home again finnigan

so i made it home safely.. in just under 5 hours. phew!!! no tickets even..

when i got here everyone thought it would be funny if they left a tiny sliver of pizza for me to see my reaction.. not funny kids!

tomorrow is family reunion day. can't wait. sarah, jr, mom, dad, al, carolyn and paul are all going.

good times.

sb and jr are trying to talk me into going to mulligans..

happy birthday lee!

today is lee's 32nd or 33rd birthday... which one lee?

in any case, if you see him, wish him a happy bday.

545am...

so this morning i woke up at 545 for 2 reasons.. one, i heard my neighbors alarm at 530, and two because i was having a day-mare.

i had a dream that i was back at my childhood home on garrett drive and was on my way to the bathroom and noticed that nunos camaro was across the street. and i could see into the house next door and saw him sitting on his bed packing up some clothes into a duffle bag. i went into my parents room and told my mom that i saw nuno, she was on the phone and said, i saw him too, you should talk to him...

i went back to the living room and looked out the window, now he was in the street having a snowball fight with some neighborhood boys. (it was syracuse, hello)

that was about the time i feel like i started to panic and i woke up and had the desperate urgency to go for a walk... so i did.

i walked by my old sanger st house and i remembered that those a-holes wouldn't let us have air conditioners, prob cause they couldn't afford them, so they wanted everyone to suffer. can you imagine not having a/c for 3 years? how did i do it? they still live there by the way.

we lost at trivia tonight, but we were 9 people, so we had to split into two teams, and the other team, (dave, laura, jen, mike and hope) team token won! bastards. we came in last of 4.5 teams.

woodchucks have no chance at life around the browns.

okay, in case you haven't noticed, i added some pics from 6 flags and from this weekend..

i can't believe i forgot to tell this fabulous story...

so i call my parents yesterday while i am doing laundry.. i ask my dad what he did that day,
- "oh, killed a woodchuck...blah blah blah.."
i'm like, "what?".
he's like, "yeah, it was attacking your mother. and i was a hero and killed it.."

so then my mom takes the phone to tell me her version of the story.

"well, i was watering the plants, (or washing the car, i can't remember) and i see something behind the garbage barrels. i look back there and see a woochuck, its got its eyes closed, but its definitely still alive, so i called your father over to kill it! he grabs a hammer from the shed and tomahawks it, but its still alive, so he got a stick or something and beat it a few more times till it was dead."

"and it was a baby woodchuck".

i can't fathom killing something bigger then a spider, (even then) let alone with a HAMMER!!!!! how can you kill a baby woodchuck?

so i was talking to my dad tonight and i asked him if he buried it, he said, "no, i threw it over the fence so all of its friends see it and stay the fuck out of my garden!"

then he said he should've skinned it to hang on the wall..

sickos!

mom, please tell me you took pictures...

itchy..

i am ridiculously itchy today... its because i have a sun rash from being in the sun this weekend. proof that i should never go in the sun! even in my shorts, shirt, visor, and sunblock, i managed to get some color... grrrrr.
so this weekend was pretty fun. it was like a weekend back at school, only throw in a beach.

saturday i slept in and then KT and i went up to gloucester to BG's house. we pretty much missed all the sun, but were able to drink on the beach with everyone till 6ish..

then we had a barbeque. this one guy brought steak tips to die for. later that night we all went to a local bar in gloucester. on the way to the bar we happened upon a "free" garage sale. and it was pretty late at night. a few of the girls grabbed some free merchandise. the best grab was a pink one piece jumper. the girl that grabbed it promptly put it on at the bar. she went one step further and put her hair in a side pony tail. words can't even describe how hysterical the whole scene was. someone at the bar even asked her if she was an astronaut.

after the bar somehow KT ended up in the ocean. i wish i had seen that!

the next morning KT and i nursed our hangovers at the beach at 730 am... so beautiful.

here's the view on long beach.

we got our nails did.

in prep for our impending fun in the sun KT and i went for a pedicure friday night. of course KT doesn't leave work till 8pm. and the nail place closes at "9" supposedly... so i pick her up at 830. we drive to arlington to the place and its dark... great KT. we turn around on mass ave and head to cambridge. luckily we find a place that is open. now its much closer to 9pm. there are no parking spaces and i'm hungry. low blood sugar rebecca starts to come out. :)

so we walk in and i pick a lovely light pink shade in about 47 seconds. there is already someone there getting a pedicure, so i grab the open chair and KT has to wait. its for the best anyway since it takes her about 29 more minutes to find the right shade of polish.

the woman talks me into a manicure as she notices that KT rummaging through an open nail stand trying to remove the polish she has "tested" all over all her finger nails with straight alcohol. tsk tsk KT. the friendly asians help KT find the polish remover.

KT is very conversational towards the "nail-slaves". she asks how late they are open. it was about 9 when we walked in, mind you. the woman says 8pm... we left there at about 1015.

other nail salon highlights:

• they don't take credit cards. KT tried to trick me into walking 3 miles down mass ave in the POURING rain to go to her bank of america..


• the other woman there was getting it all. she had her feet and hands dipped in wax. and at one point she needed me to answer he phone for her cause she had potwarmers on her hands.


• potwarmer lady is afraid of lightening and went ON and ON and ON about how you're not safe in your car, if you have windows that face each other in your house, lightening will rip right through it, all kinds of scary lightening stories... thanks pretty lady.


• pretty much the whole time we were there 60 minutes was on, and it was all about russian and mexican girls who are forced into sex slavery... the woman who was giving me the manicure was asking me if they were talking about taiwan, or vietnam or something. i said no, mexico, and must have given her a horrified look cause thank god she took my hint and didn't try to tell me a personal story about how she knows someone or something...

after our nails, we tried to go to sabur. of course they stop serving food at 1030. it was 1035. so we had to go to my favorite 'el guapo'. wooo who. we shared a decanter of sangria. a little bit cinnamony but so good....

country 99.5

wow. its been a while since i updated. :) i feel like emily.

so yesterday was the company outing at 6 flags. so fun. but that place is a time suck. before you know it its closing time. we missed the free dinner cause we were in the water area. we should have done the water area first. i was too fat for the superman ride of steel. my favorite ride. i got all the way up there and into the seat, and the seatbelt wouldn't fit and had to walk off. :( so sad.

here is KT's bathing suit leftovers..

hope was funny, she was running around looking for pennys. what a fun game. her b-f collects those pennys you ring through the machine and they print something on them. you prob didn't know that there are legions of penny collectors like that out there did you?? well there are and dandoran is one of them.

dead sexy!! i love hot dogs!

the teen girl squad!

work has been insanely busy.. today there were 3 people in creative out. and the rest of the week it was 2 creative people out. i am hoping to be out august 1st.. crossing my fingers i can get an appt at the dr's...

tongiht KT and i are getting pedicures, and then we're gonna check out this restaurant we've been dying to go to called sabur. its outside of teele square. mediterranean place. yum-me!

tomorrow KT and i are going to blairs beachhouse in gloucester. should be fun. drinking on the beach, woo who!

the best part of today was i went to the mall at lunch with jamie and LK and we went to American Eagle cause i've been dying to check out these flip flops i saw in an email a long time ago.. and last time i checked the website they were sold out of my size... so i just thought maybe they'd have some in the store. they did. they were on sale too. so i got them, and another pair. soooo exciting! i have flip flops now. my first pairs in YEARS!

i'll put some pics up later..

latest and greatest..

so my latest "project" is putting some feet on the couch. the couch is mammoth and in order to get it in the brackett st house the movers had to cut the feet off.. you wouldn't think that a couple of inches would make a difference. well, it does. the couch is extremely hard to get up off of. and sitting on the edge of it makes your legs cramp up like you've been sitting at a kindergartener's sized table.. so.. i went to home depot and bought a square piece of wood that i had the manager cut into 4 2.5 inch pieces. (he pissed and moaned the whole time) and i bought some really long screws. i wanted to buy the deck screws cause you don't need a pre drilled hole, and they drill themselves into the wood with a simple screwgun... BUT, katie talked me out of those and i got these other equally as long ones.

so last night i attempted to put the feet on the couch. LK was gone, so i had full use of the living room.

first, i was on the phone with cathy. she was back from her camping excursion. second, i pulled and pulled that dang 700lb couch and couldn't get it to budge. finally i wiggled my way behind it and was able to push it over upside down. don't forget, this is a sleeper couch..

i got the blocks and wouldn't you know the screws wouldn't screw themselves in... i have some drill bits, so i tried to drill a hole with my screw gun. nada...

so all that for nothing.. these are my options, please let me know if you have a better idea.

1. i can go back and buy the deck screws.
2. i can get some long nails and try to nail them in place,
3. i can use some of my shorter nails, and nail through the blocks at an angle into the couch.

i am so danged busy today... i hope to get out of here on time.

tonight is trivia.. i have a feeling we will be passing on our crown to some other team..

happy birthday emily!

today is emilys birthday. she is 27 now. wooooop - i - dee - doo!


please wish her a happy birthday!

big weekend...

so this weekend was jam packed full of stuff!

friday i went to bed early after a long week.

saturday i got up and drove down to weymouth to meet LK and help her set up for her parents 30 anniversary party. there was lots to do, and tons of food to be set up. the manager of the elks yelled at us for having confetti. LK's parents were so cute singing/lip syncing sonny and cher's "i got you babe". there was tons of food, kareoke, and tie dye. it was grand.

saturday night i went and saw wedding crashers. very funny movie. i highly recommend it..

sunday i cleaned my disaster area of a room and finally gave up on my computer. i set up my port replicator, so i can at least use my desk with my laptop and print things.. i also tied up some work loose ends, picked KT up from the airport, and visited with gillian. we all walked down to davis square in the extreme mugginess. so fun!

sometimes i get lost...

okay, so my commute is a pretty quick 20 minutes now-a-days. however that sometimes turns into 45 when i get lost on my way home... yesterday was one of those days... i would estimate about once a month i miss my exit going home and have to get off 95 south and turn around to go back 95 north. last week was exceptionally bad, i didn't realize that i was going the wrong way till i had passed the pike and saw signs for rt 9. i was some 12-15 exits south of where i should have been. i shouldn't talk on the phone when i leave work, i think that's the problem.

so yesterday when i missed my exit it was for a good reason.. my friend anna had her 2nd baby a couple of weeks ago. it was a girl, she weighed 6lbs. they named her haleigh sarah. the baby was breach the whole time, so in the process of trying to turn her around they broke something which resulted in an emergency c-section. anna is doing fine, she now has 2 kids under 2. :) time to plan a trip to magic hat, errrrr i mean VT..



tonight i am going out with some girls for dinner at a place i've never been called news, and then i'm going to win mikey p's money in poker. shiiiiit.

still reigning champions...

well, we did the unimaginable... the teen girl squad took first place fair and square against 6 other teams. the scores were ridiculously close too.. we were so elated i bet people in medford heard us cheering!

i would like to take the time to point out that LM neither called to say that he was definitely not coming nor showed. not cool.. i don't think i've ever pulled a no show without at the very least a phone call, cause that is just plain rude. there's a little thing called courtesy that they must not teach in the chelmsford school district. good thing i'm too excited that we actually won to be really mad about it..

we collected a possible 11 points out of 16 towards the private brewery tour of newport something... we are tied with 2 other teams for 3rd going into next week. wooooot!

i quickly tried the swapping out of ram tonight and it didn't work. i will have to give it more of a college try tomorrow maybe. after i go to the garment district..

video card, not the problem...

so last night, i watched the home run derby and paid my billz, and tried to fix my computer again with blairs(BG) video card. i take out the "offending" VC and put in the newer one, then i plug it all back in really excited that its all going to work, and i get the same stupid message to "check the cable". grrrrrrr. so i checked the monitor with my laptop just to make sure that its not the monitor. monitor is fine...

BG told me this morning to check the RAM chips.. he said one might be bad.. so... i'm gonna check that real quick when i get home. i gotta leave at 6 today, i have so much to do before trivia.

grocery store, cook dinner, fix computer, be to trivia by 830. shiiiiiiiit.

big day tomorrow, big day!

tomorrow starts the trivia contest. for 6 weeks (i think) the scores are going to be cumulative, and the team that comes in first place over that 6 weeks will win a private tour of some brewery.. the sad part for us is only the "trivia" sections count, not the handouts. the handouts are where we garner most of our points... all we cna hope for is the other teams to miss weeks. :)

its gonna be fun. let me know if you are planning on coming to help us out...

diarrhea, cha cha cha!

so this weekend was pretty whirlwind....

friday night partying with coworkers, drinking start at 4, ended at 330-ish. some good stories, i managed to hold myself together and kind of take it all in, no pole licking!

saturday i was running 2 hours behind, but was able to make up time on the road and was only 1 and a half hours late to the wedding. the wedding where i knew one person besides the bride. aside from the 5+ hours i had to drive just to attend, the headache i had all day, the exhaustion i was feeling from sleeping for 4 hours, the diarrhea that would not leave me alone (and still hasn't), and the failed attempts to leave, the wedding was a pretty good time. very beautiful place, great food, free drinks (of which i couldn't stomach), debbies dress was beautiful and her husbands cousin had an affinity for michael jackson songs, and he pulled a couple of napolean dynomites. by far the highlight of the wedding...


here is debbie and a couple of the guys sitting at my table


here is the beautiful back porch area.


here is debbie, and the wives of the guys in the last picture, and me.

when i got back to fayetteville sat night mom had done all my laundry!! yay! i didn't sleep much sat night either cause i had to run to the bathroom every couple of hours.

so when i drove 5 more hours to get back to the 'ville yesterday i slept from about 830, till morning. sooo nice! i just wish i could kick this diarrhea!

favorite picture....

BTW, this is my favorite picture so far from the london thing...

bad boys, bad boys, what cha gonna do?

so henderson st had its own version of cops this evening while i was watching everybody loves raymond. this trashy woman was squalking in the street towards this guy who was denying he hit her, and she was yelling, "look at my face!" then her neighbor comes out onto the porch with his cordless phone telling them to settle down cause he called the cops.

so 15-20 minutes later the cops come and park in the street, blocking traffic, i watched with bated breath as they reversed all the way back down the street... i didn't stick around long enough to see if anyone got arrested, but this is going to be an exciting summer if this kind of drama happens all the time... it'll be like living in manlius again.

the ironic thing was when i was relaying this story to LK over then phone on her drive home she got pulled over for speeding....

so i'm going to syracuse tonight for debbie whitneys wedding tomorrow. it's in skaneateles. good times.

blair remembered to bring me in his extra video card, he even had the drivers on CD... so hopefully that will solve my desktop computer dilemas. we'll see on sunday or monday. i will be pretty psyched if i can bring that computer back from the dead.

trivia, DDR, and hangovers.

so, yesterday was a day to remember. teen girl squad came in 1st place in trivia. albeit because we had 8 people on our team... we were even reprimanded. so next week if we have more then 5 we are going to have to split into 2 teams.. :)

chad came out with a friend of his and played with us too. it was nice to see chad, i haven't seen chad in such a long time.

when everyone left LK and i caught up with chad, needless to say we closed the bar.. and of course dance dance revolution seemed like a really good post drinking 2am activity. well, its broken now. :( i didn't even have it for 5 hours and it might be broken. great! i checked out of the "after hours" in my living room early (2:15ish) and went to bed while the ragers continued to laugh and smoke till 3am i'm told.

shockingly LK was too "sick" to work today... and its because of the mold growing on the inside of the lid of salsa con queso that she ate before we went to the bar. it has nothing to with the 7 or so stellas, the pack of cigarettes that she and chad sucked down, and the 4 hours of drunken sleep she got.

i, on the other hand don't even think i was drunk when i went to bed, and woke up feeling fine, i'm not even that tired today which blows my mind.

here are a couple of the questions we missed:

1. what US mountain range is east of the mississippi but not a part of the appalachians?

2. what model tied cindy crawfords record of 15 cover appearances in vogue magazine?

3. what body of water surrounds the island nation of bahrain?

4th of july weekend & running account of boston pops fireworks spectacular.

this weekend seems to have gone by pretty slow.. i think its because for once i've spent a long weekend in boston.. i'm usually traveling 2 of my "long weekend" days away.

i went to 2 BBQ's one in dedham, one on the cape, pretty much the same people at both parties, 'cept the 2nd one, tim and fran were at the one on the cape. sat night was spent at LK's place in swich. its so relaxing down there. it makes me tired, :). the water was nice though, i swam this time. i used my 48 sunblock though, so hopefully noone will know i was in the sun this weekend.

i am watching the fireworks on tv right now on tv. some of the people that are there are lunatics. do they look in the mirror before they leave the house and see that they are wearing a flag t-shirt, with flag shorts, and sequined flag hats, and think, god this outfit is dead sexy.. after the fireworks they prob get in their american cars covered with those ribbon magnets.. and i don't really see the attraction to waiting all day to get a spot in front of the hatch shell. how boring is watching the symphony? i don't think there is anything more boring. this year, they don't even have any good performers, who's heard of cowboy troy?

i could just hear the cannons that were going off on tv from outside. pretty sweet. pretty soon will be the fireworks, i bet i will be able to hear it from my bed here. woot!

so i went to lunch today with AM. we also walked what felt like 7 miles. we met at BU and then walked to china town to penang. it looked like a good menu. AM ordered for the two of us, that was different, but nice. he also paid. i tried this chicken dish that was half a chicken, boiled, and chilled over and over again till its cooked. it was kind of tough, and it had bones in it. there was this curry beef too, that was much better. needless to say, i had a lot of rice. :)

after lunch we walked back to fenway and watched land of the dead. it was a zombie movie. it pretty much sucked, but at least it wasn't scary. john leguizamo was in it. i like him.

AM was kind of cute. i'm not sure if we'll go out again, but i'd be willing. he also drives a black accord, but his is 99.

tomorrow is trivia.

these fools they keep showing on tv.. i'm embarrassed for their family's. some have beely boppers with glitter stars on them like flags, there are a bunch of idiots in the front row with shirts on that make up a huge flag when they all stand next to each other..

ooooo, grand old flag, that is my favorite song. :) i wish the pops would play that song they play at new year, old bald something.. i like that song, and pomp and circumstance.

i haven't heard lee greenwoods god bless the USA. i wonder if the pops played it earlier..

AAAAAAAHHHHH someone is breaking in to my apt. oh, phew it's just LK.

i have noticed that the jetta has been remade with electric seats. i don't know who designed the last set of seats, but the seats do not practically recline. and they infuriate me.

that keith lockhart, not attractive.

hmm, i didn't realize that there were that many country fans here in boston, maybe they are imports and that is why they look so ridiculous...

i don't like the looks of that cowboy troy. he looks like he is trying to do the "people's eyebrow". come on, bring on the fireworks already. i am so glad i am not down there. if its 10:20 right now and they haven't even started the fireworks, it will not be done till 11 prob. then it'll take a good 1+ hours to get home from that chaos. so glad to be in the comforts of my own bed.

these are some pretty intricate fireworks, i must admit.