Caution: Patient shows mild aggression in her sleep

So last night I went to sleep a little later than normal. No biggie. I was out pretty quickly after my head hit the pillow. Typically, I do dream, but I don't always remember what the dreams are about. Last night was an exception.

Last night, I succinctly remember dreaming that I told someone off. And I don't mean in a wimpy "You're not my friend" kind of way. I really let loose. I had my finger shaking in their face, I had excellent delivery and a superb choice of vocabulary. I did not use any profanities, but I did get my point across that not only was I very disappointed in this persons behavior, I was hurt by it and by golly, they were either going to apologize for it or further face my wrath.

Said person just sat back and laughed while I resisted the urge to shake them by their shoulders.

Then I woke up. I realized that my heart was racing, and that I felt like a huge weight had just been lifted off my shoulders. I wondered if I had actually said any of my dream out loud as I was dreaming, as I have been known to talk in my sleep.

But I felt so good! Is that weird? It felt weird.

And no, I completely promise that this post is not about you. I am 100% certain that the person in my dreams does not read this blog, nor will they ever. And no, that's not why I was mad at them :)

How about you? Any weird dreams lately?

Helpful tips when shopping

Like how NOT to get the plague.

I occasionally peruse this personal finance blog for interesting financial tidbits, etc. Today's post gives users some tips for saving money at the grocery store.

10 things your supermarket won't tell you

Well, after perusing their list, one of their tips stood out to me:

"#4: Our stores might make you sick - Insects, rats, and other vermin are a problem for any place that handles a large quantity of food."

Say it with me, folk: ewwww!!

Until recently, I would not have believed that.

That is, until my friend Kim told me about her neighborhood grocery store. You see, Kim was in the dairy section of said store, grabbing some yogurt. She saw something out of the corner of her eye. And behold - a giant rat. GIANT!! It scampered around the yogurt section, then hopped right in and disappeared behind the merchandise.

She just stared at it. When recounting the story, she described the rat as "comfortable with its surroundings....like it was at home in the yogurt section." Yeah, it probably has a little two bedroom condo back there.

Sick.

When nature attacks

Ok, so I really wanted to title this post, "Snakes on a plane" in honor of the sure-to-be-classic movie that is coming out soon. But then there would have been all sorts of legal craziness, because the sheer volume that this site gets would indeed draw traffic away from the real site for the movie, and I just didn't want to mess with that.

Then I thought, what about "Snakes on a geometric plane" (because technically, that's what happened) but decided against it, namely so that Amar wouldn't have to deal with the embarrassment that comes along with marrying a total nerd like me.

So, what's the big deal, you ask?

I was attacked again last night. Nature has unleashed itself on me with all of its fury. And when nature decides that you're going down, there ain't nothin' you can do to fight back.

Please pray for me. Nature, my friends, takes no prisoners.

Last night, as Amar and I were about to commence invitation printing round deux, I was almost killed by a cursed, legless creature as it slithered around on the sidewalk (the aforementioned 'geometric plane') in front of Amar's office. We were entering the building when I paused to look back at a sign. When I turned around, I looked down to see a GIANT SNAKE between my feet, writhing back and forth. Apparently, snake etiquette says that you're supposed to freeze if and when this happens to you.

Whatever.

I screamed bloody murder and started hopping around trying 1) to get the heck outta dodge, 2) trying not to get bitten by this potentially venomous creature and 3) trying not to step on it.

After a few moments of screaming and flailing, I hauled it back to the parking lot, away from the sidewalk, only to see it slither off into the bushes.

CREEPY!!

What.is.going.on?

Oh, and this morning when I left for work, a brownish-green lizard was peeking at me from the window next to our front door.

I think he was a spy.

He just looked at me with his creepy little eyes, watching my every move. I have no doubt that after he saw me get into my car, he pulled out his little walkie-talkie and messaged out to his cronies, "She's on the move" at which point a whole army of creepy, crawly lifeforms moved into position for their next onslaught.

This is going to get ugly.

The best week ever

For bugs.

I think I picked up some nasty karma from that grasshopper I killed earlier this week. The next day, we were attacked by a killer fly during our staff meeting, and then yesterday, yet another incident.

The scene: I'm sitting in a meeting room with three other people. We are all seated at a large conference room talking about work stuff.

The incident: About halfway through the meeting, I see something fall from the ceiling onto the table, landing with a noticeable "smack."

Could it be a leaf?

Maybe.

What about a piece of a ceiling tile?

Possibly.

So I turned my head ever so slightly to see what it was. It was a big, hairy brown ROACH!! In less than half a second. I had screamed, shut my laptop, shut my bag, pulled them into my lap and stood on my chair. Serious cat-like reflexes here, my friends.

No one else in the room saw it until I was standing, screaming and flailing in the general direction of the roach. I was finally coherent enough to tell the others that there was a roach in our room, and it was on the offensive. It was taking no prisoners.

Finally, one of the guys in the room tracked it down and killed it. I plugged my ears so I couldn't hear the crunch.

What is the deal? Is my life going to end up like that one part in the Indiana Jones movie (Temple of Doom?) where they're trapped in a room full of bugs and they have to reach into a bug-laden crevice to turn the knob and set them free? Folks, I'd die. I'd just keel over right there and eventually, the bugs would eat my body, because there's no way in heck I'm surviving anything like that.

Another day, another list

Well, maybe not a list, per se, more like a summary of a collection of thoughts/instances/happenings/oddities. You get the idea. And since I like bulleted lists so much, allow me to treat you to...

• Today feels like I've been in one constant meeting from 7:30 AM until now. Ick. Productive? Not so much...
• About 2/3 of our staff meeting today was consumed by the team trying to catch and kill a fly. I told them that since I had been involved in the recent death of an ill-fated grasshopper, I couldn't participate. Their loss.
• I have worn a skirt every day for 5 out of the last 6 days. People are starting to talk.
• Amar and I are trying out a new Bible study tonight. We are very excited.
• Last night I watched what was potentially the scariest thing I've ever seen. Have you heard about Connie Chung's farewell to her weekend newscast? Oy vey! Malita posted about it. Check it out here. Pay careful attention to the grunt when she slides off the piano.
• The other day I really wanted to show Amar the old SNL skits of Celebrity Jeopardy. Well, after some significant Googling, we discovered that NBC had scrounged up all the web postings of said videos. Such a shame. They publish snippits of them on NBC, but they cut off right as "Final Jeopardy" starts. Seriously some of the funniest stuff I've seen in awhile, of course, with the exception of Connie Chung. Anyone know where I can find the full skits?

Well, that's all for now. Peace out, homies.

Things you should know

-OR-

Confessions of a lanky, red-headed, soon-to-be-changing-her-last-name, I/T professional:

• Re-heated naan bread is NOT the same as fresh naan bread
  Not even close
• Everything in life can be made into a spreadsheet, in my humble opinion
• This morning I saw a grasshopper in the house and my first instinct was to throw my shoe at it. I missed. So I grabbed a magazine and dropped it onto the floor, directly on top of said hopper. I then promptly left for work, afraid to look under the magazine.
• I get married in 60 days
• I am not going to Brazil anytime soon
• Last week I spent about 2 hours with old high school friends looking at the MySpace pages of people we used to go to school with. And it was fun!
• I had my 4 year anniversary at work last week. Yay?
• Bloglines will change your life. As in - you will be able to read so many stinkin' blogs with such ease that you will have no life left in you to live
• Everyone is having babies!! And they are ridiculously cute!!
• I took a cupcake from the breakroom today, and I didn't feel guilty about it. It's now taunting me from my desk...
• I'm going to a Boy Band Sing-along next week, and I couldn't BE more excited!!!
• I woke up this morning, well-rested mind you, at 1:30 AM, sweating like a dog. What's the deal with that?
• Occasionally I make boring lists of things that are going on in my life

An update, of sorts

Hey kids - I hope you're all having a smashing week so far. My sincere apologies for the lack of posting over the past week. I could give you the "it's been crazy around here" speech, but rather than lie, I'll just admit that I haven't had much to write about.

So, in the event of bloggers block, I will entertain you with my list of newly made-up words.*

• Wi-fi: not the traditional designation of various wireless internet activities, but rather, used as a verb. For example, "I love the coffee shop down the street. I can wi-fi from there."


• Bruncheon: just like a luncheon, but earlier in the day, and sometimes related to weddings.


• Calligraphize: as in, to write something in calligraphy. For example, "I'm hoping to find some friends to help calligraphize my wedding invitations before I send them out."


• Google: aww jeez, that's already been taken.(sigh)

*While these are not necessarily copywrited, I do ask that in the event of their use, you give credit where credit is due....and that would be to me. Voila!

So the general gist is that yes, wedding things are happening around these parts. Invites and showers. Ribbon and tulle. Tastings and fatigue-induced collapsing. (Ok, well, maybe some of those are happening, but not all. I am in no way associated with anything pertaining to tulle....not that there's anything wrong with that...)

Also, yeah. Not much else....hmmm...really...nothing much to report. Oh! Wait! I cleaned my room! And I'm now realizing that I've sunk to a new low. But - at least I'm not reporting about Brangelina. Good gosh people - is that really news?!?!

I will say that the other day, three friends of mine from high school got together and clicked our way through My Space looking for people we used to know. Scary! But also, very addictive. Yes, I think we must have spent about 2 hours doing that. Sad? Possibly. Entertaining? You bet.

Nothing much going on. Promise. You'll be the first to know.

Shock and awe

Amar and I went to the movies last night. It was a spur-of-the-moment type of decision. We pulled into the parking lot of the theater and hopped out to see if anything was starting that very minute...and it turned out that we were in for a treat.

We settled into a showing of the new Al Gore documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth".

It was funny - as I was parking the car, I noticed an "Al Gore 2008" bumper sticker on the car next to me. It made me chuckle a bit on my way into the movie. On my way out of the movie, however, I almost wanted to put one on my car.

Stop reading this now and go see this movie.

I don't consider myself a tree-hugger. I don't necessarily consider myself a Democrat (or a Republican). And when I think of Al Gore, I remember that he once claimed that he invented the internet awhile back.

All of that aside, I will say that during the movie, I gasped. My jaw dropped. I applauded. I laughed. I was appalled. I was surprised. And more than anything, I wanted to change things about the way that I lived my life.

A bit of an overreaction? Probably so.

Before we went to see the movie, Amar had been telling me about Al Gore's slide show, and how it was rumored to be quite a good presentation. What the movie does is kind of take you through that presentation, and take you through Al's journey to research it, compile it, and pitch it to the world.

Throughout the movie, Al (yes, he and I are on a first name basis now) presents you (or "smacks you in the face") with tons of graphs, charts, pictures, quotes and trendlines all related to global warming. But it doesn't get boring. It doesn't get dry or overly scientific. What shows through it all is that this man is supremely motivated about helping to literally save the planet.

[Here is where my family, if they are reading this, will likely disown me...we'll allow for a brief intermission for them to find their way to the exits.]

When Amar and I got out of the movie, we immediately went to the website, www.climatecrisis.net and started clicking away. We talked about how we wanted to work for Al Gore (seriously!), about how we wanted to change our lightbulbs to use less energy, about how we wanted to be a one-car family after we got married...and on, and on, and on.

This movie may not change your life. You may actually hate it. Fine by me - you do what you've got to do. As for me, Al Gore was in my dream last night. And scarier still, it wasn't a nightmare. I was on the road with him, helping him pitch his ideas to the world. Helping take care of the planet that God has so graciously given to us.

Go see the movie. And then come back and tell me what you thought of it.