I say potato, you say tomato

For my birthday, my Aunt and Uncle "surprised" (read: sent me an email saying HEY - whaddaya want?!) me with a Topsy Turvy Hanging Tomato upside down grow-y basket. And dirt. And a 'mater plant. And all the other fixin's for tomato-taming.

Its common knowledge that I can't grow bamboo. Imagine my trepidation at taking on an actual edible plant. Yes, I know I asked for the thing, but I saw it along the lines of asking for a pony or a puppy - nobody's actually gonna get you a living thing unless they think you can handle it. Soooo, Mimi and Glenn must see me as capable, right? RIGHT?!! Come on, tell me I'm right. And funny. On we go...

I followed the directions in the box (and even managed to do it all by my lonesome - even the instructions said you need a helper to hold the plant upside down. Pssshh. I scoff at you, directions!) and have watered it (semi-)regularly. Not so tough...however, no matter how little or how much I water the damn thing, it all immediately gushes out the bottom. I'm sure I've doomed the future of this creature, but I keep on awaterin', and it keeps on adrippin' on my downstairs neighbor's patio - whoopies.

When I went to water it this morning, THERE WERE TOMATOES! Little green gems of high-five-aliciousness. They're surely super bitter and unripe, but I was tempted to snatch one off the vine and pop it in my mouth. Now I just need to tackle basil and learn to make my own mozzarella and I'll be all set...

hello pretty little flowers...

yaaaaaaay!

and she walked away unscathed.

Anyone who knows me - and I mean really really knows me - knows that my feet are pretty much off limits. Like the Mona Lisa. Small. Cute. Protected by sixteen inches of bulletproof glass. I buy them (lots of) pretty things (shoes) and you keep your grubby mitts off 'em. You then get to look at my awesome shoes and we both don't get maimed. It's a win-win.

Until yesterday, in line with the don't-touch-approach, I'd never had a legit pedicure. I do all my own stunts, folks. I'm crazy ticklish, complete with violent and expletive-laced reactions (seriously, I'll gouge your eyes out), and one wrong clip of a toenail and I'm down for days. Literally. Hence the lack of pedis in my past.

When my Mom mentioned that we should/could/would go get manicures and pedicures together for a belated-Mother's Day-and-birthday-celebration, I guffawed. Aloud. Yes, I'm an ass. We went anyways, so you see what being an ass gets me: pampered. ; ] While I may have blacked out for portions of the experience, this is my rendition of the 56-minute appointment:

Petrified of being cut, tickled, contracting a staph infection, I reluctantly climbed into the pedi-chair. Naturally, of the FOUR Spa-Ladies appointed to our little group, I got the one who spoke shattered English, and did so well below a whisper:

Spa-Lady: Houw ah ewe toodai?
NicB: Ummmm, super ticklish.
S-L: (uncomprehending smile)
NB: Seriously. I apologize preemptively if I nail you in the teeth while donkey-kicking to get you away from my feet. ((by the way: immediately after uttering the word "preemptively", I threw up my hands because I knew I'd lost her...though I'm no quitter, so I finished my sentence))
S-L: whaa culla you wahn fo yow toess?
NB: (thrusts bottle of own polish in her small, unmanicured hands) This one! I want this color! Please!

((annnnnd all talking ceases))

Terrific.

Everyone else's Spa-Lady started with their feet/toes. Mine: hands. Awesome...can't wait to delay the inevitable here. I'm not scared of blood, by the way. I'm scared of pain. Lots and lots of pain.

While my Mom, Kellie and Aunt Amy settled back into their massage chairs, I plotted an escape route. Okay, once she puts the topcoat on my fingernails, I'll claim the swine flu and run for the door. I can totally walk back to Mom's from here. Reaaaddddyyyyy... 'Cept that sneaky devil woman didn't give me time (or eye contact) to tell her of my hellacious (non-)disease and got right to work on my footsies. At this point, I swear I was close to hyperventilating. Cold, sharp, pokey tools are within inches of my little piggies. Are those gem-appraising glasses?!?! Did she just scrub up like a surgeon?! I'mgonnadieI'mgonnadieI'mgonnadie!

A damn interview with Lauren Conrad in a water-warped issue of Glamour magazine was the only thing to divert my eyes from the horror I imagined would soon follow. Thanks to some hardcore yogic breathing and severely concentrated focus to drown out a fellow salon patron directly across from me yellllllllling into her cellphone, I only jerked/winced/yelped twice (that I recall). Spa-Lady walked away with all the teeth she'd brought to the appointment, and I walked away with all my toes.

Overall, I didn't die, I didn't hate it, and the results are remarkably similar to those of my own handiwork. Huh. Suppose I could go again, sometime...and, oh yeah: THANKS, MOM!

a flurry of randomly recent pics...

...and some recently random ones too. Meh.

this guy is literally drinking a glass-bottled Corona while 'working' as a sign swinger at 11am. don't believe me?! go 'head, click on the pic to blow it up...ohhhhh, Glentucky...

Summer's FIRST Krispy Kreme donut. ever. she's had like fourteen since.

Kal helped us move...

...while Evan did not.

Ohhhh man do I miss blogging. The last three posts were all written/set up in one night. Fingers and toes crossed that my schedule'll slow down a smidge so I can do this more! Blogging makes me a better person. With bouncier, shinier hair.

52 weeks ago en Meh-hee-ko

• we ate baby goats
• Rob got his hair cut (that lion's mane was ridiculous, no?!)
• I made fun of Summer (what else is new?!)
• we survived a legit futbol game
• my taste buds fell ... hard

I. want. to. go. again. NOW!

neat.

I would not be exaggerating (or challenged by any one of my four readers) if I said that I'm obsessively neat. In most things. Spreadsheets? Uh-huh. My fridge? Yup. My closet? ...not so much these days. You see, we moved into our new adorable pad, and there's not much closet to it. No biggie...I'm not above folding stuff on shelves. I'm not too good to store off-season clothes in the balcony's storage closet. I am, apparently, way too cool to actually hang up my clothes.

In every single closet I've had, its the same story: pull item down, try on and/or wear it, disrobe at a later time and lay said item over a chair, the laundry basket, whatever is nearby. Lame. I do love that I poke fun at Rob for doing the EXACT SAME thing (yet he uses the floor...which somehow justifies my mocking)...whoops!

no photographic proof today...hah! the control freak regains her position! : ]

oh hai!

We're up at a fabulous cabin up in Tahoe this weekend, and here's proof:


I spent today people-watching at the lodge of Sierra at Tahoe while Kellie and Mom snowboarded/skied. A 76-degree cabin, snackies and Rooters = WIN.

(after a tremendously lonnnnnnng blogging-sabatical - since I was officially internet-free for many many weeks - I'm hoping to be back on my game...thanks to Summer and her wireless that reaches across the hall! Yay!)

367 and counting...up

While I flat-out refuse to believe that its been a full year since Rob and I embarked on our excellent adventure, our travels have been on my mind a lot lately. A whole L-O-T. I want to go back. Now. Right now.

A random mishmash of memories that have slammed into my frontal cortex over the last few days (which will likely mean squat to anyone but me...whatever):
- waking up to absolutely zero watts of power on the January 24, 2009 and dragging a sick boy through two airports, only to arrive in Mexico and realize "oh shhh, I have NO idea where we will be going/living/are..."
- the first tacos we demolished at Felix Tacos in Mexico...the initial trip to the grocery store...pet store monkeys...the tiny green taxicabs
- huffing and puffing during the climb up the Eiffel Tower, where Rob scored the three of us a prime viewing spot for a terrific sunset
- Finnegan's Wake sung loudly plus real Guinness in a rowdy Dublin pub on March 17
- getting snowed on during a jog in Prague (which began under clear and sunny skies) (sidenote: why did I bother to exercise? climbing 113 stairs should have been enough!)
- Budapest - wandering the streets, the baths, the mind-blowing falafels, the random guy with the pet falcon
- the guy fiddling with Rob's suitcase lock on the train, and the scent of the spice market in Istanbul
- eating gelato in the rain while dragging a suitcase and attempting to find our teeny tiny hotel on the crooked, unmarked Venice streets (Rob = map-champ)
- doing the touristy bus thing in London and spending a bit more time in a pub than intended the eve of a umpteen-hour flight back to the States

So many more...but as I type one, it leads to a completely different memory. I'm looking forward to revisiting posts on my blog on each post's year-anniversary. I'm not looking forward to how bummed I'll be to be sitting in my little gray cubicle while I do so...

To my travel buddy: where shall we go next?! : ]