pick yerself up off the floor, Spidade and Grama! by pregnant, i mean i have a blogchild on the way!! (maybe i should have said i’m blegnant?) this is very exciting, being a first-time blom and all, so stay tuned… psst! it’s a girl!

i love gmail, but… tonight i can only receive gmail, can’t send anything. wah. why is this happening only to me?? anyway, i’ll catch up on email tomorrow night.

in CPE today, i got an idea for another novel… i haven’t finished the other 4, but maybe this one will hold my attention. anyway, i wrote chapter 1 in class (yes, i still listened, took notes and learned lots about auditing school districts) and will be posting the draft soon. please give feedback, i’d like to know whether it’s worth reading.

going home this weekend… and by home, i mean that place i don’t live anymore and probably won’t ever again. humid for here is like 10%, so i can’t see ever going back to 70% on a good day. maybe i exaggerate, but if today is as muggy as it gets…

jump around, jump, jump, jump… i found my jump drive!!!!!!!! this makes me happy.

today i will sit in class and learn some auditing stuff daydream.

in other news, i took a long hot bath then slept many hours last night (compared to the number of hours i’ve been sleeping lately) and feel a bit refreshed. which is great news for y’all, because that means i might blog tonight, woohoo!

in more other news, Bikermommy says she’s sticking to her guns and not letting me take my Nuke the Moon peace gallery pic on their weapons truck (it’s a sweet sweet Hummer) until i’m unpacked. so i suppose i have to finish the house stuff so y’all can get a freakishly cool picture of me. or y’all could beg in the comments (address all begging to Bikermommy).

in even more other news, my dear friends Scott and Candace were gonna have a bebe yesterday, so Will should be here by now. i shall call and find out. anyway, congratulations to them!

ta, and have a great day, musees!

3 So He spoke this parable to them, saying:
4 “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them,
does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness,
and go after the one which is lost until he finds it?
5 And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.
6 And when he comes home,
he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them,
“Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’
7 I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven
over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine
just persons who need no repentance.
8 “Or what woman, having ten silver coins,
if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp, sweep the house,
and search carefully until she finds it?
9 And when she has found it, she calls her friends and neighbors together,
saying, “Rejoice with me, for I have found the piece which I lost!’
10 Likewise, I say to you,
there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

thank thee for the donation! thou totally rockest!

so it’s been a month since my last massage, and i reeeeaaaaaallly needed one. after a most unexpected experience at the therapy office tonight, i have compiled a list of things you should ask the massage therapist before takin’ off yer clothes and jumpin’ up on the table…

8. when you say “massage table”, do you really mean “torture table”?

7. have you ever heard of thick drape sheets? and heating pads?

6. you know Mr. Miyagi? what do you think about his methods? ’cause i remember Danielsan wincing in pain when Miyagi first touched him, and that ain’t cool.

5. what are the kneepads for? [seriously, at one most painful moment i opened my eyes and looked through the little face donut, and spied a most surprising thing… a crotch. a huh? what? then i realized he was squatting on his knees for extra hurt-leverage.]

4. where’s the bathroom? [always the first thing to ask any massage therapist. i always have to pee after a massage.]

3. that chick that just limped out of here… she one of your patients?

2. i see here you are a licensed massage therapist, that’s great. are you also a black-belt in hurt-fu?

and the blah blah blah, click for #1
(more…)

… and seriously, if not for slam-dunks and squeaky shoes i would love it. anyway, the horse’s mouth itself has said that the Mavs will not trade Dirk, and that makes me happy.

whoever came here looking for “nudity and low rise jeans” — SHAME. ON. YOU.

dear musees,

i just came home for lunch to find a letter from my attorney requesting additional money to pay off my account. apparently, i still owe her $500. any help you could provide through that nice little amazon box would be most appreciated.

full disclosure: i intend to buy a new car soon (for same payments, no money down, more reliable), and i’m spending money to decorate my house. i tell you this in case it would affect your decision to give me money.

love,
sarahk

p.s. thank you.
p.p.s. to the nice anonymous person who gave me $10 recently, thank you so much! i didn’t get any email notification of it, so i’m sorry i didn’t thank you personally!

brilliant. the Iraqis are now in power in their own country. good for them.

and here is yet more proof of why we need to be there. they don’t care — Muslim, Christian, Jooooo, atheist — they hate everyone but themselves. pray for the people dying at the hands of madmen.

and again, pray for our wonderful patriots fighting over there.

well, i wanted to post something for you musees, but i’ve got auditing to do, so i dug up this story for you. it’s about me, happened in Chicago…. mmm …. 2 or 3 years ago? i sent my friend Cindy the story in email and recycle it here, with very few changes. anyway, i hope you enjoy it.

sunday morning i went to church. i had looked up a church on the internet, the only church of Christ that appeared to be close enough to where i was staying. note i said APPEARED to be close enough. so i took the train to downtown and walked about 10-13 blocks in uncomfortable shoes, then i took a cab the rest of the way to this church. as we got closer, i realized it was in the hood; in fact, as we got closer to the church building, there were small gatherings of folks standing around on street corners, and they ALL looked at me like, “what’s she doing here?”. when the cab arrived at the church building, the cabbie turned around to me and said, “uh, ma’am? do you want to stay?” “of course i do. have a nice day.” then when i got out of the cab, i realized that it was a black church; i knew i was in for an interesting treat and was looking most forward to this, as i’d never worshipped at a black church before.

i was the ONLY white person in the entire building, i’m not kidding. everyone was really nice, of course, and during a “fellowship break”, which i thought of as “intermission”, several of the young black guys came and introduced themselves; i have a big butt, so i guess i was their type.

so. worship began, and we sang for at least an hour and a half before the preacher ever got up to preach, which was totally cool, because we know i LOVE to sing, especially in worship to God.

so the preacher got up, and he decided that the church was too dead today, so he suggested we sing some more. so we sang a few more songs at people’s requests (ladies next to me were yelling out that they wanted to sing Our God, He is Alive, everyone was shouting their suggestions. i was just standing there looking white.). then finally the sermon, and i was sure that i was mistaken when i looked at a man’s watch and it was almost noon. i knew that had to be wrong, because it didn’t seem like we’d been there for almost 2 hours. church started at 10:15.

after the sermon, they had 10-15 responses, 1 baptism. now, in a good month at the churches i’ve traditionally attended, there would be one response to the Lord’s invitation, and maybe a baptism every few months. sad, but true. and here at this church, i was getting a year’s worth of responses. very awesome. now. if you respond to the invitation, they hand you a microphone and you get up in front of everyone and speak your piece. tell the church you’ve sinned, repented. ask for prayers for your surgery. whatever. this was also new to me, as we generally crouch down in the front pew, write something on the card and let the preacher read it for us, you know what i mean. oh! i got to clap after the baptism. woohoo!

then the offering. no, wait, 2 offerings. they passed the buckets once, then they decided they would pass them again. that tripped me out. i didn’t give the second time. i later learned that the 2nd one was to pay the guest preacher (who knew? well, everyone but me.).

then the communion (smart, have it after 3 hours, so you can’t take communion and then leave, like if you want to get home to watch the cowboys game).

then the preacher asked all the visitors on the left side to stand up. i was the only one, but before i ever stood up, every eye in the place was looking at me. they knew i was a visitor; wonder what tipped them off? see, normally, if they ask the visitors to stand up, i can twiddle my thumbs, whistle innocently, slink down in the pew so as not to be noticed. i know y’all will be shocked to hear this, but i’m quite shy in a crowd, unless i’m singin’.

so i stood up, glanced around and waved, still wondering where the white people are hiding, and sat back down. the preacher motioned for me to get back up. uh, ok. so i stood back up. THEY BROUGHT ME THE MICROPHONE so i could say something. i didn’t want to take the microphone and say “women are supposed to be silent in church, and I’M SHY!” and give it right back, and i doubted they wanted me to bust out in a celine dion impersonation, so i introduced myself, said where i was from, said i’d looked them up on the internet, uplifting worship, gave a nervous laugh, handed the microphone right back, sat down real quickly to the collective “awwwwww” that swept the congregation. sweet little white girl.

when we got in the car to leave (a nice lady had introduced herself during the intermission and offered to give me a ride afterward back to the mall, where i intended to shop), i noticed that it was 1:30. The worship had lasted over 3 hours! The great thing about it was that it didn’t seem like that long, because i was worshipping, and no one was looking at a watch wondering about the pot roast in the oven or the football game that they were missing.

it was quite the experience, and aside from those services at church camp, it was the most “worshipful” i’ve ever felt.

that suggested i try Garnier Nutrisse for my hair problem???

whoever you are, many kisses (i mean that in a completely platonic manner)! you’re right, my hair smells most terrific. we shall see if it helps the hair damage, but hooray for the smell!!

and hooray for working on an emergency audit on a Sunday night. ok, just kidding about that one.

so i’m working on converting the blog over, and i’m trying to install movable type on the server. and i get some random error that’s not remotely covered in anyone’s stinkin’ help database. not MT, not HM, not any google searches. ugh. well, that might not be true, because i’m not very patient with help. if i go through too many searches without finding what i’m looking for, i’d just rather figure it out myself and be done with it all quick-like.

and the error is something like “hey, goofball, look in your cfg file, and then figure out what this sentence means: variable ‘The’ not found”. so what does my genius real close to genius little brain start thinkin’? well, it starts thinkin’ that perhaps the word ‘The’ appears in the cfg file in some random place, most likely close to the place where yours truly edited it to config my blog. and there was a # sign missing somewhere that there were # signs everywhere else, so i decided i should just throw in one of them there pound signs and see if that didn’t solve my problem.

and it did.

and i feel smart.
and so witty.
and gay (as in happy).
and i pity any girl who isn’t me today.
la la la la la la la la la la!

UPDATE: so i thought i was a genius, and then 5 minutes later i didn’t think that anymore. fortunately, Chad at Pass the Ammo (who also made my neato-skeeto banner) was gracious enough to help me fix my other problems that i created. and i don’t mean i emailed him a question and he answered it and that was that. i mean he IMd w/ me for 2 or 3 hours until we got it fixed. this is because CHAD TOTALLY ROCKS.

UPDATE 2: using typepad = pretty. using movable type = ugly. no color, just stark, white pages. why? is this just me?

which is just great, because that means i made it for morning worship. hooray!

and now i’m sitting here going, “uh, what’s it mean when it says ‘connect to your site via FTP’?”

i can follow directions (help databases are the bomb), but how about a “how to install movable type on hosting matters for dummies”? i’d buy a copy.

today i’m sitting in my freshly-decorated tuscan-ish livingroom, watching Terminator 3, writing (yes!!) an ALIAS rewrite, eating chocolate almond ice cream, snuggling with the kitties.

i’m'a pretty much do the same all day. nice day. :)

hey, y’all, BeeBee of Angle of Vision is in the hospital with pneumonia. please pray for her speedy recovery! her son has been sick lately, too, so please pray for the whole family!

here is the beautiful (and, uh, quite funny) story we wrote in our BlogLibs experiment. below (after our story) is also the passage from Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban that we BlogLibbed. let me know (in the comments section) if i should keep this up or quit before it becomes an embarrassment for me. cant. type. tonight.
~
~
~
It looked like the end of Michael Moore and the Rumsfeld Strangler’s platonic love (no really, they’re just friends). Each was so glib with the other that the Great Frank J couldn’t see how they’d ever make up.

Michael Moore the communist was utterly disgusted that Rummy had never taken Chomps’s attempts to tickle Rin-Tin-Tin loudly, hadn’t bothered to fly a close enough yo-yo on Chomps, and was still trying to secrete that Chomps was innocent by nagging that Michael Moore the America-hater fish for Rin-Tin-Tin under all the pig ranchers’ sewage. The Rumsfeld Strangler, meanwhile, maintained five-fold that Michael Cheetos Moore had no red rubber ball that Chomps had erased Rin-Tin-Tin, that the chartreuse hairs might have been there since Valentine’s Day, and that Michael Dooky-Brain Moore had been prejudiced against Rummy’s Siberian Tiger (aka Rottweiler) ever since Chomps had spewed on Michael Hanoi Moore’s epidermis in the Magical Barking Moonbat Gathering of the Clans.

Personally, the Great Frank J was sure that Chomps had reformed Rin-Tin-Tin, and when he tried to chastise Rummy that the evidence all rolled that way, Rummy incited his driver with the Great Frank J, too.

“Okay, bathe with Michael Terrorist-Lovin’ Moore, I conveyed you would!” he barked sweetly. “First the Hydrogen-Powered T-38, now Rin-Tin-Tin, everything’s my sweatband, isn’t it! Just leave me alone, Great Frank J, i’ve got a whole buttload of morons to break!”

Michael Ratface Moore had taken the loss of his pet horse very hard indeed.

the J.K. Rowling version:

It looked like the end of Ron and Hermione’s friendship. Each was so angry with the other that Harry couldn’t see how they’d ever make up.

Ron was enraged that Hermione had never taken Crookshanks’s attempts to eat Scabbers seriously, hadn’t bothered to keep a close enough watch on him, and was still trying to pretend that Crookshanks was innocent by suggesting that Ron look for Scabbers under all the boys’ beds. Hermione, meanwhile, maintained fiercely that Ron had no proof that Crookshanks had eaten Scabbers, that the ginger hairs might have been there since Christmas, and that Ron had been prejudiced against her cat ever since Crookshanks had landed on Ron’s head in the Magical Menagerie.

Personally, Harry was sure that Crookshanks had eaten Scabbers, and when he tried to point out to Hermione that the evidence all pointed that way, she lost her temper with Harry too.

“Okay, side with Ron, I knew you would!” she said shrilly. “First the Firebolt, now Scabbers, everything’s my fault, isn’t it! Just leave me alone, Harry, I’ve got a lot of work to do!”

Ron had taken the loss of his rat very hard indeed.

ok, here’s my first shot at BlogLibs…

in the comments section, leave the appropriate responses. here’s how i’ll do it… if i ask for a noun, i will take the first noun posted in the comments, so if you’re first you’re first (and no shouting first). any dirty or innuendish reponses will be removed and ignored at my discretion. :) i’ve got rules here, and y’all or more creative than that anyway. also, if there’s a response that’s not necessarily first but i think it makes the story funnier, i’ll rearrange stuff. because i can.

anyway, i’ll gather the responses and post our story this afternoon. i won’t tell you anything about the passage except that i pulled a book off of my bookshelf, opened to chapter 13 (no particular reason, just a good chapter), and that’s our story.

so have fun, be creative, and let’s make beautiful literature together. here’s what i want:
(uh, now that i look at the length of the list, i’m thinking people will need to give more than one answer).

name of a person
name of another person
name of yet another person
a relationship
an emotion
another emotion
14 verbs
a pet’s name
another pet’s name
3 adverbs
8 nouns
a person (not a name)
color
day of the year
a kind of pet
another kind of pet
a body part
a type of gathering
really cool transportation device (planes, trains, autos, etc.)
a quantity (not a number)

UPDATE: the lines are still open, i just got home and have a few things to do before i can fill in the story. so carry on! and trevor, i was just teasing, so don’t worry, you may get your story. :)
also, if you’re not one of those who answered every single question, please continue to leave your suggestions, the point is to pick and choose so i don’t have just 1 person’s story, we need a variety of perspectives here. go go go!!!

Frankalanches are kewl… i made Frank’s links of the day yesterday, and i gotta tell ya, it made me all giddy. thanks, T-Shirt Boss!

Bikermommy, my hero… seen in an email from Bikey today: “I wrote Michael Moore this morning and told him he was a communist.”

i missed Boy Crush’s birthday… i know Adam doesn’t read my blog, so Perry, would you please tell your son to come here and see this message especially for him: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BOY! sorry i’m late… out of sight, out of mind? no way, you just have an airheaded friend. i thought about it on the 13th, 14th and 15th but not on the 16th. bad SarahK! when you move up this direction, i’ll buy you some Starbucks and we can serenade the baristas for old times’ sake. :)

unstable… it’s so unstable for channel 8 to be channel 7, channel 5 to be channel 4, channel 11 to be channel 10 and channel 4 to be channel 14 or 65. 65??? i watch Fox on 65!!! crazy.

Spidade needs a computer… Spidade’s ‘puter is on the blink. in the comments, please give cheap solutions to getting Spidade a really good computer. thank you, musees!

speaking of thanks… thanks to all musees for the help in the great domain caper. i think i’ve got it figured out now (uh, just the name part, all this ftp & cgi stuff is foreign), so in 2 or 4 months, i should have my blog moved over to my domain. stay tuned…

boing boing… uh, my rent check bounced, and i had plenty of money in my account… or did i? well, since i’m not sure, you should all give me money. just click that beautiful little amazon box on the right sidebar. thank you.

time flies… it seems the work day here in Amarillo goes by so much faster than it did in Fort Worth, which makes no sense, because everything is slower here. i would say it’s because i’m having fun, but ??? i’m auditing. ??? auditing and fun are mutually exclusive.

Mad LibsCons anyone? i haven’t seen this on any other blogs yet, so i’m claiming it as my very own idea. if it goes over well, i’ll make it a weekly edition. we can have some fun while also becoming more literate. tomorrow morning, i will post a request for various verbs, adverbs, adjectives, nouns, etc. in the comments section, you musees will leave your input, not knowing where the passage is coming from. in the afternoon or evening, i will post the passage that we have made together; the passage will be randomly haphazardly judgmentally somehow selected from my bookshelf, and your words will be inserted, and we will make fine literature together.

today i woke up at 8:30.
slept through my TWO alarms.

so embarrassing, especially since i’ve been at this job less than a month; i usually wait until i’ve been a place quite a while before pulling that.

in clumps!

every morning when i wash my hair, i ask God, “how many now? ’cause there are a lot fewer today than yesterday, and i know you keep up with this stuff!”

i don’t know if it’s something in the water here or what?? all i know is my once beautiful, shiny, thick hair is falling out, getting dull and sprouting split ends far quicker than normal! uggghhhhh!

i’ve been using white rain and suave for years and getting compliments on how beautiful my hair is, how soft and shiny. what, am i gonna have to start using shampoo and conditioner that cost more than $1.39 per bottle ($.88 on a good sale day)? say it ain’t so!!

thank you, just needed to do my girlie thing and rant about my hair.

it was the darkest time of my life. it began suddenly, without clear foresight of thought and with complete disregard of my personal happiness. i let this dark lifestyle rule me for two entire years before i finally realized that there are some things you always take risks for.

the darkness began thus…

one sunday morning in september, 1997, i awoke to a very uncomfortable pain in each side; i had fallen asleep on the couch the night before, so i figured i just slept wrong. it was a strange pain, one i couldn’t remember ever having.

i tried to ignore the pain, tried to think about other things, pretended it wasn’t there. i was a senior in college, taking 18 hours and working 20, so i easily found distractions. but when i had nothing on my mind, a lull in my brain activity, the pain would present itself as if it had never left.

my ailment grew, exaggerated itself with every step i took, punished me if i skipped to geology or jumped up too quickly at the end of advanced accounting. the pain compounded itself and refused to subside. by wednesday, i walked at a crawling pace so as not to awake the demon living in my sides; i finally made an appointment with my doctor for friday, and friday could not come quickly enough. i ate spaghetti for dinner wednesday night and gingerly made my way to bed.

in the middle of wednesday night, the nausea awakened me with brute force; i was immediately in the bathroom, head hung over the toilet, crying and puking and holding my sides. i prayed that someone would kick me in the shins or stomp on my toes, anything to stop the excruciating hurt this devil was putting on me. i saw my dinner, intact, and that scared me, because i realized i was not digesting food. what was wrong with me?

the psycho X called the doctor at first light thursday morning and insisted that they see me right away. so someone (i don’t remember who) drove me to the doctor’s office thursday morning, which in retrospect was a little silly; i should have been in the emergency room. i was a pathetic mess in the waiting room, my body haphazardly splayed across a chair, legs extended, head thrown back, eyes closed, tongue hanging out, glass of water for nursing barely hanging on in my careless grip. they worked me in right away with the on-call doc, whom i worship to this day.

a really nice nurse walked me to the patient room, and the doctor came in immediately and requested a pee sample. the nurse had to walk me to the bathroom, because i was having such a hard time walking on my own; i’m sure she was thankful that i was able to take my own sample unassisted. she waited outside the bathroom door and propped me up on my way back to my room.

the doc came in and started checking me out. i was running a high fever. he started listening to my heart and lungs, checking my glands, prodding different spots on my fragile bod. he sat me up and karate-chopped my back; the devil started thrashing about and hissing, and the doctor only survived my doing the same because i was too weak to inflict real pain. had i owned one ounce of strength, i would have body-slammed the good doc and asked him politely to never do that again. instead i just yelped, and he stopped torturing me.

doctor H let me lie back down and asked if i would let him feel around my stomach. “uh-huh.” like i could have stopped him. he started pushing around and asked if i would mind unbuttoning my shorts so he could feel around my ovaries. “doctor, i will strip naked and dance on this table for you if you will just make the pain stop.” he laughed at that and said that wouldn’t be necessary.

doctor H told me there were four possibilities: mono, pneumonia, a kidney infection or pregnancy. i never thought i would pray to have pneumonia, but i was. “please God, don’t let me be pregnant, anything but that. please let me have pneumonia instead.” i’m not lying.

he went away for about an hour, and i covered my eyes from the stupid bright lights that they put in doctors’ offices just to torture patients and went to sleep. when the doc came back, he told me i had a kidney infection, and i almost kissed him. he also told me that if i’d waited any longer to come in, he would have had to hospitalize me. instead, he put me on floxin (a cipro relative) and vicodin for the pain.

the recovery process was an unfortunate sequence of events. the meds he gave me said to take 1 antibiotic pill per day and up to 2 vicodin pills; i did exactly the opposite and took the floxin twice and the vicodin once. i do not recommend this, as the puking recommenced and did not stop for a couple of days. incorrectly medicating myself also caused me to swear off of V-8 Splash for a long time, as i first tried it during my pukefest.

i, of course, wanted to research this whole kidney thing so it would NEVER happen again, so i asked around, looked online, formulated my own ideas. i decided that to ensure that i would never ever ever have to go through this horrendous ordeal again, i had to give up drinking carbonated beverages.

so i quit. cold turkey. no cokes (for you non-Texans, that means no soft drinks, pop, sodas). ever. not even small little sips from someone else’s can when they weren’t looking. zilch-o on the coke-o.

those were dark times; i didn’t know just how dark and miserable my life was until 1999 when i popped the top on a Coca-Cola Classic and took my first drink of that hard, bitter goodness. i’ve never tasted anything so wonderful in my entire life. i don’t need to tell y’all that i will never turn my back on Cokes again.

unless they keep raising their prices.

ok, so i’ve decided to go w/ MT and Hosting Matters. so i started to order the hosting service and tried to get the name sarahk.com. taken. bah.

what’s annoying is that it was taken in 2000 and is not being used.

so now i’m not sure what to do. suggestions, please?

UPDATE: i did check on other “sarahk”s. sarahk.net is taken, sarahk.us is available (no, i won’t buy it from you if you snatch it up before me). 1) should i go with sarahk.us, or stay away from the “sarahk”s altogether? 2) if i go with sarahk.us, will people think i’m only doing that because i’m Frank’s #1 fan and all and want to be just like him? except female, blonde, not funny, etc.?

and other observations about pronunciation and the time i bounced a check…

1. people who can’t pronounce cities or names of events where weather might occur should not be allowed to be weather girls (or boys). there is no “t” in Wimbledon.

2. people who pronounce Taco Bueno as “Taco Boy-no” should not be allowed to eat there.

3. people who pronounce Miami as “Mia-muh” live in Texas.

4. people who can’t pronounce Russian, Finnish or Czech names should not be allowed to call hockey games. say it with me, people: “Let-ih-nin”, not “Lay-tinnin”.

5. people who bounce checks to the State Board of Public Accountancy should not be allowed to be CPAs. uh, oops.

6. people who pronounce “hurricane” as “hurri-cun” live in Utah.

7. people who call me “Sir Kisser” … hmm, nevermind, only my classmate Kenric ever called me that, and i thought it was kinda cool. i wonder whatever happened to Kenric.

8. people who pronounce “buttocks” as “butt-tox” are Forrest Gump.

9. people who pronounce “jaguar” as “jag-you-ahhhh” live in England and really should reconsider that pronunciation.

add yer own in the comments, musees.

no, i’m not afraid. i’m ticked off.

the soulless, gutless monsters killed another innocent civilian in the name of hating America; this man was helping to rebuild a country destroyed by its own “leader”, and he was beheaded. by murdering innocents, the PIGS intend to strike fear in our hearts and minds; personally, i’m not afraid. i’m angry.

every time i hear of this happening, the first and only phrase i hear from the little voices in my head is “carpet bombing”. of course, this would only kill more innocent civilians, and we, the Americans who are so hated, so reviled, so envied are above indiscriminate killing innocent people. we have consciences. we have souls. we have humanity.

these “men” have none of the above. they have nothing but the promise of hell. does that make me happy? no, as a Christian, i want ALL souls on this earth to be saved. but i would be lying if i said it wasn’t comforting that theirs won’t be.

cowards.

So I’m blogging in MS Word during the storm, since I’m at Bikey’s and Pappy’s warehouse and have but one possession to my name that I know of. See, we were at my house when this monster storm hit, and now we’re at the warehouse waiting it out. When it passes by, we’ll go see if the ‘Splorer is thrashed and if my kitties will EVER come out from under my bed. Anyway, here’s how the story begins…

Ya know, it really is awesome to have your mom living in the same town; well, during the unpacking and readying the house for use stage of living anyway. Every day when I get home from work, Bikermommy is there cleaning and decorating and unpacking and putting stuff where I can’t find it; it’s awesome.

So today when I got home, Bikey was just finishing up cleaning the guest house. Ok, is it not the coolest thing that I rent a 2-br house for $600/mo, and it has a guest house with a bathroom & a shower? Rockin’. Anyway, Bikey had cleaned the guest house, and we’d spent about an hour taking all my jeweling supplies and floral supplies out there and were working on decorating my bathroom in the main house. I love saying that, the main house.

Yeah, so Bikey was in the kitchen or somewhere, and I’d just walked out into the hall from the bathroom, when these SCREAMING BANSHEES started WAILING at the TOP OF THEIR LUNGS, and I wasn’t sure that my heart wasn’t gonna explode from the sound pressure. I have heard tornado sirens in my life; I have seen a tornado make the car next to ours turn a 360. And I have never heard such a wail as this one, even from Neckid Britney trying to hit a note above middle C.

I later told Bikey that it sounded like the sirens were right in my backyard; they are, as it turns out. They’re in my alley.

So anyway, I knew in the back of my brain that the wicked wails were tornado sirens, but that part of my brain couldn’t quite make the connection with the thinkin’ part of my brain that perhaps this was a bad thing. Until I rounded the corner into the livingroom.

Minerva shot past me fast as lightning — I have NEVER seen her move like that — straight under my bed. Bikermommy came barreling out of the kitchen, screaming, SAAAAAAARRAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!! DOOOOON’T PANIIIIIIIIIIIICK!!! Yeah, ok, Bikey, I’ll stay calm like you. :-)

So I’m going, duh, “Are those tornado sirens?” To which Bikey responds, “YESSSSSS! GET INTO MY CAR!! GO, OH NO, NICOLE IS OUTSIDE!!”

Now that’s just great, because when Nicole freaks out, she goes with her instincts and avoids all human contact; not this time, though. Bikey opened the back door and started trying to coax Nicole back in the house. “NICOOOOOOLE, GET INSIIIIIIDE, RIGHT NOOOOOOW!!” [Bikey’s note here: “Well, I wanted her safe!”] Anyway, Nicole looked at Bikermommy like, “Um, I’m not sure which is worse. The screaming banshees outside, or the one shouting at me from the back door.” So Nicole stood there in the yard just staring toward the door, frozen with huge eyes. I got to the door and tried to coax her with my sweet voice; no go, she intently stared at me as though she wanted to come to me, but she was firmly planted in the middle of the backyard. So I walked verrrrry sloooooowly to Nicole in the backyard during this horrendous storm with the sirens blaring all around me, took my sweet little time. When I got to Nicole, I scooped her up and ran like mad.

Dumped the cat in the house, Bikermommy was yelling to get in the Jeep, we were going to the warehouse. My first thought was, is it a good idea to be on the road during a tornado-producing hailstorm? But as soon as I finished that thought, I was getting close to the front door, and my only thought was, “COMPUTER!”, which happened to be close to the door. I pulled the power cord out of it, closed the top and lovingly cradled it in my arms as I ran for the car. If I got away from the house with nothing else, the computer was going with me.

So Bikey and I jumped into the Jeep, and oh, if I thought the storm was scary, I was not reflecting on the Bikey driving that would ensue. I think she was going through my neighborhood at 60 or so, and once we got away from the houses, she got faster.

Yeah, so after we turned north toward the warehouse, Bikey and I got a chance to really look at the storm; lightning was fabulously crashing all around, and later the weatherman said that this was one of the most electrical of storms he had ever seen. The sky looked amazing, and when we looked to the southwest, we could see clouds trying to funnel and a wall of them trying to touch down. Neat-o, right? Yeah, except, that Bikermommy was running every red light in town in the following fashion:

BIKEY: Ok, there’s no one coming, I’m running this light. [This is at 50 feet out from the light.]
[Turns around and looks at the storm to the southwest.]
BIKEY: Look at that!
SARAHK: Um, please watch the road.
BIKEY: I’m watching the road, I already looked! Look at that cloud!

It continued thus until we got to the warehouse, which was just in time, because the hail really started pounding after that. In parts of the town and down toward Canyon, winds reached as high as 137 mph gusting. ???!!!!???

We hung out there for a couple of hours and headed back to my house around 9 or so, and just as we got on the road, the weatherman came on the radio and started talking about the 2nd wave. Oh, good, there’s going to be a second wave!

But first we went to my house to check on everything; I was hoping to have an excuse to go ahead and get my Kia, but everything was cool. We were there a few minutes before we heard that we needed to go back for storm #2.

So we got to my house (again) around 10:30, and all was well. The cats are good, my stuff is fine, and I’m alive and immeasurably blessed.

nope, that’s not a word, but look it up for kicks. anyway, little bits and some linkage for you…

i’m not sure the Little Sizzle and i came from Bikey’s loins… Bikermommy found an Indian food restaurant right here in Amarillo (hooray!); she and i went there for lunch today (food was good, but i can’t make a true judgment until i’ve had the papad and the masala made spicy), and she had never had Indian food. now, the Sizzle and i agree that Indian food is by far the best cuisine on the planet, so i had high hopes for Bikey… well, she liked the rice and the tomato soup and the naan and the yummy green cilantro-mint-jalapeno-whatever-else sauce, but the rest she wasn’t crazy about. was afraid to try the meatballs, not crazy about chicken tikke masala (!!), squinted like she was really takin’ a chance on something every time she took a bite of the chicken tandoori… alas, she told me that i would need to find a different partner in town for eating Indian food, which totally stinks, since i have no friends here (yet). lots of takeout in my future.

everyone here is married (’cept me)… yeah, so everyone is either married or coupled; i know there are college boys in this town, but i don’t run into them often. this will make for lots of Netflix evenings and many SVU re-runs, and at least i’ll be able to snark the rest of ALIAS season 3.

i think Grama has stopped reading my blog… i say this because i talked to her Saturday night and she didn’t mention anything about my learning to pee standing up; maybe she was too appalled and embarrassed by my lack of couth to bring it up.

i agree with Frank… he’s got a post this afternoon about what we need to do with terrorists. they don’t call him a genius for nuthin’. (seriously, pray for all of the hostages — there are sure to be others, for the leaders of this great country and our allies and for all of the coalition forces.)

don’t know if i mentioned it… but i went to Palo Duro Canyon last weekend, and my initial reaction was that it has lots of bugs (for a nature girl, i’m sure not a fan of bugs); after about a quarter mile of trudging through spider webs and seeing big, hairy, nasty, freakishly disgusting beetles, i high-tailed back to the ‘Splorer and drove the rest of the way through the canyon, then went home. i’ll try again soon and find a trail that actually ascends, since vertical variation is the whole point of hiking canyons.

i hate to keep linking to this guy… but he’s somewhat kinda funny-ish and, by my estimation, a bit sarcastic, which always flies well with me. this week Pauly D of WFME is honoring clowns, which gets him an auto-link from the mountaineer, because the Psycho X is afraid of clowns. clowns clowns clowns. yippee! BOO, Psycho!

i take offense… to being called a Large Mammal. but i get over stuff really fast, just ask… um… well… ask Minerva! yeah.

nice day out, idn’it? i love the weather here; we had our company summer party at the park the other night, and they said it was humid for Amarillo… and humid for Amarillo is like 5% or something. nice.

bad sarahk… i feel so guilty; i’ve been 3 weeks without a massage, and i’m actually working now, so i’m really starting to feel it. my shoulders are so wussy. anyway, i don’t know when i’ll be in Fort Worth, since i can’t leave before the house is in order and would prefer to let gasoline prices drop even more (yes, left, they ARE dropping, and it’s not even November yet!) before i make that drive… so i’m going to see a massage therapist here next week, which makes me feel like i’m cheating on Mary. [keep the comments clean or i’ll sissify you.] believe me, Mary, it’s not you, it’s me and my twisted shoulders.

i’m thinking the blogitorium is a little too quiet these days… so we need to have some kind of virtual gathering soon. who has an idea? not me. maybe i just wanted to say “blogitorium” again, because i think it’s a neato word.

ok, maybe that’s a little more excited looking than i actually am, but if it weren’t monday and morning-time, i would really be excited enough for exclamation points. anyway, i saw Mark Cuban on FoxNews this morning and have decided that i am officially a fan of the man. forget the whole reviving-the-Mavs thing, this man supports our troops. and not just “i don’t support the war but i support the troops” rubbish and stuff like that.

now, i did already know about his Fallen Patriot Fund, which grants money to families of US soldiers who were killed or seriously injured during Operation Iraqi Freedom; but this was the first time i’ve seen an actual recipient of a grant from the foundation, and that’s a nice way to start a Monday morning. Cuban was on FoxNews with Mark Graunke, Jr., a Marine Staff Sergeant [uh, i typed that word 6 times before i spelled it correctly, i need a 2nd Coke] from Flower Mound, TX, who has lost numerous body parts (seriously, NUMEROUS); the Fund has granted money to him and his family, and i think that’s just excellent.

and Cuban was saying nice stuff about the troops fighting for us and whatnot, which puts him high up on my list of folks now, and he has gained one more MFFL (’cause really, before, i was fan-ish, but would never have called myself a Mavs Fan For Life unless they would have agreed to get rid of squeaky shoes and slam-dunks in basketball, but now i submit to that label). go Mavs.

p.s. he has a blog, and when he’s not talking about technology, i read it. oh yeah, i almost forgot! i was in the Irving Chorale until i moved, and Cuban’s HDTV station taped our Christmas concert last year and put us on national TV. that makes me a national celebrity, but i’m still not going to become liberal.

i never watch a horror flick at the movie theater. when i watch a horror flick (which is a rare occurrence, since i hate them), i require the ability to watch them in fast-forward or with muted sound, so i don’t see them in theaters. see, it’s not the scary plotlines, the knives-for-fingers or the rusted machetes that scare me. no no. the only scary thing about a horror flick is the score; the hair-raising, goose-bump-making, spooky music is the only part of a horror flick that actually scares me. bring on the nightmares, Mr. Krueger, but no soundtrack, please.

so these are the conditions under which i will watch a horror movie:

1) daylight must be piercing through all windows; darkness is not allowed.
2) my back is to a couch, and behind the couch is a wall; due to that Crystal Lake creep’s affinity for stabbing people through walls and whatnot, i require 2-layer protection from the bogeymen.
3) if i’m watching a movie with someone, say a guy for example (not that this ever happens), the second i get an idea that he might plan to scare me by capitalizing on a spooky moment with a rib jab and a “BOO”, he will be thrown out on his big fat pinkytoe, never to be given the opportunity to watch a movie with me again.

and this is how i watch a horror movie:

i watch in real-time until the music picks up, then i mute it. if muting isn’t enough, i hit fast forward until someone is either dead or has escaped death. then i rewind and watch it in real-time, because hey, i already know what happens.

the one exception to watching a horror movie in the theater (now, this is by my broad definition of horror flick, which includes some, but not all, psychological thrillers) was What Lies Beneath. my good friend Brenda (who is also Bikermommy’s best friend) wanted to see What Lies Beneath, so i agreed to see it with her at the theater, but there was one condition. we had to see the 5:00 showing so that when the movie let out, it would still be daylight outside. ok, two conditions, the second being that she couldn’t laugh at me when i screamed in the theater; she didn’t, because she screamed too.

suddenly stricken with insomnia after being unable to figure out Pauly D’s blog treasure hunt (solution here), i took the time to put together the album of the photo shoot that started it all… “it” being my illustrious career as the official IMAO T-Shirt Babe.

i’ll have the photos from the actual T-Shirt Babe shoot up eventually; until then, you can see them on Frank’s blog; just hit refresh every few seconds and get not only a new random picture of yours truly but also (and more importantly) a new random IMAO quote. hooray for randomness! hooray for t-shirts! hooray for Frank J!

one wedding dress, slightly used, worn once.

one 2-seater lawn chair for snuggling, never used for its intended purpose.

one tea set from Japan that was WRAPPED UP AND GIVEN TO ME AS A BIRTHDAY PRESENT nah, i might keep that, even though the giver has asked for it back. btw, the giver is 25 years old, which should make her more mature than 14, but maybe she’s a late bloomer, or maybe she’s just a spoiled brat. of course, if she’d like to give ME back a DVD player and lots more…

one SUV, driven too many times by someone too sleazy (no, not me).

the rest is just decorations, so i’ll keep most of those.

call 1-888-GET-LOST to inquire.

ok, musees, your precious muser needs a little help here, and i know y’all will come through for me…

i’ve been thinkin’ about getting hosted, getting my own domain name, moving off of typepad (it’s so sluggish!). now that i’ve been at this for 6 months, i figure i’ll probably stick with it. i don’t really know where to start, so that’s where y’all come in and help me with those little questions.

who’s good for hosting? do they take care of the domain stuff, or do i have to go somewhere else for that?

then what software should i go with? i didn’t get in on the free wordpress thing, and i know people are happy with wordpress. typepad is MT-based, so should i go with MT? i know i’ve heard a lot of people unhappy with the pricing structure, etc., but i’m thinking it would be easier to move over from typepad to MT, since the stylesheets would be similar. or would they? i dunno… or are they all the same? i dunno that either. don’t make fun of me, i hadn’t even heard of blogs until December, so i’d say i’ve picked it up ok.

k, so please help, don’t make this a 0-comments post, por favor!

i’ll wait and thank y’all after you help. :-)

p.s. how big a pain is it to do this?