get some AMAZING pictures with my new camera. He played all my favorites, and I knew every song. Last time I saw him in concert I hadn’t heard the album he was touring for, so there was a lot less singing along. Tonight I sang along to every song, and got smiled at several times. He actually saw Dee and commented “Go Red Wings” because she was wearing a Red Wings jersey. Because “Dude. Five for Fighting.”
It was a great show. I’ve never stood so close to the stage at a concert. So close I could have reached out and touched the piano. I took over 100 pictures, and let me just take a moment to say just how much I adore my new camera. My old camera would have given me 100 unintellegable blurs. This one got me some super clear shots, and several video clips that are more than 10 seconds long.
Dee thought the drummer was hot. But he gave *me* the drumstick. I was so surprised… I didn’t think he really would. So that was revenge for *my* John talking to her during the concert- I got the drumstick of the guy she liked. Payback’s a bitch. ;o)
I love that he plays small venues, so it feels really personal and intimate. I will do my damnest to see him every time he comes to town.

Click to view Flickr set

It’s 11pm on sunday. I’ve spent the entire day cleaning and doing laundry and sewing buttons (36 of them) to a set of sleeves for an SCA dress. And now I am so dead tired that I can barely see my screen, and the number of typos has been too many to count.
So this is my sunday post, sucha s it is. There’ll be better stuff coming soon.

So, I’m actually prone to the expression “smells like a urinal cake”. Because those have a distinct smell. And generally the response is “how do you know what a urinal cake smells like? Well… aside from a lifetime of camping and using portapotties, there is this:

As house manager at the theater, stocking the bathrooms is part of my job. There have been weekends where I couldn’t even go into the men’s room. Seriously men, how do you not notice that?? The big problem with that, because it would seem like I wouldn’t have to spend a while lot of time in there, is that we store supplies and things in the closet in there. Things I need every show. Also, our ladies room only has two stalls, so on busy show nights sometimes we cycle them through the men’s room too so that intermission can actually end.
Now employees… sometimes employees just have to deal. But we can’t ask that of our patrons and then expect them to come back for more. So this season has been an experiment in deodorization. I am glad to report that it seems to be working. The urinal cake may be becoming obsolete. Though I must say, I am a little frightened by this:

It’s floral scent, but in the package it doesn’t smell like anything. So it’s…. moisture activated? I don’t think I want to know. Oh, and it comes with its own rubber glove for removal. I am *so* glad that’s not my job.

Say you are meeting a new person — blind date, new friend, whoever — and you want them to have some idea of who and what kind of person you are. But you can’t actually tell them in so many words. Instead, you have to give them a box with a dozen things in it for them to look at/read/listen to/taste/whatever. What would you put in the box? (A copy of your journal or a piece of paper with the URL to your journal on it would be the same thing as just telling them directly yourself, so that’s not allowed.)
1. My covenant ring
2. My garnet earrings
3. A piece of blackwork and the documentation for it that I entered in a competition
4. My plastic angel I’ve had since I was 9
5. A daffodil
6. A jar of my mom’s pickles
7. My Sharks jersey
8. “The Princess Bride” on DVD
9. A pair of novelty socks
10. A list of blogs I really enjoy
11. My Marc Chagall coffee table book, with “Three Candles”, “L’arbre De Vie”, “La Mariee”, “Joy”, “Roses”, and “Le Vent dans les Fleurs” marked with ribbons
12. My favors from the Westermark Players and Bella Luna

Songs I heard at Red Robin over lunch today:
Jingle Bells
The Real Thing- John Mayer
All I Want for Christmas is You
Who Says You Can’t Go Home- Jon Bon Jovi
Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
Ever the Same- Rob Thomas
Carol of the Bells (Okay, kind of awesome because you almost never hear this song performed with the words, but still)
Save the Last Dance for Me- Michael Buble
It’s Christmas Time Again (no, it’s NOT!)
Better Days- Goo Goo Dolls
Step Into Christmas
IT’S NOVEMBER SECOND PEOPLE! I mean, I will admit it, I have at least 4 Christmas songs that shuffle through my iPod year round, but that’s my choice. I still have a Christmas decoration hanging on the inside of my bedroom door, but that’s because it’s pretty. That’s not me piping it over the airwaves or decorating an entire public place TWO DAYS after Halloween.
I am staunchly “No Christmas Until After Thanksgiving” (my friend in Calgary got me though when he said that in Canada, Thanksgiving was almost a month ago). Sure, I’ll pick up a gift here or there because it’s perfect for someone and save it for Christmas, but I don’t “go Christmas shopping” until after Thanksgiving. I realize it makes me crazy, giving myself only a few weeks to shop for about 20 people, but that’s the way I do things. I also realize that I’m in the minority, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to put up with having Christmas shoved down my throat for almost two months. I think I’m gonna be staying home a lot the next few weeks…

So today is the first day of NaBloPoMo… I was going to talk about how my cat tried to eat a needle last night, but then I realized that that was pretty much all there was to tell of that story, so I decided to give y’all the contents of my purse instead.
Cell phone (silver RAZR V3)
Franklin Covey calendar (I carry it around but almost never use it)
Keys-
Home- main door and garage
Hillbarn- office and dressing rooms
3 for work
key fob for after hours entry to my office building
car
2 keys to friends’ houses
Makeup bag-
MAC pressed powder
Burt’s Bees strawberry lip balm
MAC Pro longwear lip color in Passion Preserved
MAC Loud Lash Mascara (this stuff is sob and rub proof- it got put to the test at Laura and Ben’s wedding)
travel size powder brush
tampon
MAC retracting lip brush
pillbox
Wallet
Green iPod Mini in pink leather case
Safeway receipt (I saved $14.90!)
$1.00 off coupon on Stouffer’s family size lasagna
Travel pack of Kleekex (given to me by a fellow passenger when I was crying in the airport)
Sunglasses
Digital Camera (Sony Cybershot DCS-W100- YAY!) in an 1154 Lill Studio coinpurse that I turned into a camera case
set of 6 nesting metal shotglasses in a red leather case (found in Maryanne’s house, thought they were cool)
Ziplock bag containing a spool of grey thread, a spool of purple thread, 30 handmade purple linen buttons, and 14 squares of linen to make 14 more buttons, and the needle my cat tried to eat the other day
San Jose Sharks keychain in the shape of a hockey skate
Car alarm remote (it broke off my keys a year ago)
Piece of brown beach glass
3 hair elastics
2 pairs of broken sunglasses (now in the trash)

I’m not a dog person, and I’ve never owned a dog, but i’ve been around enough of them to know that dog ass has a distinct smell unlike any other (though all dog ass seems to smell roughly the same). I was just reading Amalah’s post about her dog’s trip to the vet over the weekend, and suddenly my office smelled like dog ass. Out of nowhere and for no reason. Now… I’ve been in places that just seemed to generate spontaneous smells- John’s car, my old office at PCF, and occasionally even this office- but man! Is it the fact that my nose is finally cleared of The Snot I picked up at Casa de Lucid combined with the power of suggestion? If so I’d better be careful what I think about for the rest of the day…