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Saturday I was at my mom’s house when two of my friends called and said they were going to a barbeque that night and asked if I wanted to go. As it turned out the barbeque was actually being held to celebrate another friend’s birthday. Since I both really enjoy hanging out with these friends and was happy to be given the opportunity to celebrate with my other friend on her birthday, I delightfully accepted the offer.

Although I knew and/or had hung out with several of the people that were going to be at this barbeque, technically I hadn’t been invited and I was just kind of tagging along. So I thought it would be a good idea to try and bring something. It was then that I had the bright idea that I could whip up some really great guacamole, curtsey of my friend Sam’s secret recipe. Unfortunately, Publix was having a shortage of avocadoes that day and I was trying to make guacamole for the first time. Needless to say, by calling my first ever attempt at making this really great guacamole a disaster would be such a understatement it would be ridiculous.  

I say that because the four* avocados I bought weren’t quite ripe yet and were about as hard as baseballs. Therefore they were actually impossible to mash up. So being the thinker I am, I pulled out the blender and went to town. Regrettably what I ended up with was just a mess of finely chopped avocadoes and guacamole mix. While it was oddly delicious, it wasn’t particularly pleasant to eat and I knew that there was way that I was going to bring that to a babeque and try and pass it off as something edible.

While this whole making guacamole process should have taken me roughly 15 minutes, including clean up time, it actually took right at an hour. Defeated, I decided that perhaps my notion of bringing something homemade was a little far fetched. Then to add insult to injury, by the time I had everything cleaned up and put away, I didn’t have time to run out and buy anything else. So I did the only thing I could; I decided to just bring the tortilla chips I had bought to eat with the guacamole. I figured if nothing else, perhaps there would at least be some form of dip and/or salsa.

…

When my friends and I arrived at the barbeque, I gave the tortilla chips to the lovely host of the party and explained my debacle of an attempt to make guacamole. It was then that she said, “What?!? Guacamole is easy to make. How can you mess it up?” Any sense of worth I had in my cooking abilities at that point were then crushed into to near nothingness. However, she did thank me for bringing the chips and said that she was glad that I came and she appreciated my attempt to bring something nonetheless.

This made me feel much better about the whole fiasco, and I ended up having a wonderful time at the barbeque.          

*Note: Publix only had a total of five avocados in the whole store. Apparently everyone else was trying to make guacamole that day too.

The other day I walked down to CVS to buy some Claritin. While I’m not saying I’m awesome for taking full advantage of my coupons in this post; I kind of am!

23.99 – Original cost of a 30 day supply of Claritin

-5.00 – Less “on sale” amount

-2.00 – Less Manufacture’s coupon

-3.00 – Less CVS coupon for purchases over $15.

-3.00 – Less CVS Claritin coupon 

Final Total 10.99

Total amount saved 13.00!

I was looking up the world population on wikipedia (because I do that type of thing) and I couldn’t help but chuckle at the estimated world population at various dates. I like that they put 2 in the year 70,000 BCE.

Saturday I went to Petsmart to pick up some things for my fish tank. As I’m looking at various aquarium light bulbs and tubes I notice, out of the corner of my eye, this attractive brunette walk by. I found all the things I needed and I decided to check out the cat aisle to see if I could find something for Mallory while I was there.

As I’m walking, I’m just looking down the various aisles and I happen to see the brunette. She turns, looks at me, and we make eye contact. Suddenly, a terribly angry scowl appears on my face instead of the smile that is normally there when I make eye contact with a pretty girl.

She returns the heated glare.

I keep walking.

I hate this girl for some reason.

After I turned into the cat aisle, I stood there for a minute, confused by what just happened and my feelings towards this random stranger. It just didn’t make any sense.

When I got to the cash register, I see the brunette again. She’s in a different line than me. We again exchange hateful looks.

She looks away. I can tell she’s just as baffled by this as I am.

For the next couple of minutes we both stood there awkwardly trying very hard to avoid looking at one another.

Her line moved faster than mine and as she was leavening, we both stole loathing glances out of the corner of our eyes.

I clenched my jaw as she made her way out of my peripheral vision and I secretly hoped she was going out to her car to cry.

Friday night I crossed off, “ride a mechanical bull” on the list of things to do in my lifetime.

Eleven seconds!

Done and done…

My friend Manish and I have a running joke about our life resumes. The concept of the joke is that we both look good on paper. It’s somewhat of a competition that he and I have where we basically just compare our life accomplishments*. Technically he’s beating me at this moment because I don’t own a home. However, come July 18th I’ll be taking the lead in this odd game that we have!

In roughly five weeks I’m closing on a town home. No longer will I pay rent. No longer will I be forced to have to carry my laundry to a  laundry room. No longer will my walls be limited to the color of someone else’s choosing. And most importantly, no longer will I have to hear Manish say that he’s better at life than me**.

*Note: Yes I realize that the life resume game makes me sound pretentious.  

**Note: The life resume game is not based on the actual value of any possessions obtained. The reason for this is because it’s been said that, “Manish has more money than God”. If the game was based on values; he’d win hands down.

This was a conversation today between a buddy from work and me. It started because we somehow got to talking about some Princeton girls that may or may not actually exist, which is a different story altogether.

CS: What is Princeton’s mascot?
ME: I don’t know. Probably something gay like an ivy leaf holding a handful of ivy leaves above its head.
CS: I want to say it’s something like the warriors or colonels.
ME: I’ll look it up real quick…
ME: Apparently their the Tigers
CS: Tigers with ivy leaves in their asses?
ME: Ivy leaves in their asses because they’re always crapping out money?

Last night I ran 4.5 miles, went home, ate some dinner, laid on the couch, watched How I Met Your Mother, and feel asleep.

I woke up around 9:00, washed my face, brushed my teeth, and went to bed.

When I woke up this morning I felt like I couldn’t believe that it was already time to go back to work. Also, I seemed to have developed a thing for listing out what I did in sentence form.

A few weeks ago I realized that my running was seriously slacking. It was then that I decided to run in the Fourth of July Music City 10K.

Since I’ve got two half-marathons and a handful of 5ks under my belt, I was eager to actually try a 10k (6.2 miles) for a change. However, I wasn’t really in the kind of shape I needed to be in to run a 10k. So I started training. At first everything was going great. There’s a greenway next to my office building and it was a wonderful place to run after work, until this 90 plus degree heat came. Then I started waiting until later in the evening and running by my house. In addition the normal problems that arise from running at 8:00 at night, the main drawback to the roads I run on, while sidewalked, is that they are very heavily traveled and are pretty unpleasant. Also, last night I was introduced to the worst possible running hazard of them all; a dead deer carcass that I practically had to jump over.

Needless to say, I think I’m giving up the training outdoors for now. Starting today, I’m going back to the treadmill. I may run outside here and there, but until I know that the deer has been removed, you can forget it. Blah!

Normally I get my haircut by a friend from high school. We have a pretty good arrangement. I call her usually on a Tuesday and say, “I need a haircut on Saturday. I’d like to do it sometime before lunch. Is that cool?”

“How about such and such time?”, she says.

“Sounds great! I’ll see you then.”, I’ll reply, smiling.

The system usually works really well. However, when I stray from the normal pattern, the system goes to hell. Like this weekend for example. I noticed on Wednesday that my hair had gotten far to long and the combination of my ridiculously thick hair plus the 94 degree heat was more than I could stand. However, instead of calling to make an appointment to get my hair cut then, I waited, for no apparent reason…

Fast forward to Friday. It’s 5:00 PM. I had just gotten off work and I’m headed to a bar downtown with a buddy for some drinks and a quick bite. All of a sudden this insatiable urge to get rid of this mop on my head takes over me. I call my friend… No answer. I call her work… No answer. I kind of freak out a little bit, but I calm down and decide to just worry about it the next day.

Saturday, I wake up and I walk outside to check my mail. Inside is a coupon for a $4.99 haircut from Great Clips. Knowing that this has to be fate I go inside to change and head 1.2 miles down the road. When I get there, I walk inside and am immediately escorted to a chair by a guy who looks like he should be riding a motorcycle and not cutting hair. He throws a cover on me and whips out these huge scissors. All I can hear is Sching! Sching! Sching! Shing! as he starts cutting and clipping away.

Six minutes later I get up and my hair looks great. I give the guy my coupon and a $5 tip and I’m on my way; happy and contempt with life.

Although things worked out better than expected, I don’t think I’ll go back to Great Clips to get my hair cut unless it’s an emergency. My friend who normally cuts my hair is so much prettier than the motorscycle guy.