Vacation, all I ever wanted!

So I'm taking my first extended vacation of the year - spending most of my three weeks on the wedding/honeymoon, ya know - and it's been interesting to say the least.

And fun as heck, to say what amounts to the most!

Tuesday: Marisa and I went to the Martha Stewart show. Yeah, my first day off, I'm up at 5:30 in the freakin' morning. I told M it would be a live show because of Earth Day, but she didn't believe me. Needless to say, my crunchy granola fiancee (and I say that with love) was thrilled to death to see Martha's tips on saving the planet. Anyway, it was far more fascinating than it sounds, and we got lots of cool stuff. M made a better post on it. Go read it, then come back. We also had a nice vegan-type lunch.


Wednesday: This was really the fun part (well, after struggling to wake up at 8 a.m.; for crying out loud, I've gotten up before 10 five days in a row, and only worked one!): We headed down the Shore to get our engagement photos taken by the fantastic Josh Lynn, and we had a blast at the Jenkinson's Boardwalk. Going down the Shore, I might add, was my idea. Even if M picked the place. Anyway, as you can see, the photos came out fabulously. Go check out more of our pictures at Josh's blog. (Thanks, dude, you rule!) I hope I look as much in love as I feel. It was a great time! Then we had another vegan-type lunch. M's got more about that one, too.

Thursday: To be determined! But probably something less exciting, like cleaning the house or unpacking some yet-undiscovered boxes of stuff from the move. And probably more of the less-fun part of the wedding prep.

Then, after a day back in the office, this weekend, it's off to cover the NFL Draft for Raiderfans.net for the fourth year. My favorite time of the year, when hope springs eternal for my guys in Silver & Black!

You still here? Go see our pictures!

Woo-hoo!

My little counter (over the at the bottom right) hit 10,000!

Yay!

I realize that's small potatoes compared with some of you (cough jin cough Crystal).

But it's a big deal to me.

So thanks, to all my wonderful regular readers (all 12 of you!) who have always said, "Hey! Enough with the monkeys!" and all those who have stumbled on via Google and said, "Hey, this isn't monkey porn!"

It's been fun. Send me comments. Read my little traffic/map feed and see what exotic countries I've picked up since I switched maps (lost Australia, gained Argentina) to Marisa's.

And, hey, if, like me, you think it's about time Mookie endorse something other than chicken, send me coupons!

Thanks for reading. I'll be back with a real post soon. If we're all lucky.

Caption not-quite-contest, Round 2!

How about this one?


Some first ladies run for President. Others just blend into the background.

Caption not-quite-contest

Why you shouldn't wear white when the Pope comes to visit:


Wearing the severed head and hands of Laura Bush on his wrist like a rosary, the Pope gleefully announces that, thanks to a radical change in church policy, President George W. Bush can consummate his unspoken love affair with Vice President Dick Cheney.

I feel very unpatriotic today

I'm missing the first election of my life today.

It's the Lenape Valley/Byram Twp. school election.

I've always had trouble getting to vote at school elections, because the polls tend to be open after I'm already at work, and close before I get back.

I normally try to vote absentee ballot, which usually involved my scrambling to the county courthouse right before the election to get one and fill it out.

But I didn't go yesterday. I overslept. And it turns out you can't go to the clerk's office the day of the election.

Why don't I just apply by mail, you ask? Because normally you have to apply a week in advance, and with a school election, I usually have no idea it's coming until I get the little fake sample ballot in the mail...

About a week before the election.

With regular elections, there's a lot of hype and you know when they are. With school board elections, well, let's put it this way: I lived in Hillsborough for five years and never figured out when they were coming. I've been in Byram for six months. I only started seeing signs last week.

So I missed it. Everyone at work always makes fun of me when either a) I come in late; or b) vote absentee ballot in something as minor as a school election.

Heck, from looking at the sample ballot, I'm not sure either race is contested. There is a yes/no budget vote. (The "no"s always win. Who wants higher property taxes?)

I don't even have any kids.

But still. I love my country. And voting is an important right/privilege as a citizen. I don't take it lightly. Even the silly little school board stuff.

So I don't feel that good today to begin with. And now I feel just a little worse.

Badmunkee.

Fantasy and reality collide

On Saturday, I, the mighty samurai, using only strength of will, steel and magic, slew the mighty Mercurion and saved my companions from certain doom.

On Sunday, I vacuumed the house.

And did laundry.

Hockey monkey!

Click on over to TSN.ca and you can see video of Maggie the Monkey making her first-round Stanley Cup playoffs picks.

Maggie's about as accurate as TSN's experts, so I'm quite pleased she picked both the Flyers and the Penguins.

Who wants to be a skinny bitch?

Well, evidently Marisa does, since she's not just reading the best-selling diet book, she's so excited about it, she wants me to read it, too.

Skinny Bitchis by a pair of women, Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin, who are, in fact, skinny bitches.


As evidence of their skinniness, I offer up their pictures.

I will say that, thus far, the book is both snarkier and funnier than the one about sports by Kenny Maynethat I just read.

On the downside, regrettably from Marisa's point of view, I don't particularly want to be a skinny bitch - even if the book differentiates skinny bitches from scrawny bitches.

And, regrettably from the authors' point of view, Marisa got the book from the library.

33 years of... me! Part 4: The 21st century!

And at last, we catch up to the present... On Jan. 1, 2000, I was 24 going on 25.

Y2K and the 21st century:

2000:
• Jan. 1: Y2K came. And went. It was also my last night on the news desk at the Call. I was moving to Sports the next day...
• Summer: ... Where, despite a whirlwind romance with a colleague, I had the most miserable nine months of my professional career.
• September: Nearly three months to the day after arriving, I fled Allentown for New Jersey and a much-needed fresh start.

2001:
• 9/11: Can there be any doubt about one of the seminal events in history, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks? I don't think I've ever hidden my love of America and all she's done for me, and I'll never forget driving up over a rise on Route 22 and seeing the tower wreckage burning, smoke rising into the sky visible from miles away. I was slow getting to work, stunned as I'm sure most of us were, and also feeling both lucky I'd lost no one and amazed at my best friend's close call - he was due to be working at Windows on the World, a job slated to start Monday the 10th that was delayed until Wednesday the 12th. I don't really know what I can say about something that touched everyone in some way. Besides the Towers, I'd traveled past the Pentagon not a year before, and the crash of United 93 in Western Pennsylvania brought back memories of the crash of US Air 427, which occured near the Pittsburgh airport while I was in college.

2002:
• Pretty much all year: This one was kind of a dull one by comparison - as has been much of the ensuing time, as I settled into both New Jersey and adulthood. Work hard. Bitch about the commute and Jersey drivers. Work hard again. I also had my last serious pre-Marisa relationship. Really. I went 0-for-03/04/05/06.
• October-December: In the sole major life event, I bought my very first (town)house, in lovely Hillsborough, N.J. I lived their five years, and loved it. I used to say my parents (who helped with the down payment) owned the living room, I owned a few kitchen tiles and the bank owned the rest. By the time I left, I'd actually managed to own about half of the kitchen all on my own.

2003:
• Spring: The Business section won a major national award for the first time, for its work in 2002. We had a killer party, which included some great food and a VIP throwing up in and on my car.
• Otherwise: Dullsville, population Me. None of this is to demean anything I actually did in these years, by the way, or anyone I did any of that with. It's just, my life was in many ways in a multi-year rut despite some major highlights along the way, so often, the first thing I think of was that I spent 364 days doing nothing and a day or so doing something really exciting. This year, for instance, I think I managed to paint the dining room in the house. I took a week's vacation to do it. Years later, Marisa would paint the dining room in our new house in about eight hours.

2004:
• Oct. 10: A career highlight, covering my first Raiders game for Raiderfans.net.

2005:
• January-April: The making of "Dead Hunt" took place over the first several months of the year, and really was one of the major highlights of my life. You're probably sick of hearing me shill the movie by now, but come on. Can you blame me? I wrote the freakin' screenplay!
• February: I joined the Black Hats at Mardi Gras, in the last hurrah of my 20s, some days before my 30th birthday. I started out my year 29 by bleaching my hair blond and ended it by doing test-tube shots with shot girls at Tricou House at 711 Bourbon St. Of course, not six months later, Katrina slammed the city, which just broke my heart since I loved my few days there so much and met so many great people.
• March: Post No. 1 here on Life on the Rim!
• Summer: My Dad and I started a tradition of going to a yearly Yankees game, usually just us. I mention it because as I write this, we just got back from Year No. 4's game earlier today.

2006:
• Pretty much all year: Not the most exciting of years, mostly spent doing two things: Sitting around waiting impatiently for DH to come out, and going on unsuccessful third dates after rejoining Match.com.

2007:
• Feb. 3: After a year or so of the above frustration, I went on what I was pretty sure would be on of my last Match dates if it didn't work out. It worked out.
• May 13-14: I got promoted. I got engaged to the love of my life. Haven't you guys heard enough about all that yet?
• August: New house! You've heard about that, too. Yeah, I'm on a roll these days, eh?

2008:
• Thus far: Well, it's only been a few months into the year, so I'm not sure if there's a real highlight yet (except for Norton doing better!). Maybe today's trip to Yankee Stadium for its final season. Check back in August, though! Definitely some fun to be had then!

Meanwhile, that wraps up 33 years of me! Hope it was worth the wait!

One of those days...

Did you ever have one of those days?

Yesterday, our entire household managed to be sick.

Marisa left work early with the illness she was nursing all weekend...

... And wound up taking care of me.

I never even made it in, managing to spend the morning throwing up and the afternoon at the doctor's office being checked for everything from a virus to appendicitis. In the one bit of good news, we opted for virus and swollen side lymph nodes causing pain, meaning all I had to do was spend the evening recovering from the flushing drink I had to take for the CT scan. Rather than, say, an appendectomy.

(Aside, on the drink, munkees don't like berries that much.)

Even Norton threw up yesterday. I didn't think dogs could catch human viruses. Maybe it was sympathy pains.

On the upside, I think we're all feeling better today. Sort of.

But if you're wondering where the last part of the 33 Years of Me is, that's the excuse this week.

I do feel worse than her today, which is only fair, because a) I started getting sick first, on Friday; and b) she felt worse than me all weekend after getting sick Saturday.

Not even a trip to Horrorfind on Saturday or watching Wrestlemania with me and Ed on Sunday could cheer her up.

I guess she got even today, though, since she told me she's feeling decent, if not 100%, today, and I feel much worse than that.

Happy April Fools' Day! This post is not a joke. I'm too sick to joke.