So...what'cha been up to?

I bet this is what you have been asking non-stop for the last few days.

What the hell HAS Jane been up to?

Well, outside of the whole Technorati stalking episode, let me fill you in.

Friday:
Work.
Flight to Phoenix.
Check in to Ritz Carlton.
Check to see if Ritz Carlton has had change of heart with respect to porn policy because of artfully-worded and emotional letter from Jane.
Nope.  No porn.  Bastards.
Dinner with Boy at sports bar.  Drink bad chardonnay.
Back to hotel.
Watch SportsCenter with Boy.
Sleep.

Saturday:
Sleep in.
Pat Boy on head and send him on his way.
Shop.
Baseball.
Drink bad chardonnay at baseball game.  Why, you ask?  Because I can.
Dinner with Boy and Boy's family and Boy's friends and people that the Boy doesn't really know but who came anyway.
Go back to hotel.
Still no porn.  Fuckin' Ritz.
Watch SportsCenter with Boy.
Sleep.

Sunday:
More sleep.
Boy leaves at some point.  No idea when.  Just really really early.
Blame lack of morning comprehension on bad chardonnay.
Flight to San Francisco.
Drink bad chardonnay on flight.  Hair of the dog.
Get car.  Go home.  Pat Princess on head.  Re-pack suitcase.
Meet Boy at hotel downtown (not Ritz).
Watch SportsCenter with Boy.  Sadly, too tired to watch porn.
Sleep.

Monday:
Wake up.
Pat Boy on head and send him on his way.
Annoying work-type stuff.
Meet friends for many margaritas.
Baseball.
Room service.
Drink good chardonnay.
Watch SportsCenter with Boy.
Sleep.

Tuesday:
Wake up...sort of.
Super annoying work type-stuff.
Fabulous lunch with the Boy.
Pat Boy on head and send him on his way.
More annoying work-type stuff.
Think about shopping but get caught in rain as soon as I leave the hotel.  Take it as a sign that I definitely shouldn't shop.
Shower.
Red Bull.
Baseball.
Bad midnight food with bad chardonnay at only diner open in the entire city of San Francisco.
Watch SportsCenter with Boy.
Sleep.

Wednesday:
Wake up EARLY.
Go home.
Pick up Princess early from school. (Excuse: She has an "appointment".  No need to mention baseball.)  School gives me dirty look.
Drive back downtown to stadium.
Baseball with the Princess.
Eat bad food and great ice cream.  Drink bad chardonnay.
Extra innings baseball.
Meet up with Boy after game for approximately 8.5 seconds before he has to get on a plane.
Go home.
Help Princess with homework that she conveniently forgot she had on the way to the game.
Collapse.
Definitely don't watch SportsCenter.

This may or may not have happened.  I have no actual recollection.

Any questions?

UPDATE - Dear Technorati

From the Technorati "support" board...

But I really really meant to give you a sacrificial goat! I'm so sorry Technorati. Please love me again.

Once upon a time, a little girl named Jane decided that she wanted to write a blog but she didn't know anything about the blogging.


So she bought a book.  And she learned about this thing called "Blogger".  Jane thought that Blogger was way cool but also way snarky because every once in awhile Blogger would fuck with her by changing all of her fonts and spacing and picture alignment and sizing.  Jane would spend hours trying to change everything back only to be told by Blogger "Nope, not today bitch."


But Jane accepted that she was now in a relationship Blogger - for better or worse - and so she would overlook Blogger's quirkier and/or more masochistic qualities for the greater good.


So Jane read more of the book and the book told her that she must go and befriend Technorati.  Technorati is a blog-claiming service that "claims" your blogs and then uses some super-secret technology to help other people find your blog in their directory.  I guess.


The book evidently forgot to mention that when one submits a blog to Technorati for "claiming" that one should also provide a live goat for sacrifice as well.

Goat

Jane submitted her blog to Technorati on February 15th.  When she didn't hear anything after a month, she checked the Technorati FAQs which said that this was somewhat normal and that it takes a lot of time to sacrifice all those goats and just chill the fuck out for a bit.


And then Jane forgot all about it.  


So it was somewhat a surprise to her when on Friday, she got an email from Technorati that stated...


"This is an automatically-generated email.


Thank you for submitting your blog claim on Technorati.  Unfortunately, we encountered a problem reading your blog (bad writing? not funny? no goat?).  Our engineers are investigating and we will update your claim status as soon as we are able (to sacrifice more goats?)."


"Well, ok," she thought.  "There's a problem but they're looking into it.  Sometimes I encounter problems reading my blog too because it's not funny.  I understand COMPLETELY."


But then 2 minutes later she got the same email.  And then 2 minutes after that she got the SAME email. This started on Friday.  It is now Sunday.  Every 2 minutes without fail the same email shows up.


Jane found this slightly amusing and then really annoying and has slowly graduated to full-on pissed off.

And this only reflects the emails that I didn't already delete in various fits of crazy

So of course you all are thinking "So did Jane contact Technorati to stop this madness?"

As a matter of fact, she did.  But Technorati is so advanced and so all about itself, it has figured that it doesn't NEED customer service.  It has outsourced all technology issues/questions to another service, that...ok get this...asks you to POST YOUR QUESTION AND/OR EMERGENCY on a public discussion board and then you have to wait for a techy-type person who may, or MAY NOT, work for the company that you are pissed at to post a response to your question.

I am certain that this is because there are no longer human beings at Technorati....only robots.

"But I don't HAVE a goat!"

Anyway, Jane did as she was told and posted her question with the appropriate number of exclamation points to vocalize her pissed-offness.  Sometime around 4 AM on Friday night, a techy-type person who says she actually WORKS for Technorati, but who I think actually just lives in the robot dungeon with the goats, promised that she'd get on it ASAP.  

That was Friday.  It's Sunday and every 2 minutes I get another email.

It won't stop.

Help.  


I need a goat.

The Douche Douche Award of the Week (because sometimes one “Douche” just isn’t enough)

I realize that this is old news by now (relatively speaking), but since there are some of you out there that are still asking “Volcano? What volcano?”, I figured that there are also many of you out there who have not heard about this…

Sometimes sports fans vomit on each other.  On purpose.

This is so great.  And horrible.  But mostly great, because of this picture, which will likely go down in the Nick Nolte Mug Shot Hall of Fame…

There are somewhat varying accounts, but let me see if I can give you the high-level.

An off-duty cop takes his 15 and 11-year old daughters to a Phillies game.

Two couples sitting behind the off-duty cop and his daughters are drunk and unruly and stupid.  They swear and yell obscenities and spill beer down the backs of the cop and his daughters and are generally douche-y to everyone.

The cop is trying to ignore it.  The 15-year old tells them to please mind their language.

Bad idea.

The friend of drunk fat kid in the mug shot (the co-douche, as it were) hawks a lugee into the hood of the 15-year old’s sweatshirt.  This is, sadly, the least gross part of this story.

The off-duty cop is PISSED.  Security is called and the co-douche is dragged out of the stadium and summarily dumped on his douche-y ass in the parking lot.

Fat kid is now left with the dates (and I bet they are WINNERS, these dates).  He’s kinda upset now that his friend is gone and is thinking that his women are going to think he’s a giant pussy if he doesn’t, like, show everybody what a bad-ass he is and make those little girls PAY for having his friend tossed.

So he STICKS HIS FINGER DOWN HIS THROAT AND INTENTIONALLY VOMITS ON THE 11-YEAR OLD. 

Oh yes.  He.  Did.

The cop and some neighboring fans move to subdue fat kid.  Fat kid starts swinging.  Fans try a little harder.  Fat kid begins to projectile vomit – probably not so much intentionally this time.  After all, there’s only so much beer and hot dogs and beer and nachos and beer and crab fries that one can consume and not throw up after being punched in the gut and, evidently, the eye. 

Fat kid is arrested and charged with assault, harassment and resisting arrest and immediately goes down in "bad fan" history.

I wish that I could take credit for the following comparison... 

...although this seems monumentally unfair to Sloth.

Joe Sports Fan has some other fantastic separated at birth comparisons.

I'll be wearing a rain coat and football helmet to the game I'm going to on Monday.

****

In totally unrelated news and in a minor victory of technology, Lazy Jane's Reader Fav blog roll is up and running ------->>

And there are some late additions (better late than never!), so make sure you also check out...

...by Jeff Tompkins

Cricket and Porcupine

Dose of Reality

House of Lime

The Smitten Image

Somewhere on the Masthead

Too Many Mornings

I'll be updating the list periodically so make sure you continue to send me your true blog loves as the mood strikes.

I now have so many freakin' awesome blogs in my personal blog roll that I can no longer dedicate any time to working, parenting or housekeeping.  Your fault.  

Lazy Jane's Reader Favs - The Inaugural List

It's official.  Y'all kinda rock.

I asked for fantastic blogs to read and you sent me fantastic blogs to read...and I didn't really have to do a damn thing (which is absolutely the best part of all this).  I'll be creating a blogroll of your favs, so let me know if you have someone or something that you want to add.

Here we go...something for everybody...blogs that you can't live without...

2 much testosterone

Adventures of a Yankee Girl

Cafe Fashionista - ...life is a runway

The Checkout Girl

The Chloe Conspiracy

Facts Are Strictly Optional - Life lessons and wisdom from a not so diplomatic diplomat

Fluid Pusher - It's not just a man's job

The Girl Next Door Grows Up - Building character for over 30 years

Glammed if you do...Glammed if you don't

How Could You Not?! - The Boob Nazi

Hyperbole and a Half

i live here: SF

Kat Wilder - A divorced mom muses on life, love and single parenting

Knucklehead!

Life According to Candice

Life By Chocolate: Robyn Alana Engel's Blog

Little Girl. Shiny World - I be bloggin like it's my job

...love maegan

Martinis or Diaper Genies (MODG) - An almost 30 something's dilemma between babies and the selfish life

The Mother Load - Finding sanity in the daily grind: double time

My Fantabulous Wonderful Life - Randomness and all the fun stuff in between

Nicole is Better - More is Better - deliciously vulgar

Out of my Head...Into Yours

Peter DeWolf

Steam Me Up, Kid

A Suburban NYC Housewife-in-Training - A little wine is all it takes...

Suldog - Serving the public need for obvious jokes, maudlin sentimentality, and self-righteous claptrap, since 1957

Unhappy Hipsters - It's lonely in the modern world

What Were You Thinking?

You've Got To Be Kidding Me - Seriously.

**** 

In addition, I'd like to award triple dog extra points to Mrs. Newlywed Giggles and RN Mama for nominating themselves and to Christine at I'm Here for suggesting her ENTIRE blogroll (which must be seriously awesome because it includes me - just sayin).

But the "non-award" Lazy Jane award of the day goes to Amanda over at Dating is Miserable, who not only gave me great suggestions but is drawing her dating life in stick-figures and gave her boobs their own Twitter account.  It doesn't get any more fabulous than that, my friends.

Got blog?

I want your daily blog crack.

Let me explain.

I started blogging a little over two months ago.  One of the goals of this undertaking was to find blogs that I wanted to read and authors that produced interesting and/or funny stuff regularly.

This, it turns out, was harder than I anticipated.

It’s a lot like playing “Duck, Duck, Goose” only more like “Duck, duck, duck, duck, (break to pee) duck, duck, duck, (get another drink), duck, duck, duck, (check TMZ to see what Jon & Kate have been up to today), duck, duck…OOOO great blog – GOOSE”.

There’s so much great content out there.  The number of talented and entertaining bloggers that I have discovered during my search has been heartening.  And it has restored my faith that the entire world has NOT forgotten how to put together grammatically correct sentences – even if I’m not always one of them.

There are also some fabulous blogs with the sole purpose of showcasing talented bloggers.  These are great too!

But I'm impatient and greedy and I want to find more, like, now.  I imagine that many of you would like to find more too.

So in summary, I want you do to my work for me, but still make it seem like I’m doing you a favor.

So…

(1) Send me the 3-5 blogs that you love/can’t live without/read without fail.  You can either provide your list in the comments section or – if you’d prefer to be a little more anonymous about it – send me an email at mylifeasjane@gmail.com.  (If you throw a few bucks IT's way at Well, Oh Yeah!!, I’m sure he’d be happy to send in your blog for you.  He seems pretty entrepreneurial.)

(2) I will compile and publish the list of those blogs that have been reader-identified.  No awards, no self-promotion….just sharing the other blogs and bloggers who you enjoy on a regular basis.

I know that many of us visit the larger/most popular blogs on a regular basis.  You can send those too…just don’t forget the little guys!

Let’s see how it goes and maybe I can keep a running list of reader recommended blogs so that you can check back occasionally and maybe find a new gem or two.

What do you say?  Got blog?

Dusting off the volcanologists for their 10 seconds

I have to admit that up until yesterday, I didn’t know what a “volcanologist” was.   If you had asked me, I probably would have said it was something from Star Trek.

After the eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland, all of a sudden they were everywhere.  The TV was erupting volcanologists.

I learned from Matt Lauer that volcanologists are volcano experts – which seems logical enough.   I had assumed that somebody was out there keeping an eye on rouge volcanoes, but never really gave it much thought until now.  I also learned that this eruption is big and important – big enough and important enough to fly Al Roker to Iceland to show us snowball size chunks of ice covered in “ASH!”, which I think just looks like mud, but I’ll humor Al for the moment.

Volcanologists must be giddy.  I bet nobody pays them any attention until something erupts.  And when was the last major volcano eruption that caused this much disruption – 1980?

I can just picture them sitting around in their geeky volcanologist cubicles, trying to get dates online, looking at volcanologist porn and dreaming about the next big eruption (interpret as you will).

So now that something has really erupted, all the TV stations are calling them and begging them to sit down for interviews and explain to the public that volcanoes occasionally erupt and spew ash and stuff and, well, that’s about it because by the time they get to that part of the interview, the entire viewing audience has changed the channel to Judge Judy.

But now that I’ve pondered this for a few seconds, I have questions…

(1) How does one become a volcanologist? Can you major in “Volcano” in college?  Do you just have to sit through “Joe vs. the Volcano” (this would, of course, explain the small number of volcanologists in the world)?

(2) Do volcanologists have seismologist-envy?  I bet after this eruption they were all “IN YOUR FACE, you stupid seismologists” because the seismologists have been getting all the TV time lately, which is not necessarily a bad thing because the seismologists seem to be, as a whole, a more attractive and socialized group than the volcanologists.

(3) How much do volcanologists make?  I actually found the answer to this in a Google search because I had absolutely nothing else to do.   Volcanologists evidently make between $37,000 and $50,000, with the highest salaries hardly ever exceeding $100,000 – unless you become involved in upper management.  Volcanologist upper management?  I’m intrigued.

(4) What the hell kind of volcano name is Eyjafjallajokull?   Don’t Icelanders know that the American media can’t POSSIBLY wrap their heads around a name like that, much less pronounce it?  Most American journalists still can’t pronounce Ahmadinejad….or Bob, for that matter.

So I’ll feel very sad for the volcanologists when the giant Eyjafjallajokull ash cloud clears and nobody cares anymore and they have to retreat back into their volcanologist cubicles (unless, of course, they are volcanologist upper management and have offices).  I hope we see them all again when Mt. Bob erupts.

My phone has turned into Sybil and is not sure if my daughter or Henry Kissinger is calling

Technology and I haven’t exactly been buds lately.  First, my Netbook decided that location of the cursor on the page wasn’t all that important and jumped to wherever the hell it wanted to.  I would be happily typing along and then the cursor would just say “fuck you” and jump to somewhere in the previous paragraph and I wouldn’t look up to discover this until two sentences later.

And then I purchased MobileMe.

Let me restate – I purchased MobileMe to ensure that I never EVER lost all my contacts because a friend of mine lost all of her contacts and she had to go begging on Facebook for everybody to send her their contact information and I bet a lot of people didn’t respond and now she feels sad because they didn’t love her enough to resend their information.   In fact, I’m fairly certain that several people did this on purpose so that they didn’t have to deal with her anymore.

I can’t cope with that kind of rejection.

So I signed-up for MobileMe, which is a service offered by Apple to store all your very important information in the Apple "cloud" so that you never have to worry about losing ANYTHING!  Great idea, right?  

I thought I was so cool and tech-y and bragged to the Boy that he should definitely get MobileMe too because what if he lost his phone and then lost all of HIS contacts – which he hasn’t figured out how to sync to his address book – and then he would be getting texts for the next year from numbers that he can’t identify and would have to ask “Who is this again?” every time, which makes him very nervous.  So he said "Great idea!"  But in usual Boy fashion, he procrastinated.  And then I lost all MY contacts.

Actually, it seems MobileMe just threw all of my contact information randomly into the “cloud” for shits and giggles and when it landed it was like 52 card pickup and everything was a mess.

Here’s the first sign that things might have been amiss…

My phone did not know if I had a voicemail from my 10-year old daughter or from Henry Kissinger.

I don’t really know Henry Kissinger.  I labeled one of my former business colleagues "Henry Kissinger" in my phone because I could and it amused me.

So that was weird.

And then I got home and looked at my phone contacts…and that's when things went totally bat shit crazy.

Here’s how a contact might now show up in my phone address book…

Contact Name:  Mom & Dad

Address: (Address of Dentist)

Phone number: (Phone number of Ex-husband)

Email: (Email of boss)

-Or-

Contact name: The Boy

Address: (Address of Cousin in Austin)

Phone number: (Phone number of Ex-mother in law)

Email: (Email of Princess’s elementary school teacher)

Note to the Boy – Sweetie, if you’re reading this, I think we need to lay off the sext messages for awhile until we get this straightened out.   (AND OMG…if you EVER even so much as SNICKER that this happened…)

So I was on chat support (when did we as a society stop speaking? Never mind…rhetorical question) until 2 AM because every time I tried to fix something, I evidently fucked up something else.

I now have about half of my original contacts restored.   I have NO idea if the phone numbers or addresses are even accurate.  I’m not going to beg for contact information on Facebook because then people will have the option of not responding to me and dumping me forever and I want to be the one who dumps people – definitely not the other way around.

I’m guessing that this year would be a good year to cease the tradition of sending vulgar Christmas cards.  With my luck, one will go to my grandma, who’s address was supposed to be the address of my best friend, and who also had the email of my mechanic.

Houston has random presidents and shopping carts!

I just wrapped up my time in Houston where I saw a couple more baseball games, another president and discovered that stunt-riding in shopping carts is the inevitable result of boredom in Houston after midnight.


So about these presidents.  I saw President Obama on Monday in DC and then Bush Sr. in Houston on Friday AND Saturday.  I think that this may be their new, but rather extreme, interpretation of the wiretapping law - just have a president follow you around.  


It seems that George Sr. and Barbara Bush like to take in the occasional Astros game.  They sit in the front row, right behind home plate.  There's absolutely nothing wrong with this.  

This is George seemingly trying to text something.  In fact, when I first saw him take his phone out I was all "Awww, I wish I had my camera out." And then 5 minutes later, he's still staring at the phone and again I'm wishing I had fished my camera out the FIRST time I had the thought about the camera.  And THEN ONE INNING LATER, I was all "geez, dude has no idea what he's doin'" and I took the picture.

The Bushes do, however, need to figure out how to leave with a little less fanfare.  Friday was a long game.  George and Bar made it through the end of the 6th inning but then waited for the game to START again before getting up to leave.  When a former president and first lady get up and walk out, people tend to notice.  In this case, people stood up to see what was going on and then started to applaud - while the batter was standing at the plate.  The batter, of course, was not an American and doesn't really speak English all that well and seemed very confused by all of this.  The next pitch - amid near hysterical applause for the Bushes - was popped up to center.  Actually, come to think of it, I think the Bushes know exactly what they are doing and are secretly trying to fuck with the visiting team.  They seem shady like that.

"Take note, kid.  Real men don't use wimpy tissues."

I've posted about Minute Maid Park in Houston before.  This is one of my favorite parks in MLB to visit.  The beer vendors sell wine (which they pronounce "WHYNNE" and which always makes me want to buy one from them just because I like the way they say it), the food is not horrible and the whole place kinda smells like BBQ - which is never a bad thing.  There is even a mac 'n cheese eating contest - if you are so inclined.

Last time, I drew a picture of my favorite spot in the outfield where you can drink at the bar and watch the game on TV - even though the game is going on live right behind you.  

And just to prove that my drawing of the outfield bar is SCARY ACCURATE, I took pictures.  So SUCK IT, you disbelievers.  (Actually, there really weren't any disbelievers.  I just added that for effect.)  

View facing the bar

View if you were actually inclined to turn around

It's further proof that I really don't need a camera and could just draw pictures of everything on Paintbrush.


My only real complaint about Houston (correct me if I'm wrong here) is that there just is NOTHING open after 11:00.  Nowhere to go.  Nowhere to eat.  The Boy and I got out of the ballpark around 10:30 on Friday and there was NOTHING open - except strip clubs.  If the strip clubs had been serving steak, I would've been all over it.  But they weren't, so I wasn't.  Just sayin.

So after much wandering, we found a place to eat, had a drink or two (at least I did) and started to walk back to the hotel.  So I ask you...it's late, the parking lot you are crossing is mostly deserted, and you see a lone shopping cart stationed temptingly in the the middle of nowhere....what would you do?

The Boy and I

Yup...us too.

Why the world would blow up if the Ritz-Carlton offered porn

Well people, I tried.  For those of you just joining us here, I have selflessly taken it upon myself to point out to the Ritz-Carlton that their decision not to offer porn in their hotel rooms is a mistake of epic proportions. 

In review, about a week ago I sent this to the Ritz-Carlton...

Dear Ritz-Carlton,

I recently stayed at your Key Biscayne property. Good job. The windows were really clean and sparkly.

But, seriously, why no porn? This oversight might be enough to force me to take my business to the Holiday Inn.

Thank you.

(P.S. Love the pens!)

I was not really expecting a response, but HEY, whaddya know...Patrick, Edward and Charlie's assistant kindly responded to my inquiry...
 
Hello Jane,

Thank you for your comments regarding the cleanliness of our hotel, we certainly take pride in that. To answer to your question, it is world-wide company policy that we do not offer any adult pay-per-view options.

Please let me know if I may be of any further assistance.

Regards,

Texa Gaya
Executive Administrative Assistant to
Patrick Franssen, Hotel Manager
Edward Boylan, Executive Assistant Manager/ Rooms Division
Charlie Zha, Director of Food and Beverage
The Ritz-Carlton, Key Biscayne
455 Grand Bay Dr.
Key Biscayne, FL 33149

"Miami's Only AAA Five Diamond Resort"

So what I have surmised from this... (1) the Ritz-Carlton thinks that they are too good for porn and has a snooty no-porn "policy" that says this; and (2) Texa must have taken a super-long lunch and pissed off Patrick, Edward and Charlie and now they are punishing her by making her answer my inane emails.

When I first received the email, I was actually staying at the Ritz in Washington, DC and was all like "Phfftttt...snobs!" but then I went downstairs and saw a huge sign directing military-looking people to "German/American Bi-Lateral Discussions" and I said "Ohhhhhh....." 

I get it now.  I guess you can't offer porn if you are going to be hosting very important international bi-lateral discussions because if you had porn in the rooms, nobody would come downstairs for the bi-lateral discussions and then the world would explode.  So I get it now.  The Ritz is only trying to protect world peace.

Regardless, I am happily ensconced in The Heavenly Bed at the Westin in Houston and I love the Westin.  I checked....the Westin has porn.  Whew.

"All Sex and No Plot" - Yeah Westin!

Washington, DC has demon devil bunnies (no really)

So it turns out that Washington DC is not all politics and old men and sex scandals.  If you knew absolutely nothing about DC and you were me and went on a trip to our nation's capital, you would think that Washington DC is really just baseball and bars and creepy Easter bunnies.

But let me tell you my story in photos...

"You try throwing a baseball like a man while wearing a bullet-proof vest...haters!"

So I did get to see the President.  Which was cool because he was the President and he gave away boxes of presidential M&Ms (I know I know, I didn't ask why either), but which really really sucked because it took FOREVER to get into the damn ballpark and I don't particularly like being watched by an army of snipers who could shoot me at any moment for any reason or because they don't like my shoes (which, of course, could never happen because everybody likes my shoes).

Pretty sure they're checking out the waitresses at the bar across the street.

After the baseball stuff, the Boy and I debated whether to see historical stuff, or monument stuff, or legislative stuff and so utlimately we decided to stop debating and go shopping.  We got on the Metro and headed over to Georgetown, which I have to say was a damn fine choice. 

Georgetown is fantastic...great shops and restaurants.  Georgetown has run out of room though and must have horrible zoning headaches.  The Boy and I stumbled across this interesting neighbor situation on the walk from the Metro station.

 

I'm not sure if I've ever seen a bar so close to a church, but certainly not a bar so close to a MORMAN church.  That bar must get a helluva clientele. And just to make this a 'super-fun' block, zoning-wise, the bomb-resistant Egyptian consulate is one more building down to the right.

So we wandered around Georgetown for awhile and then called the concierge at the Ritz to give us a good recommendation for dinner.  And he gave us this...

Now let me preface this by saying that I have no real issue with holiday decorations.  I think a stuffed bunny is as cute as the next person.  But when we walked into this Italian restaurant, I had a literal physical reaction to the Easter vomit that was exploded in front of us.  It was EVERYWHERE!  Bunnies hanging from the ceiling, bunnies behind the bar, bunnies in the restrooms, bunnies hanging from the walls, bunnies next to, on top of and over the tables.  The Boy took one look at my face and started to back me out of front door.  But I said, "No, I'll be brave and tolerate the scary bunnies because they have homemade pasta and Clint Eastwood likes the canoli" (food above all) and so we stayed.

Just a taste of what bunny hell might look like in your mind, were you to imagine such a thing...

Creepy bunny babies on donkey

World War I flying bunny in plane

Super creepy demon devil Alice in Wonderland bunny who is ready to kill you if you touch the desserts

And my personal favorite...

Naked Grecian statue with bunny ears...you know...for the kids

And because one naked statue with bunny ears is never enough

I am firmly convinced that this recommendation is the Ritz-Carlton's revenge for questioning their no-porn policy (and there WAS a response, which I will be writing about when I get a chance and my netbook stops being an evil bitch).

Am headed to Houston now, where I have been promised there are no politicians or phallic monuments or naked bunny statues.  Too bad, really.

I would be posting things but my Netbook is evil

I'm still in Washington DC and have all of these cool things to tell you about like presidents and German/American relations and Easter vomit, but I left my beloved Mac Book at home and my netbook is evil and makes me want to chew my hands off at the wrist so this is all that I have come up with and this took me an hour and now I want to go drink heavily and hide under the covers and, since I'm at the Ritz, definintely not watch porn. 

Meanbook

Maybe tomorrow.

The IRS loves me and is way excited to have my tax return! Yeah!

I finally got around to filing my taxes.  It’s something I put off…and put off…and put off every year because I ALWAYS end up owing money.  Owing money sucks.  And it has reached the point of absolute pigeonshit ridiculous since my divorce.  It turns out the government hates single people. 

I know!  I was shocked too!

And then I found out that they really really REALLY hate renters. 

As a single non-homeowner, I’m not exactly feeling the love.

In fact, the federal government is making me feel pretty small and unloved and I’m starting to wonder if I can start seeing a therapist to deal with these feelings of being small and unloved and then deduct the expense from my taxes.

But this year I used TurboTax and TurboTax felt sorry for me.  I entered everything I was supposed to and winced, as usual, at the amount owed.  And I could tell that TurboTax was thinking “This poor pathetic girl.  She doesn’t have a husband or a house?  WTF?!  What can I do to make her feel better…even a little…as she arranges to pay the IRS another ginormous mountain of money?”

So TurboTax stepped in and tried to make it seem like the IRS actually liked me and was super excited to hear from me.

Congratulations to me!  I’ve been “accepted” by the IRS!  Yeah!  ((Implied love and fireworks!))

Thank you TurboTax.

My 10-year old tax deduction and I are going to go paint Easter eggs now.