Comedy Show

Ilene took me to a comedy show in Arlington...we went in through the back which is apparently closed on weekdays, and being closed it gives you the distinct feeling you're about to be murdered. The comedy was pretty funny though, including such classics as "So, Hurricane Ernesto is coming...that's the last thing Bush needs, an immigrant hurricane" Plus they have a contest at the end where people from the audience get to do jokes, and the best one wins $25. I'm telling you, easiest $25 ever made. One of the four jokes was the "What was the Pirate movie rated? Arrrrrrr" one.

Pets

Here's our cat Chloe choosing Andy's backpack as the best place to chill


And here's the other cat Sonny in his favorite spot, the kitchen counter, complete with a bird adornment

NJ/NY

Spent the weekend back "up north." Stayed at Jesse's on Friday and we drank a lot in his really hot above ground pool. Went into the city and saw my parents' favorite German kid, Andre, before he went back to Germany, and saw Charlie for like an hour when we finally managed to find each other.

Haha of course they have this street in Jersey...

The train ride was pretty awesome, considering it had this kid stomping around in these foam claws being like, "Godzilla has arrived!!"


I saw Andre the German kid, and Charlie (he looks so interested in this picture)

Charlie found this place where they were filming a challenge for some reality show called design star and you could go and watch. It wasn't interesting at all, just people in glass boxes painting and shit. Maybe we'll get on HGTV sometime though.

Take a closer look at these two cars. I thought at first that maybe they were just like our crazy neighbors here, who own the exact same car in the exact same color with license plates one number apart, but then I noticed that one license plate was from NY and the other Pennsylvania. So I guess it was just a weird coincidence that two Jaguars of the exact same model, apparently same year, and same exact color were traveling right in line with each other.
I mean, I'd expect this of a Chevy Cavalier or something...

Thanks Jesse!

Jesse just gave me the best present a girl could receive.

Shore House

We spent the weekend at Kenny's family's shore house somewhere in the Middle of Nowhere, MD. We saw an average of 4 deer each time we ventured from the house (the house is aptly named Deerfields) We never saw the snake that supposedly lives under the dock stairs though.
I actually didn't get any more sunburned, unbelievably, even though we spent a lot of time on the boat. And we went to the Cecilton Volunteer Fire Department Carnival, and ate funnel cakes and Kenny and I entered raffles to win a sailboat and a wooden chest full of booze, respectively. Kenny won me a stuffed dog, even though Ferd had fronted the money for us all to play (I guess he should have done the honorable thing and sprayed the other little kids playing in the eyes with his water gun so Ferd could win) And then we promptly left, because even the "Wacky Shack" didn't appear safe enough to actually attempt to enter.

We also watched a bunch of Kenny's home movies as our VHS choices were limited, including the classic, my personal favorite, Christmas 1988, with such renowned clips as the off-screen crash of the new battleship: "...The batteries fell out," Kenny's dinosaur converse, and Kenny's brother throwing the soccer ball into the goal while lying in the red wagon.

And I ate some crab bisque and wasn't happy.

The bathrooms at my work have toilet seat covers brand-named Life Guard.


This only makes me now doubly concerned when I find myself in public bathrooms that don't have toilet seat covers

Ivo the crazy dog, helping to "prewash" the dishes

Little Kids....

Two little kids on the metro stories:

First, on the way to work, a small child kept climbing on and off the seat and slightly hitting my leg as he'd go. I was trying to ignore it and read the paper, but his mom noticed and starts telling him to sit still and "not kick the lady" (a name for me, by the way, that I find particularly unsettling) or she would withhold the coveted apple juice box. So he did sit. But as he sat, he started bounching his little leg over to the left, kick kick kicking my leg. It didn't hurt, seeing as his foot was maybe the size of a clementine, but it was just funny to watch as the maternal power tactics completely backfired.

Then, on the way home from work, a woman and her friend and their collective broods were gathered around me on both sides as I was standing. The friend had the other woman's baby in a stroller. Two things happened. The first was that the woman laughed and told her friend that whenever the "lady's" skirt would move with a bounce of the train, the baby would try to catch a glimpse of its mother, and she kept trying to dodge its gaze--a little heartless, I thought. Then the baby was, I guess, acting up, although it wasn't bothering me at all (and that's saying something, cause I hate babies) and the girl turns the stroller around, looks it in the face, and is like "BRING IT." And it was hilarious.

Emerald Isle, North Carolina

Here's a look at my week in North Carolina with my dad. Southern barbecue, mini-golf (at the same place I fell in the nasty blue water at age 6), lots of swimming in the ocean (despite the encounters with jellyfish and sting rays), a ghost tour and Blackbeard's house, and lots of games of charades with my nephew Anthony--and my dad, who probably likes the game just as much.



Long drive. Repeat. Long.

On the drive down we had a bet going to see how many liscense plates we could spot. I won. It ended up being around 40. But we specifically joked about how we'd never see Montana, cause not only was it such a far drive away, but only like ten people would have Montana plates. Not so apparently.

Our house was sweet, right on the beach






The ferry ride was about an hour and a half longer than we expected. Dad was catching some shut eye.







This was Anthony's reenactment of Bridget's "Brokeback Mountain"


It only happened cause he was firing a gun as part of his charade, but it's still probably the best picture ever taken of my dad


Nice dad. I have no idea what this was supposed to be

I think they're having a slap fight

This boat was just awesome

Blackbeard's house, complete with modern actor-pirate tour guide




The grave of the girl buried in the barrel of rum! See all the weird dots in the picture? Spoooky

That's right. It's PIG



Here it is. The place



We needed a train made from a tractor to carry us to the first hole

Ok, so maybe it's no Disney's Pirates of the Carribbean. Nevertheless...





Reliving the past, even if this time it's only my foot instead of my entire lower half


My dad thought this was great

Ok, this lady who was staying next door apparently came up onto our porch to tell us to turn off our outdoor light so we don't confuse baby sea turtles. A noble goal. Except she was apparently hilariously white trash and manly (I wasn't there for this encounter, unfortunately). She earned the infamous nickname, Mangina. And those of us who didnt meet her were so sorry to have missed it. Then, the next day, we see a woman about 200ft away on the beach, and from her movements being so perfectly in tune with Tysha's re-enactment the night before, we knew we were seeing full-on Mangina in action. These pictures really don't do it justice. But they are pretty funny. I pretended I was taking pictures of all the seagulls descending on their porch as they threw food up to them (you'd think people as environmentally concious as her would realize this is not such a good idea)

Here she is full-frontal

Not the most appetizing of restaurant names, is it?

They bought us all these shirts...we had to wear them for a picture. And the rest is history

We saw this billboard at a rest stop on the drive home...I'm not exactly sure what a "redemption game" is, but I'm not sure if I really wanna know