Stalker in the produce aisle...

I'm not even kidding. I just had the weirdest shit happen to me. So after some group school work tonight I went to Target to buy a bunch of crap that I don't need and go grocery shopping. (side note, does anyone else's cart get jacked when they try on clothes in Target?....it happens to me all the time...and there's stuff in the basket!). It's late and it's a Saturday (my social life sucks when school is in full swing). It's about 9:00 and I'm finishing up shopping in the produce aisle when all of a sudden this conversation starts:


stalker-girl: "I think I know you!"


Me: Ummm, I'm sorry, where do you know me from? (I'm HORRIBLE with people from the past).


SG: Did you go to X X High school?


Me: Yes, yes I did. (I'm smiling and nodding, hoping I recognize her)


SG: Oh! well, I'm Stalker Girl, you're Megan, right?


Me: Oh yeah! Hi S! (I'm only vaguely remembering her)


this is where it starts to get strange

SG: Oh, I totally remember lots of stories from back then! Like the time we had that sports medicine class together (I DID take that class) and you had just gotten your fake nails done and they were so gorgeous and you had to cut them off because you had to write a paper and you were so mad.


Me: Uh, I don't think I remember that...why would I have cut my nails? Were they too long to type? (I did occasionally get my nails done...so maybe this happened, I don't have a clue)


SG: And THEN there was the time we were supposed to go out one night and you never picked me up and I called your house and your mom said you were in bed with a migraine and I threw a complete hissy fit and....


Me: (I stopped her before she could go on, I was getting uncomfortable) I really don't remember that, I'm so sorry! (I have since called my mom, she has no recollection of this...plus, I don't get migraines)


SG: Well, I just always remember you because you were so kind to me back then. (huh? You were just telling me how I ditched you!)


Me: (I know this is nice, but I'm still feeling uncomfortable) Well, thank you, I'm glad you have good memories of me! ha ha!


So we continue to talk a bit about what we've been doing for the past 13 years (13 years!!!). Then...


SG: So, do you go to church?


::cue ominous music:: Ahhhh, it's going to be one of THOSE conversations.


Me: Nope, much to my mother's chagrin, I don't. (dang it, when will I just learn to say 'yes, I go'?!)


SG: Well, let me tell you all about my church (she goes on to tell me all about it, then proceeds to write down her info and the church info)


SG: Well, I think I'm about to cry!


Me: ........why? (I say nervously)


SG: Well, I've been praying for you and now I run into you!!


Me: (looking a bit dumbfounded) Well, I guess it's fate...thanks for the info, gotta run!


SG: Oh, I just have to give you a hug first!


Me: ok


I take off for the register at this point. Ummm, WTF was that all about? Either she was lying about praying about me or this girl is straight up weird and could be my stalker. I mean...it's been THIRTEEN YEARS since I last saw this girl and from what I can remember I hardly had any interaction with her at all. If she's thinking about me, that's bizarre. (even though I secretly hope that all the guys I had crushes on have thinking about me for these 13 years...but that's different).


I called my friend Ann who I've known since Jr. High to tell her the news. She doesn't remember who this girl is but proceeds to tell me that I better get a new car and move. WHAT? Should I be THAT freaked out? I mean, yes, this girl was very excited to see me and yes, she's apparently been thinking about me for the past 13 years, but I don't feel like I'm in danger!


Now I see the sympathy vote coming for Stalker-girl...but let me tell you, it's not like I was some popular chick at school...not at all. And it wasn't like me to ditch or be unkind to anyone....not with this amount Catholic guilt I have coursing through my veins. So it's not like this was some girl that was clamoring to be my friend and I dumped on her. So you can see where this is odd for me.....right? Everyone I've told so far has thought it was freaky....my mom suggested I set my house alarm tonight. WHAT? You people have obviously been infected with my neuroses...times 10! Here I was just thinking it was weird and now everyone has me convinced that this chick is going to show up at my door and kill me!


Ug....I was planning on answering your questions tonight, but it looks like it will have to wait until tomorrow. If I make it to tomorrow...ack!

I am sweaty...and other similarly fascinating tales

Alright, so life gets kinda hectic for most people. Be you single or married, parents or not, working or living in your parents basement....whatever. And given your hectic schedule you have to find a way to fit in the essentials.


For me, this essential is working out. Why must I fit it in? Well, my little burgeoning baby bump that is made entirely of pita chips and cheese is the answer, my friend. If I was a celeb I can almost assure you the paps would be on high-alert. 'is she pregnant?'. Hell, I myself would wonder the same thing if there wasn't a key ingredient missing (I'll let you guess which one).


Alright, it's not THAT bad...but I've been noticing a little more 'gush' lately and with my current schedule, working out after work has become difficult. And working out before work? Well, is just impossible because I'm lazy.


So, I had a revelation! I will join the gym at work! It's cheap ($12 a month), they have showers and they have treadmills, elliptical and bikes. Everything I could ever hope for. Not to mention that this! month! they are getting new treadmills with LCD TVs ON EACH AND EVERY ONE. Well slap me silly and call me Bertha, that is excellent news.


I joined last week and finally was able to go this week. Yesterday and today. I was a bit hesitant when I got there. I mean, it's all my co-workers, a lot of whom I know. This is not like my neighborhood gym (that I still belong to...ya know, for the weekend), which albeit huge and super-nice, is filled with tons of suburbanites. Suburbanites with squishy middles and who wear Big Dog t-shirts. I'm never worried about looking cute at that gym. But this gym? Ahem, there are more then a few tall drinks of water and even though I know most of them and wouldn't go out with them (because obviously they're just clamoring to go out with me) it's still a bit intimidating working out around them.


Why, you may ask? Well, when God was handing out characteristics and traits to people I imagine he was going down the assembly line (since that's how it's done, obviously) and was picking out different things for different people. "She's going to have silky brown hair, and I think this one will have big boobs, and this one over here, great legs" Then he got down to the not so great stuff. "Hmmm, he'll have the hairy back, and she'll have the chin hair, and this one, this one right here, we'll give her an overactive sweat gland...heck, I'm tired of passing these out, let's just give them all to her." And that's how I got my propensity to sweat. Like a guy. I'm not even joking.


This is a documented fact that goes back as long as I can remember. In preschool, in high school, skinny, fat, while working out, while sitting on the patio in anything about 90 degree heat. Texas has been a cruel place to grow up in that regard. While most girls run 3 miles outside in August here in Texas and produce one, tiny dainty drop of sweat, *I* look like I could star in the latest rendition of Swampthing...AS Swampthing.


So back to my story. I have gotten past this fact for the most part and embrace it. But old habits die hard when you're hanging with your coworkers in a gym that's smaller than your house. Comments I have gotten in the TWO days I've worked out:


"Oh, did you just run outside?" "No?" "Oh." (I just ran 2 miles on the treadmill....inside)
"You must be almost done working out" (nope, just got started)
"Wow, you really sweat a lot" (yes, and thank you for noticing)
"Gosh, are you hot?" (yes, what tipped you off?)
And I got a lot of wide-eyed looks. Geez Louise, people!


The best....the absolute best is when one of the guys from my area decided to 'assist' me. Let me paint the scene. I've already finished running. I want to do 20 minutes on the elliptical. So I jump on. Hot guy from another department gets on next to me. On the other side of him? A girl from my area that is Polly Perfect. Perfect body, hair, nary a drop of sweat. So I'm feeling a little uncomfortable, but putting my all into working out. Just when I didn't think I could get any more uncomfortable, my coworker silently walks up behind my machine, sticks his arm out and hands me a huge wad of paper towels and give me a look like 'here, you may need these'. Okay okay, it was a nice gesture. But I was taken straight back to Junior High. I felt like the dorky kid who's mom came up to school and say 'Here's your constipation medicine' in the hallway in front of the cool kids. (not that that's actually happened, but you get the picture). Ug. "Thanks Marvin" I said and smiled as I proceeded to mop off three quarts of sweat off my brow.


This didn't deter me and I went back again today. Oh well, my coworkers have seen me bitchy, they've seen me funny, they've seen me serious and now they've seen me sweaty. I'll add gassy in there next month and then they'll get a true picture of who I am.


Alright, I'll now start taking applications for all of you that want to date me after hearing that story. The line forms here. ::crickets chirping::


Fine....moving on. So a post wouldn't be complete without some form of doggie malady. We had the parasite of last week (still on medication, thanks) and now we have something new. Gracie is officially the world's most unlucky dog.


So yesterday after work we went out in the backyard....the newly! mowed! backyard. (they left the sunflower trunk by the way...but edged nicely around it) Gracie went to the fence line and starting barking at my neighbor's dogs. I Cesar Millaned her ass and tried to get her to stop. She ran down the fence line the other way. And then yelped. And then ran towards me. The rest of this story took place in about 10 seconds. I look at where she had just been and see at least 20 hornets/yellow jacket/some kind of winged insect of death. I look over at Gracie who has one on her back and is rubbing her face on the ground. I look back at the swarm. Holy hell, they're headed towards us! So I grab Gracie like a small child and run towards the house (this all felt very dramatic at the time). We get inside and I look for a stinger (I forgot, only bees leave stingers). I couldn't figure out where on her face she got stung. I then proceeded to watch her of the next 45 minutes in case she had a bad reaction...because THAT would be typical. Luckily, no worries. I get home from dinner and a late night jaunt to work and notice where she was stung. Right above the eye. She now looks like a pirate with one puffy squinty eye that appear to need a patch. Poor Gracie. She said to tell you 'Arrrrgg!' Oh and her parasites said to say hello too.

Told ya!

Not only did I NOT post something for my one year anniversary, but what I'm about to post probably should be tagged 'lame-o post by Megan'. Seriously. But really now, I've been workin all day and had class tonight. I can't be held responsible for coming up with something clever and witty as well.

To celebrate my one year blogaversary , I skipped 30 minutes of class tonight and ate dinner and had a margarita by myself. no, seriously. Well, it wasn't *really* to celebrate, I just felt like fajitas and a strong margarita and couldn't convince anyone to go with me. So I ate by myself. Like the mature adult that I am.

Ahem...alright. And what did I do to celebrate during the day? Well, I officially hired someone to do my lawn! Woo hoo! After almost 5 years I'm calling it quits. Because really? I suck at it and in Texas is requires that you get up at say, 4 o'clock in the morning in order to avoid any direct sunlight. Because once the sun is out, one stray ray and you're toast. Literally. So I'm paying someone to fry their fanny off for me. Or maybe that's instead of me. Whatever.

And you know what I did tonight after school to celebrate? That's right, I got out in my backyard at 10:30 at night with a hacksaw and cut down the ginormous sunflower plant in my backyard. No, I'm not exaggerating. the lawn is in need of a good trim, but Lord almighty, I let this sunflower get out of control. I'm not even joking when I say that the 'trunk' was as big as my forearm and that I needed a SAW to cut it. I couldn't even get it all. I was too afraid of a neighbor peeking over the fence and seeing a very sweaty single girl who owns lots of animals and who gave herself ankle tattoos in class with a blue pen, hacking at a sunflower plant in the backyard that rivals Seymour from Little Shop of Horrors. I actually felt like that thing was ALIVE. Well, I mean, it WAS alive, but I mean like it was going to come to life, wrap it's tentacles around me and choke me to death. Uh huh, that wasn't even the margarita talkin. Anyway, I got most of it, but not all of it, the hacksaw blade got DULL if you can believe it. I can't.

And this was all in an effort to save myself the embarrassment of these new lawn people coming over and making a note on how white trash I am. Problem is, when you cut down a redwood tree size sunflower plant....there isn't a lot you can do with the 'remains'. So there's sitting on my back porch. Nice.

Okay, I know what you're thinking. Sunflowers? seriously Megan? Big, bad *sunflowers*? I'm here to tell ya, those things are crazy. Please see below.

http://www.johnson-county.com/secondaryroads/WeedComm/WeedSpecies/wildSunflower.shtml

okay, I know that's Iowa, but I swear that's what it is.

These are Texas pics

the photographer noted that the hazy effect is not due to fancy photoshop, it's due to HUMIDITY affecting the camera. Nice.

okay, I did not let it get that bad, but see? Little dude's about to get swallowed by that thing! If I had given it another month...this is totally how it would have looked.

The lesson? pick you damn weeds, Megan.

Alright, now down to the real business of my blogoversary. I'd do something cool and neat, but I only have 5 readers and technically one of those is me, so if I ask for questions, as in, ask me anything! I'll answer! I'm afraid I'd pretty much get questions like 'hey, I stopped here and read about your bunchy eye, can you tell me more about that?' (can I tell you that that's one of the most frequent searches that gets people here) or 'Megan, are you coming to see me and your father this weekend?' (except my mother would use better grammar than that). So, how bout this. If you're so inclined, ask away (e-mail or comments). If not, don't. See? No pressure.

Alright, time for bed. Oh, and I need to take some benadryl for the rash that the sunflower plant gave me. I wish I was kidding. It is exacting it's revenge. If it learns how to use a hacksaw, I'm in trouble.

Oh wow...

...two posts in one night...how lucky are you?? Please don't answer that.

I just realized my one year blog anniversary is on Tuesday! One whole year!

Why does it feel like I need to throw some sort of party? Ya know, me and my 5 readers can celebrate by doing jaeger bombs and eating cake. Because I love me some cake.

Hmmmm, I'l have to think of something super-creative to do on Tuesday. And given my creativity as of late(12 dog diarrhea posts anyone?). I'm sure it will be a let down fabulous.

I need help

No, not that kind of help, silly. although I suppose that could be argued. Especially when I listen to Guns and Roses whilst running and envision situations in my head where I may have to get in a fight. Of course, not one that I started, but more one that I had to finish. And how I think that even though I've never been in a fight once in my entire 31 years, I somehow think that I could take down any opponent. As long as it's a girl and she's like 5'2" and maybe weighs like 100 pounds. And maybe she only has one arm. Of course, why would she be picking a fight with me? Who knows. All I know is one armed, short, skinny chicks love to get into fights with behemoth girls.

Ahem...where was I going with this?

Oh yes, I need help. I have successfully picked out a new dining room table, a sectional, an ottoman and a side table, but have yet to find an area rug to go under said pieces of furniture. I don't want the traditional oriental/flowery/formal rug. Nor do I want a very geometric rug. Nor do I want a brown rug, or tan, or white. See I'm limited myself down until all that's left is the Hello Kitty rug and the Mary Kate and Ashey Hi Hippie Hooray Multi Sigh. So here are some pics so you can get the lay of the land. And yes, the tags are still on my couch. I somehow think if I don't like it or if there's something wrong that the tags will be a necessity. Like I'm going to load it in my car and take it back to the store and they're going to need to see my receipt and the tags will need to be on it. Like a pair of pants. Even *I* think I'm ridiculous, so please don't point out the obvious.

Anyways, back to the rug. Considering I have just had to sell my soul to the devil (I got around $5.75 for all of you who were wondering) to get all this furniture, I'm trying to go inexpensive, but not cheap for a rug(s). So...HELP! I was thinking of going all blue and brown with the pillows for the couch...but have had no luck finding a rug that would go with that scheme that wasn't all all brown or just crazy blue. Then I found a rug in green I kinda liked but my mother asked if it was a joke. Then I thought about going shag... maybe even green shag. Am I out of my mind?? So these are the ones I've kinda liked so far. But I need your help. What do you think? Do you have any suggestions? Any places you like to shop?

http://www.overstock.com/Home-Garden/Hand-tufted-Contempo-Circles-Green-Wool-Rug-5-x-8/3187456/product.html?tid=CartLayer:StandardShipping

http://www.overstock.com/Home-Garden/Basic-Stripes-Rug-in-a-Box-by-FLOR-3-x-5/3092396/product.html?

or something made of this?

http://www.sansomshagrugs.com/images/limebus3.jpg

Why I'm stuck on green, I'm not sure. Somehow a blue shag carpet would be crazy, but green? totally normal. I think you can see by the pics though that I neeeeeed some color.

Ideas?

P.S. Gracie is doing much better...no more explosions and she's on a 21 day medication for coccidia. And despite me feeling a little rumble in the jungle after eating Pei Wei tonight, apparently I can't get it. So much for my speedy weight loss plans. We'll have to try for a different parasite next time.

Wait...I'm not nuerotic?

I'm a O84-C69-E79-A57-N7 Big Five!!
Does this mean I'm guilty of false advertising?

Openness to Experience/Intellect

High scorers tend to be original, creative, curious, complex; Low scorers tend to be conventional, down to earth, narrow interests, uncreative.

You enjoy having novel experiences and seeing things in new ways. (Your percentile: 84)

Conscientiousness

High scorers tend to be reliable, well-organized, self-disciplined, careful; Low scorers tend to be disorganized, undependable, negligent.

You are well-organized, and are reliable. (Your percentile: 69) <-- ha ha ha, 69!
Extraversion

High scorers tend to be sociable, friendly, fun loving, talkative; Low scorers tend to be introverted, reserved, inhibited, quiet.

You are relatively social and enjoy the company of others. (Your percentile: 79) <-- relatively social? have you seen my Facebook pictures?

Agreeableness

High scorers tend to be good natured, sympathetic, forgiving, courteous; Low scorers tend to be critical, rude, harsh, callous.

You are neither extremely forgiving nor irritable. (Your percentile: 57)

--->Neuroticism <---

High scorers tend to be nervous, high-strung, insecure, worrying; Low scorers tend to be calm, relaxed, secure, hardy.

You probably remain calm, even in tense situations. (Your percentile: 7) <--'hardy'? Are you calling me fat???

Thanks!l

Thank you to everyone for your well wishes. Miss Gracie is doing alright today. She had an accident sometime during he day which is pretty amazing since I haven't fed her in almost 24 hours. Her system is bound to be clear by now! I successfully administered 4 pills to her tonight (finger down the throat party of one) and gave her a little prescription food and so far so good.

The vet continues to amaze me. I called today to get lab results. After getting a busy signal for 20 minutes (they don't have more than one line?) I finally get someone. I ask her if they've gotten the results yet and she asks for my name. She also doesn't seem to have a hold button because then I hear the conversation she has next...she comes back and asks if this is for Tigger. "No, but one of my cats IS named Tigger" Then I'm 'on hold' again. then I hear (not muffled at all)..."Oh! I think your wife is here!" To which I respond loudly "WHO? WHAT?" At this point my employees are cracking up at me. Then she goes away again. She comes back, "Is this (my last name here) Morgan? No, this is Megan (my last name here). "Oh, wrong person. nope, no results for Gracie"

Oooookay. So now my employees are laughing and asking me when I got married in California. Nice.

Fast forward to tonight. I get a message from the vet. "Um, yeah we have the lab results and we want to make sure these are just for Gracie? Well, we know she was the only one you brought in, but we just want to make sure this sample was just hers"

WHAT? You were there and collected it yourself! I'm wondering what the hell this means? Is my dog a mutant? Do the lab results conclude she is part unicorn? WHAT IS IT?

Sigh...I hate waiting. Of course by the time I got the message they were closed. So tomorrow will have to do.

I bought a bottle of wine at the grocery store tonight...what do you want to bet I crack that puppy open, drink half of it and fall asleep at 9:00?