Sometimes Mike (my Mike- I need to be specific in this because there are so many Mikes in my immediate family) gets frustrated with me because I always need to have things planned out in advance.  I like guidelines.  I like instructions.

Today, my dad sent us a bunch of caramels (from HookedonCaramel.com).  He also included instructions on how to eat the candies.

I wonder WHY i’m so neurotic.

Thanks Dad, we love you!

It’s been rainy and cold here lately.  So what do you do to fight the chilly weather?

You eat the biggest bowl of pho you can find.  Or, if you’re me, you get the $5 lilttle bowl and think it’s the perfect size.

Then you go look for a rice cooker at Ranch 99 Market and find the coolest store ever:

A bidet store!  Highlight of my weekend.

Yeah, I got totally pwned today.  It was me vs. our garbage disposal.  And the garbage disposal not only managed to win, but it also publicly humiliated me.

Our garbage disposal went on the fritz Tuesday night, while I was peeling carrots to make carrot fries.  I am usually pretty anal about what goes down a garbage disposal– I developed a bit of a complex after Mike broke one in our first apartment together by putting sand and coins down the drain and then telling the plumber it must have been his “dumb girlfriend who never listens”– but it is possible that a few peelings slipped down the drain and clogged everything up.  I was frustrated, but I left a message with our property manager and figured it would be fixed pretty quickly.

Well, after several long conversations with our property manager, a visit from our aspiring-screenwriter handyman, and two bottles of Drain-O, the garbage disposal still wasn’t working and there was now a cesspool of toxic liquid in half of my sink.  So this morning, a plumber finally showed up with a brand new garbage disposal in hand, and asked me to show him what was happening when I turned the garbage disposal on.  I delivered a long and slightly dramatic monologue on the horrors that I had faced over the last three days, and with a flourish, reached over to turn on the garbage disposal.

At which point it decided to quickly, quietly and efficiently start to work properly.

The plumber stared at me like an idiot.  I apologized about 34 times and swore up and down that I had NOT been lying about it being broken in the first place in some bizarre attempt to get a new garbage disposal.  He gave me a polite smile, reviewed the “on/off” switch with me one more time, and was on his way.  As soon as the door shut I heard Mike, who had quietly been working upstairs throughout the whole ordeal, start to laugh at me.  Loudly.

UGH.  At least Celebrity Rehab starts tonight!  Watching that show (usually with a glass of wine in hand), always makes me feel better about myself.

**UPDATE**: It’s 2:45 PM, I’m alone in the house, I just tried to use the garbage disposal again, and guess what?  It’s not working.  I may be going for that glass of wine earlier than I thought.

Awww, my dear friend Anne just posted this on her blog, and I have honestly never felt more loved by my friends than I do right now.

And strangely enough, I did wake up with a headache last Sunday morning.

I already posted the “Jimmy” hat (haha), which reminded me about my favorite baby brother in law and got me all weepy a few days after moving up here. Today I present you with another little reminder of something in SoCal that I miss indescribably (though this one made me laugh instead of cry, which is good):

Michael BACK? Seriously? Derek, you’ve known Mike for 12 years. And you are friends with all of his siblings. And there are only 4 letters to remember.

::shaking head:: Oh Derek, I can’t wait to see you again. You are my favorite hairy overgrown child.