Last night I nearly pooped my pants. No really, I’m not kidding. It was a tough call between pooping my pants, puking, and passing out. In the end, I settled on a fourth option, crying, because it seemed the easiest to deal with.

See, last night we had this little earthquake (5.6! Not so little to me!) and I was freaked out way more than I can explain. I was at the grocery which is very close to our house and our house is close to the epicenter. This all translates to a good bit of shaking.

Let me say now that we are fine. Our house is fine, our animals are fine, nothing broke, nothing really fell other than some books tipping over and a few things shifting a tiny bit. But I did not fair so well.

Since moving to the Bay Area I have been mentally preparing myself for earthquakes. After trying to deal with the thought of them in a few different ways I settled on denial. Why buy an earthquake kit when we’ll never feel one all the way down here in the South Bay? Bottled water, smottled water, we’ll never get one this far south. Are you starting to see how dumb I am?

The fact that last night’s earthquake was not only noticeable, but actually caused (minimal) damage to the grocery store that I was standing in, totally freaked me out. Hello!! Did no one get the memo that the South Bay ISN’T SUPPOSED TO GET EARTHQUAKES??? DO NOT WANT!

I managed to pull myself together enough to check out and get home. Of course, pulling myself together meant standing in shock for a bit while the produce guy asked if I was going to pass out or if I wanted some water. Once home, I immediately dissolved into tears which did not stop for quite a while. Lots of friends called or texted to check on us (thanks! It made me feel so cared for!) and some tried to lighten the mood by suggesting that jparks and I might get eaten by “the gaping, hungry maw of Mother Earth.” (cough cough dsandler cough cough). By 10 I had worn myself out enough that I was ready for bed, but I didn’t sleep that well as I kept waking up expecting aftershocks.

The lessons learned are: 1) even in the South Bay I’m not guaranteed an earthquake free life and 2) jparks won’t let me move. While I know that the built up pressure has been released and chances are we won’t get another quake for awhile, I’m still buying a Costco membership this week and stocking up on supplies. Obviously denial didn’t work out so well for me, so now I’m moving onto to preparedness.

woohoo, it’s the 30th which means it’s almost November, otherwise known as NaBloPoMo! The world has never known such excitement.

Since I’ve been hording post topics I thought it would only be fair to give you a tease of what’s to come. Hopefully these things sound good enough that you’ll want to come back and read a full post about them. Or they may sound totally boring and you’ll want to come back and leave snarky comments about how pathetic I am. Either way, please come back!

Are you all titillated by these post teasers? I hope so, otherwise November is going to be really boring for you.

On August 18th, we moved into our new house. That means it took 69 days for me to fall down the stairs for the first time. Frankly, I’m surprised I made it that long. And since I like to go all out when I do things, I fell down them not once, but twice this morning.

Don’t fret, I’m okay. A sore backside and a bruised ego are the only injuries I got from my tumble(s).

The first fall was from the second step down all the way to the bottom one (I can’t phrase that in a way that makes sense. It was the second to the top step down to the bottom step but not the floor. You know what I mean? kinda? maybe?). Limbs were flailing all around and I finally gripped the wall enough to stop right at the last second. I landed face down and had to just remain very very still for a moment to absorb what had just happened. Meanwhile, Tangi and Lily sat at the top of the stairs just staring wide-eyed. Once I landed and was no longer a flattening threat to either of them, they both came down to sniff and make sure I was alive. Once they saw that I was fine I’m fairly certain I heard them laughing. I figured that jparks would be immediately come to check on me, but he didn’t. Turns out Mr. World’s Lightest Sleeper somehow slept through it. That’s quite the feat for him.

The second tumble was totally dumb and I really should have known better. I was almost out of the door for the day when I realized I needed to grab something from upstairs. I ran back up in a hurry, pausing for a half second to think “Should I take my heels off”, but decided to keep moving as I was running late enough as it was. Who has 3 seconds to spare for heel removal, that’s just a time consuming activity!

In my haste on the way down, one ankle crumbled and that sent me tumbling down the stairs again. The good news is that this time I managed to catch myself after about 4 steps. Again, the animals stared at me but I swear I heard Tangi say “The moron did it again!” under her breath. And I think Lily muttered “Told you to take those heels off” but I could be wrong.

I told jparks that I’m going to need one of those chairs built into the wall that carries me up to the second floor. It might not be a necessity now, but once I’m knocked up (not happening any time soon, so calm down) it might be. Or I could just learn how to walk up and down stairs like a normal person. Or, my favorite idea yet, I could make jparks piggy back me up and down the stairs. Think how buff he would become! That’s why I’m pushing for that idea, because it is so beneficial for him. And I’m all for jparks forming good, healthy habits.

Question: What’s the most surefire sign you can get on a Monday morning that says the rest of your week will suck?

Answer: You don’t have time to make coffee on your way out of the house and you pull up to the Peet’s by your office only to realize you don’t have your wallet. Or any cash. Or a check. Or even a gift card from another store that maybe you could trade to the barista for a latte. All I had was a half chewed pack of gum and a tube of vegan lemon meringue lip gloss and the barista seemed uninterested in either of those things so I was left coffee-less.

I’m now at the office trying to suck down one of these foul things in the caramel variety. Each time I take a sip of it, I have to actively swallow it. I force it down and then pause for a second to make sure it stays there. That’s just how tasty this beverage is.

The headache from lack of caffeine is just starting to set in so I know this is going to be a good day. And I haven’t even started to think about how I”m going to acquire food at lunchtime yet. I wonder how many times I can make this mistake before I get smart and start stashing a $20 in my desk for emergency use. Wasn’t it just last week that I forgot my wallet at home? gah, I am dumb.

And on an unrelated note, here are various pictures from jparks’ birthday party that Linda took. The ones of me heading into the foam pit are delightful.

Lately I’ve had quite a few interesting revelations

Folks, today I have a wicked headache. I thought it might be from a lack of caffeine, but after consuming a latte the pounding has not stopped. I’m beginning to think maybe it’s stress related.

There are a number of things I’m stressed about right now ranging from totally ridiculous things to things that totally warrant stress. Like is my new deodorant working or should I switch back to my old favorite?

Stress #1: I have a Brownie troop meeting on Monday. It’s our first official meeting of the year and I don’t know what to do with them. I bought a bag of Halloween rings from Target, can we just play with those for an hour and a half? What if I get a bag of candy and we practice trick or treating? I’m such a lame troop leader.

Stress #2: Next week is the last meeting of my sensual dance class and the teacher instructed us to “dress the part”. Uh, my hips don’t want to dress the part. They like being covered by yoga pants during class. My ass specifically wrote a letter at the start of the class expressing it’s desire to remain under wraps. The teacher suggested doing our hair and make up all sexy, but I go straight to class from work. The last thing I need is to be in the office looking like your mom a whore. We were also told to start thinking about our song we want to dance to. Any suggestions?

Stress #3: Jparks and I are planning a Disney World trip for February. Actually I’m planning a Disney World trip for February and I loathe vacation planning. LOATHE. It’s just too much pressure for me. I like to sit back and relax while jparks selects hotels and flights. That way, if the hotel sucks I’m not to blame. The good news is, if this trip ever gets booked we’ll have another set of these fun pictures.

Stress #4: Halloween is quickly approaching and I’ve got zero plans. Something is very wrong with that.

Stress #5: I think I need to paint more in the master bathroom. When will the fucking painting end? I am so over home ownership.

Stress #6: NaBloPoMo is starting again in November and there are a ton of things I want to blog about now, but I’m hording the thoughts so I have ideas for then. But I’m starting to get worried that I’m not posting enough now and you’ll get bored and won’t be here to read all my NaBloPoMo posts. This is a delicate balance that I’m trying to achieve. And now I see that it sounds like I have amazing blog post ideas up my sleeve. Let me assure you that I do not.

Stress #7: I changed deodorants and I can’t tell if this new stuff is working. And since stress makes me sweaty I’m really not helping this situation any. Do I stink? Would you tell me if I did?

The house is almost ready to be seen. We have the painter finishing up this week (well, he might come back and paint more in our bedroom, but I’m still undecided about that) and the last piece of furniture that I wanted to have in place will hopefully arrive soon. That means pictures and a house warming party are quickly approaching.

Until then, enjoy this one picture sneak preview:

I went to the gym this morning and found, on the dashboard of my selected treadmill, a platinum engagement ring. I knew that somewhere there was a woman freaking out that her ring was missing so I did the nice thing and brought it to the gym staff. At the time I wasn’t thinking about karma, I was thinking that not hocking the ring and buying shoes was the right thing to do. It was later in the day that I realized turning this ring in had earned me some major karma points and I knew exactly how I wanted to redeem them.

Earlier this week I had entered a contest on Live 105.3’s website. It required that you come up with five questions you would like to have Robert Smith of the Cure answer. The person with the best questions would get to interview Mr. Smith for 105.3’s website and four runners up would get to meet him backstage at the concert. I figured that I now had some karma points banked and could turn them in for at least a runner up spot.

Except karma hates me. I have waited all day for a phone call or email from the station and have gotten nothing. Dang it, my questions were good. Good in the way that only some obsessive freak that wore all black and “identified” with the Cure as a teenager can come up with. Good like I actually put thought into them and didn’t just ask “who are your influences?” Good like, why didn’t I win?!?

I told jparks earlier that if I had known karma wasn’t going to pay out I would have kept the ring for myself. Which is totally not true, but I’m buttsore enough right now about not winning (NOT EVEN RUNNER UP!) that I am enjoying pretending that it could be true. I could have pawned the ring and bought a Robert Smith autographed something or other. Dammit karma, what’s up with not giving me my prize for being a good human? All I can say is that the next time I find an engagement ring Robert Smith better be around the next corner. Or else.

and just to go for full disclosure I did waver back and forth over writing this post. If I didn’t write it then I’m left stewing in my own anger over not winning. But by posting I’ve pretty much sealed the deal on not winning. Well, confirming my lose feels better than stewing in anger.

If I had to pick one month to be my bestest friend, October would win. We would have sleep overs, eat pizza, and braid each other’s hair. I would buy a best friend’s heart necklace and October and I would wear it proudly. I love October. Lily’s birthday is in October. Jparks‘ birthday is in October. Jobs that I start in October turn out to be the ones I like the most (I started my current job on October 16th of last year). October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month (ladies go feel around on your boobs). Plus October likes to go out with a bang, the best holiday ever, Halloween.

I’m hoping that by the time Halloween rolls around jparks and I will have some kind of fun plans that require costumes. And since I hate last minute costume planning, I’m starting to think about them now and am coming up with absolutely no ideas. I’m going to turn the task over to you in the hopes that you might have some great ideas for us.

I’m fine with matching outfits (two years ago I was a witch and he was my black cat) as well as totally unrelated costume ideas. I would love for his to be as embarrassing as possible, because really that just makes it more fun for everyone involved. Except for maybe jparks, but whatever.

And even if you don’t have costume suggestions, you should leave me a comment in honor of The Great Mofo Delurk which is happening around the interweb today. Drop me a line saying hi so I know that more than just spammers are checking out this here blog o’mine.