It's been a really full few weeks. Lots to say but no time to say it, so here are the highlights:

I house/dog sat for two and a half weeks. That's a really long time to bounce from house to house and bed to bed every other night. But, it made me enough money to afford the trip to Texas for Caryn's wedding in a few weeks. When my friends paid me, I expected a check. Instead I got a fat stack of cash. I am not too proud to admit that I totally played with it, throwing it up in the air and letting it rain down on my bed like they do in the movies. I did not roll in it, however, I did snap a pic of my cat rolling in it. Then I took it and put it in the bank. (but not before almost losing all of it by leaving my purse in the bar at Outback.)

While I was housesitting, I was desperately trying to get and stay brushed up on the play we did in at the AACT festival back in April, which we performed for Affordable Theater's third birthday party last Saturday. So, in addition to working 10 hours or so a day, walking a very old dog 3 times a day, I had rehearsal Tuesdays, Thursdays, and one very long Saturday (after which I got to go see Children of Eden, so that was okay). Oh, and also, while housesitting/dogwalking/rehearsing I was trying to read a really tough book and get the embroidery for my friend's wedding dress done.

So, as you can tell, I've had just a few things keeping me away from the blog. Throw in all the stuff that happened today that I can't talk about because one does not talk about such things on their website if one has learned anything at all from Dooce, and the fact that my dad is in the hospital yet again, well, yeah. I have an excuse for not saying much lately. I'll be back to my old posting habits when things calm down a bit.

I really have to stop reading blogs of couples adopting babies from China. For one thing, it has me wanting to do it too, which isn't necessarily a bad thing except in that my child-rearing days are several years off, if they ever come at all. But I've also started dreaming about it in odd ways.

Last night I dreamed that CJ adopted a baby from China (CJ is an ex of mine). First of all, CJ is not married, and second of all, he just became a father last year. I never pictured him as the father type. With the amount of sex he has, I'm not surprised he finally helped create a child, but, he has surprised me in that he really wants to be a father to his child. He is not with his "baby momma" anymore, and is dating a woman who I'm sure is very sweet, but whom I do not know personally.

In my dream, he and I were both in China, and I was along for the ride with an aoption group, but not actually adopting a baby myself. But when I saw CJ there, being handed a baby girl, I freaked out. "Wait! He's not married! He can't adopt a baby! What is *he* going to do with a baby?!" Wow. Unresolved issues from our relationship and bitterness over the fact that he became a parent first much? It's not something I ever conciously thought about until this morning.

Part of the whole baby thing is also due in part I think to something I read yesterday on someone else's blog (separate post to come about that), but I posted a while back about not knowing if I'd ever have kids, not even being sure if I wanted them anymore. But then I look at the number of baby related blogs I follow on a daily basis, and how obsessed I've gotten with adoption blogs lately (I've always known I wanted to adopt if I ever had kids) is making me think yeah, I really do want kids someday.

If you haven't already- go see The Aristocrats. Its tagline is "No Nudity No Violence Unspeakable Obscenity". (The title of this post is the line from the movie that stuck with all of us, and caused me to look at Charlotte and totally break character at rehearsal on Tuesday)

Charlotte, Dee and I went to go see it at midnight on Saturday. I was appalled the entire time I was sitting there, but at the same time, laughiung harder than I have laughed in a very very long time. If obscenity offends you, do not see this movie. Otherwise, run, don't walk, to the nearest theater showing this film. Don't go alone, and absolutely, no matter what you do, Do. Not. Take. Your. Children.

Everyone tells me the I was a bright little kid. And I pretty much believed them, until about 2 minutes ago. It was two minutes ago, that something in the song "Puff the Magic Dragon" finally made sense. The lines "Little Jackie Paper loved that rascal Puff, And brought him strings and ceiling wax and other fancy stuff" always seemed weird to me. What is a little boy going to do with ceiling wax, and why would he give it to his dragon?

Well, in contemplating whether sealing wax was the next big trend in wedding invitations (I received two wax sealed invitations recently, for weddings one week apart) and all of a sudden, even though I haven't thought of the song for years and years, suddenly it all made sense. SEALING wax, not CEILING wax. D'oh!

My coworker just asked me that, seeing as how I am knocking on every wooden surface around me before making the following statement:

Could this day get better? Oh my gosh this is like, the best day. To start off with, the hot electrician, whom I thought I had mentioned before, but in searching entries discovered I had not, is working in the suite next door, and he talked to me today.... *melt*.

But then. THEN.

I was checking my email. Totally mundane. People talking about yes, they would be at dance last night, no they would not be at dance, yes they will be at the meeting wednesday could you please add [insert item here] to the agenda. And then this:

"I will not be attending, I'm running lights for "Children of Eden" at
school and will be in rehearsal that night."

And I went into full on psychotic freak mode. Children of Eden is one of my favorite musicals. It's by the same guy who did the music for Godspell, Pippin, and most recently, Wicked. I've been listening to my Children of Eden soundtrack a lot recently, and wishing someone would perform it again. I saw it at AMT five years ago, and LOVED it. I'm so excited!

Okay, I now return you to your regularly scheduled Tuesday afternoon droning...

Well, I made it through blogathon. I'm definitely older than I used to be... staying up that long slayed me. Not during the 'thon itself, but mostly yesterday and today. I went to sleep about 7 am- I couldn't fall asleep right away after it. I woke up about 2, and was ready to go back to bed by 5. But I made myself stay up till 11 to get back on my normal schedule. I'm still pretty exhausted today, but I have good coffee (not the 7-11 crap I was drinking on saturday) and I shall live to see another day.

I would have posted here yesterday, but the side affect of me being as tired as I ws yesterday, is that I was in an incredibly bitchy mood. I almost yelled at Dau about 5 times. And if I had posted yesterday, it would just have been a bunch of pissing and moaning, so I decided the better choice was to wait until today. I'll write the next installment of the road trip very soon.

Looking for my Blogathon site?

It's HERE

Want to sponsor me? My fundraising goal is $250, and I'm only at $85. I'm feeling like a bit of a pathetic fundraiser. Won't you help? It's a great cause, and I'd be happy with even a $5 pledge...

When last I left off, I had been scared out of my mind by a homeless silver asshole, and had gone to sleep in the woods off a fire road, 3 miles off the main road, in the Arizona National Forest. We woke up the next morning to a truck pulling up to our "campsite" and two rangers coming to talk to us. They wanted to make sure we were going to put our fire out properly, and ended up leaving us two plastic jugs of water with some sort of chemical mixed in that would cool the coals. The guys decided they were going to be "manly men" and were going to pee on the fire to put it out, so Heather and I went for a walk. When we returned the guys had finished up and had poured the jugs of water on the firepit as well, and we packed up the car and headed to the Grand Canyon.

We drove for a few minutes, hit a rather large rut in the road, and the steering wheel stopped working. Faaan-tastic. Heather had AAA, but we were still miles from the main road, on a fire road that was little more than a dirt track. Thankfully, while we were trying to figure out who was going to walk back to the Wendy's where we had had dinner and call a tow truck, a guy in a jeep cherokee came along, and Heather was able to hitch a ride to a phone. Dan, Shim and I stayed behind and played catch with a football that happened to be in the car.

About 45 minutes later, a big dust cloud appeared on the road, and a tow truck came into view. The guy got us all hitched up, and then we realized we had a problem. There were four of us, plus the tow truck driver, and we all needed to squeeze into the cab of the truck. Let me just say that Dan has a bony ass. The tow truck drivier was awesome, he was this really gregarious Native American guy, who totally laughed at us the whole way to the garage. The garage which was actually located inside the gates of the Grand Canyon.

Normally, it costs $20 or $25 per car to enter the Grand Canyon. Since our car entered on the back of a tow truck, we didn't have to pay that fee. That was pretty cool. Next we got to sit around and wait for them to tell us what was wrong with the car, so we could see if we could afford to fix it. It turned out that a bolt in the steering system had sheared and needed to be replaced. We all breathed a sigh of relief. A quick, easy, relatively inexpensive fix (they estimated $60 with parts and labor), as opposed to the broken axle we were afraid of. The mechanic pulled the car out and handed Heather the keys and said "have a nice day, enjoy the Grand Canyon" and we were all like, wait, we haven't paid yet. And he looked at her, still holding out the keys, and said "Have. A. Nice. Day." As in, "I'm doing something nice now take your car and go". So that was awesome.

The whole morning, the weather had been sunny and gorgeous. We were prepared for a great day, what with the start it had had...

As soon as we pulled in to a lookout area to admire the canyon, it started to pour. It was a hot rain, so we were not uncomfortable, just wet, so we stayed and admired the view and watched the rest of the tourists shriek and scramble. Maybe it was just that I was tired and pissed off at Shim, maybe it was the weather, maybe it was the lack of a poper tour, but to me, the Grand Canyon was just a really big ditch. We stayed for a while, and then hit the road again.

It alternated being gorgeous sunshine, and pouring rain the rest of the afternoon. By late evening, we decided that we needed to find a room for the night, that we should not be sleepng outside in an electrical storm, and everything was soaking wet anyway. But, everyone else on the roads had the same idea we did, and all the hotels were full in every town we drove through. The lightning was getting worse and worse, and we, being Californians who rarely see the stuff, were getting increasingly freaked out. Finally, we were pretty much at the end of our rope in the lobby of a Marriot that was also completely booked. Heather started crying, and we headed back to our car.

A woman from the hotel's desk chased us out into the rain, and told us that her parents ran a small bed and breakfast a couple of towns away, and they had a room available. She was not allowed to tell us that inside the hotel though, so she had to wait until we left. She called her family and they came out and got her, having us follow them back to the B&B. Which in actuality was a triple wide trailer. But it was dry and warm, and the family was really nice. We sat in the living room (lobby?) with them, and with another couple that were staying there who had found the place the same way we had, talking late into the night. When we finally turned in, Shim and Heather claimed the bed, leaving Dan and I to sleep on the floor.