Lily is gone!! :( :( :( Fucking apartment complex! I hate you, I hate you! >:-/

 

So for the last 2 weeks I've been visiting family, and I get a call from Kellie last Sunday and she tells me that some guy came into our apartment and posted notices on each of our doors about how we all broke our lease agreement and owe $125 (each!) for having 2 cats at our apartment which must be paid within 7 days. This is totally out of the blue, because so many of the apartment staff knew about our cats and said it was cool. Plus, we ALWAYS see people walking their dogs around outside (some even belong to the people that work here, ugh!), so we never felt it was an issue.

 

So when I get back Tuesday and read the letter myself, I immediately start thinking of ways to get out of this and keep Lily with us (Keaton was going back with Ryan soon anyway), but Kellie was paranoid (she always gives into authority) and called Melinda to come pick Lily up and bring her back to her house in south FL and for Ryan to get Keaton ASAP. So I was the only one who was trying to fight this thing, and everyone else caved in and didn't want the cats here anymore so we "don't get in trouble". Well we shouldn't have gotten into trouble in the first place, so fuck you!! Lily was my little sidekick, and we bonded so much over the summer while everyone else was gone--she can't leave! :( She was so much happier at our place than at Melinda's parents' place where she was ignored.

 

So Kellie told me that Alli was gonna call the front office to try to get all of our $125 fees waived, and said that Melinda was coming Thursday to get Lily, and Keaton was going home with Ryan on Friday. So I was super bummed and spent as much time with Lily and Keaton as I could, and thinking this is such bullshit that they have to go.

 

Well Melinda shows up Wednesday (yesterday) to pick Lily up, and I was so pissed because I thought I had a whole other day with her before I had to say goodbye. It was a huge ordeal trying to get Lily into the cat carrier bag. I stood far away because I wanted nothing to do with them taking her and was trying to push back tears because Lily was crying so loud and fighting back when they tried to put her in the bag. Three times she got away from them, and only let me get near her to calm her down. So I gave her lots of hugs and kisses each time to console her, and then they would come back over, pick her up, and try again. On like attempt #5 they got her in and she peed everywhere because she was so scared. I started sobbing and Melinda felt so bad. I cried so much after she left, and I'm actually starting to tear up now as I re-live the story. She meowed the whole way down the stairs. :( I miss her so much!

 

I haven't heard back from Alli yet (she's out of town) on whether she had any success with the office. I wish she wouldn't have volunteered to call, because I would have already called by now and fought for the sweetest kitty ever and tried to straighten it all out before they had to take her. It's so unfair that we get singled out, while everyone with a dog is still out walking them around outside--including the dogs that belong to the apartment staff!! This is so wrong. I want Lily back now!!

I had so much fun Saturday night. As some of you know my roommate Melinda has been gone all summer in drum corps touring the country. Well this weekend she was back in Orlando on the tour. So Kellie, Alli and I all went to see her play Saturday night at the Citrus Bowl downtown! :-D

 

Melinda is on the snare line, and she's a female--which is very rare apparently. She's a fucking awesome drummer, and I'm so happy that she gets this opportunity. But knowing how hard it was for Melinda to make it in the corps she wanted (Carolina Crown--she spent many weekends during the spring semester driving back and forth to South Carolina for drum camps) and how MUCH time she spent practicing at our apartment and me watching videos of other corps competing, it's one damn tough thing to devote your life to. It's basically like being in the military the way its so structured, and it absolutely becomes the number one priority in your life. 

 

So she was in Orlando on the tour, and all my roommates and I haven't seen her since she left for it at the beginning of the summer. We miss her like crazy! Kellie and I went out and bought her gifts (a shark statue because she's obsessed with sharks, chocolate because she is a massive chocoholic, and pretty flowers). We also bought T-shirts and iron on letters and made shirts for the three of us to wear to the competition in support of Melinda. The shirts had the cheesy drum/music references below...

 

Mine: MELINDA KNOWS HOW TO SNARE 'EM

Alli: MELINDA CAN'T BE BEAT

Kellie: MELINDA'S GREAT YOU SHOULD METER (get it?? haha) 

 

After all the different corps competed (we also know this guy Steve in the Boston corps and the all-guy corps--I forget their name--was fucking insanely amazing, I wish I took pictures) it took forever to meet up with Melinda around the busses of the different corps, so we found her bus and left her gifts on her seat. After almost giving up and just going home, we finally found her (!!), and she was SO happy to see us. :-D She thought our shirts were so funny! She's basically been very isolated from any world events going on while on this tour, so we told her some major things going on--like Michael Jackson being found innocent, haha. It was just so good to see her again. Her hair is really blond now from being out in the sun all the time, and she's very tan too. She also has a nasty outbreak of heat blisters/rash on her back from wearing her hot uniform during practice and whatnot. Poor girl!

 

These pictures were taken that night. The red arrows point to little Melinda (she's much shorter than everyone else, haha)! She's also next to our friend Mustafa (the tall black guy) so that was awesome that they got to march together and even made it into the same corps.

 

Just got back from I-Bar!! Yes! Yes! Yes! I'm so pumped up. I drank far too much before embarking on this journey, and am all wound up still. I've been trying to go back to this freaking place for the last three weeks or so and everybody kept unintentionally crapping out on me and plans were always changed, so I just now made it back. I went out with Cindy and my friend Liz who I haven't seen in SO long so it was good to catch up. :-D We didn't get there until like 1:30-ish so we didn't have as long to dance which was a bummer, but I had fun nonetheless. No random boys dancing with me this time (sad) but next week shall be different! hahahaha

 

My summer classes have been over since yesterday (thursday... I guess that's 2 days ago now)--they went by so fast! I wish all semesters were only 6 weeks! I think I fucked up my chances for an A in that one class... I still might get it, but I'm not happy with how I did on the final so it's out of my hands now. I hate the feeling you get as soon as you turn in a test and then you become aware of all the ones you know you missed. I know I missed at least 9 points :( Damnit. I was so bummed Thursday after the test thinking of this. I know it's just a stupid grade and that people in my class would probably kill for even an "A-"... but I was trying to prove to myself that I could get an A if I busted my butt hard enough. I'm still crossing my fingers, but it's not as much of a given anymore. :(

 

But whatever man, cause in just a little over two weeks I'll be in California living the good life!!!!!! I am so excited about this!!! I can't wait to finally be on the west coast!!! More exclamation points!!!

 

I'm writing more on my upcoming trip later... but I've got a private dance party to get back to in my room since I'm still full of beans and need to dance more! :) I'm dancing to rockin music in between typing sentences of this entry, teehee. :-D I just can't keep still when good music is on and I'm in this great a mood!

Well, since none of you were any help whatsoever (I'm so disappointed...), I took the initiative and found more songs for my awesome mix CD. If any of you would like a copy of it, let me know and I would be glad to make one for you (so long as I have personal access to you... but for a select few of you I guess I would consider mailing it *wink). I went all-out with the CD insert design and cover of the CD itself. There is a theme. It looks super hot. :) haha

 

Here is the track list for it:

 

I start my summer classes on Monday. UGH! UGh! Ugh! ugh! On my first day, I'll be down by 4 teeth.

ATTENTION: In need of really awesome indie-dance songs (I-Bar and The Castle style...) for a kick ass compilation. Think Bloc Party, Le Tigre, The Vines, The Futureheads... you get the idea. 

 

I have room for 2 more songs (maybe a 3rd if they're short enough), and rather than search for material myself, I am enlisting all of you fine people to help me out. Unfortunately, I cannot divulge the current track list, because that would spoil the surprise ;)

 

GIVE ME SONG IDEAS NOW!

 

Thanks :-D

 

It's such a beautiful day outside :) I'm in a wonderful mood because yesterday is OVER and I can relax a little before finals week. I had such a stressful day on Thursday with a Humanities paper due in the morning, and then two massive finals back to back. UGH! I was a wreck... but it's all over (*sigh of relief*)... I got everything done and think I did well on it all, so thank goodness. :)

 

Today is the perfect beach day! I want to go!! Unfortunately I have a review for my French Final (Part I is next Monday, and Part II is next Friday... that's right, the french final spans two days because of all the material we have to know! That's gonna really suck). I'm also going to a lab for primatology in which we'll get to analyze the skeletal remains (most of them are plastic castes, haha) of the great apes and compare them to human skeletal remains. Neato. I fucking love that class. :)

 

Saturday I'm heading over to Daytona to visit a photography museum that has work by Nick Nichols. Why is this cool? Well it was a joint-effort with Jane Goodall, and they're all photographs of the chimpanzees that Jane Goodall observed in Gombe, Africa (!!!) YES! I tried to go to this like a week ago, but due to shitty circumstances, we didn't make it. I WILL make it this time!! (*and Charmaine, I'm gonna try to come back home to go to your gallery next weekend too! I'm so excited for you!) :)

 

I need to be outside right now! It's too pretty on this Earth Day to be sitting at my computer. Everyone should go outside right now and frolic through the grass and trees and swim in the water... just doing everything to celebrate the beauty of nature that we are lucky to still have.  And then while you're appreciating this, send letters to those in power and tell them we don't want them to fucking drill in the Arctic wildlife refuge, cut down the rainforest for cattle production, pollute our skies with factory farming, dump shit into our oceans, and massacre the endangered species of the world.

This weekend the Shrine Circus (aka: Royal Hanneford Circus) was on campus again at the UCF Arena. Let me give you this to set the mood: compared to last years' protest which was incredible, fulfilling, and the most successful demo I've ever been a part of, this years' protest sucked more ass than you could ever imagine. :(

 

I don't even know where to begin, I'm just so frustrated. The reason why it was a pretty dismal failure (although, there was SOME good which I'll mention in a bit) was the shitty spot they put the "Free Speech Zone" in that we were confined to. It was in THE WORST possible spot, away from EVERYONE! Fuck that! Last year we literally passed out thousands of fliers, and this year, I'm guessing only 50 were given out... TOTAL. Shit shit shit. Words can't express how horrible this was. I felt like my voice was stifled and there wasn't anything I could do to tell more people the truth about the show they were going in to see. It was such a helpless feeling.

 

The old Shriner guys, just as last year, were complete bastards. One even threatened to sue us because of a sign we had out that said "Shriner Circus is Cruel"... but that asshole had absolutely NO case whatsoever and was just trying to mess with us. All of that was in response to this young bitchy middle-school girl who came over to me earlier and asked something like, "you do know that it's not the shriners that put on the circus. That sign is wrong" to which I responded "Yes, it's the Royal Hanneford Circus who owns the animals, but the local Shrine group contracts them out, so they're still a part of it." I think I totally took her off guard by actually knowing the name "Royal Hanneford," because I could tell she was trying to make me look like a dumbass, and was expecting me to fumble my words. All she said back was a stuttered "well, I just wanted to see if you knew that." and walked off to go badmouth us with her other bitchy friends working for the circus. I wish I could have said: "Look bitch, I know my shit about this circus--I'm not some dumb protester who didn't do their research. There isn't anything you can say that I don't know, so back the fuck off and go back to your lameass friends that don't know shit about why we're here. Stop being so close-minded and listen to what we have to say, because we have facts and video footage to back it up, so I don't want to hear you complain!" In yo face! :)

 

All the circus workers were giving me death stares, and of course I gave them back too, only my death stares conveyed a hint of "I loath you and think you are the scum of the earth you fucking bastard." (Kinda like the ones I gave the animal handlers at the Ringling circus, haha). Even though I was filled with all this rage, I remained very polite and well-spoken to everyone. I even had a great lengthy conversation with this guy who had connections to the shrine circus and was definitely not on our side, but was open to hear what I had to say, as I was with what he had to say. We talked about their finances and how the money raised at this show goes to administrative costs and for their social events--not to charity (which most people think). We also talked about their connection to the Arena who rents it out for free to them, and their contract with the Royal Hanneford Circus which is for another six years. Mostly, we talked about how the animals are trained and kept. He had no idea that both the elephants last year had tuberculosis and were confiscated by the USDA over the summer, and was quite taken aback by this news. He said that this year they had two new elephants in the show, and that makes sense now why they old ones are gone. It was a great conversation, and I think he was also taken aback by how well spoken I was and everything I already knew. :)

 

Good things that happened: A woman and her two sons came up to us after deciding not to go to the show. She said they've always hated the circus because they know all the cruelty involved, but they wanted to see if this circus was any different. She told us that on the way there in the car, it was her sons' idea that "if the animal rights people are out there, we'll know it's another bad circus and we'll leave"--and they did! Her sons had to have only been in middle school, and I was really impressed by their conviction at such a young age. There were also some other people that came up to us after the show who said they would definitely not be coming back next year. While most of it was bad, we did have good conversations with people and managed to expose some to what goes on behind the scenes of circuses... which, I guess, is better than nobody at all.

 

We had another article in our school paper today about this circus protest. Go read it now (even though everyone's quote is pretty distorted and inaccurate, and overall I'm not too happy about it, despite the fact that it's written by a guy who was on our side).

 

I was just so looking forward to another weekend of protests like the ones last year, and am feeling severely disappointed about how it turned out... I apologize for the heavy concentration of profanity... but when I'm in a bad mood, watch out! So one last FUCK YOU goes out to the Shrine/Royal Hanneford Circus...

OMG OMG OMG!!! I went to Will's Pub tonight to see one of the many really awesome old-school punk bands still around, TSOL, and it was BY FAR one of the BEST shows I've been to in ages. I fucking loved it! I had so much fun, I can't even produce words!!! One of the opening bands, The AKA's, were insanely amazing live as well (and the drummer was super hot in his red shirt and black tie, *wink). They sounded very indie/punk/rock, and I felt like I was at I-Bar all over again! haha. I couldn't stop dancing through the whole show, and I totally felt in-tune with my surroundings. Can it be that I liked this better than the Interpol show?? Um, yup, I definitely think so...

 

I'm in such a great mood!! Since I've been home I ate dinner/a midnight snack, talked to Frank on the phone, and took a [long ass] shower to de-smoke, and I'm still not even remotely sleepy!  :) I have to get up at 7am to go volunteer at the homeless shelter downtown, so I really should have gone to bed hours ago. haha. 5 hours is going to go by really fast, damn. Ok, goodnight. Stop writing.

Last night I went out to I-Bar with Alli, Mary Anne, and Debra. Since when have Thursdays become chaotic and super packed?!?! I could barely move on the dance floor, and kept getting elbowed or shoved by someone trying to push their way through the massive crowd. There was even a line outside the door waiting to get in! *gasp! But damn, it was fun! :) As soon as we got there they started playing my favorite Le Tigre song "Deceptacon" (a song which I have an intense love for that only my roommates knew about until now) so Alli and I immediately started dancing... I knew it was going to be a great night. :)

 

The awesome part is that towards the end of the night, lo and behold... it's Maria and Kendra (!!!) who I haven't seen in what seems like forever. That was so cool to run into them. :-D So we danced and had a grand old time. It was so good to see them again. heehee. And oh man... the amount of incredibly attractive guys there was almost too much. haha

 

Today, my classes were awesome. I analyzed and classified a baboon skull (among many others) in Primatology--getting bit by one would hurt like hell! Tomorrow I'm going back to the Center for Orangutan and Chimpanzee Conservation, where I'll be doing a little volunteer work. I'm so excited! Woohoo! Frank says that woohoo is "a distinctly sara thing to say." :)

 

There was a really neat and ominous storm that just rolled on by, complete with lightning that was both scary and kick ass/in your face/rockin' (hehe)and super dark clouds that made it look like Orlando had foggy mountains in the distance. It was just about the neatest sky I've seen in a long time. The only downfall is that the rain has put me in a lazy mood. I feel like watching movies and curling up in my bed.

These are my Spring Break plans. Read them, and be jealous... nah, I'm kidding ;)

 

So either tomorrow evening or Monday morning, I'm gonna head up to Tallahassee to meet up with Melinda and Alli who are already up there. On Either Monday or Tuesday we are heading up to Atlanta, GA for some fun. We're staying with Melinda's awesome grandparents and just hanging out in Georgia for a couple days. I'm anticipating much fun to be had in Atlanta.  ;) Then, finally, on Thursday or Friday, we're going to go back to Orlando. My mom's birthday is on March 18th, so I'm planning on surprising her by being back in town for at least the 19th. Then I end my spring break with a bang at the Interpol concert next Sunday on the 20th... damn, what a great trip. :)   

 

Our plans aren't completely finalized, because we didn't want to have a set schedule and be locked into anything. We just know where we wanna be around what day--the rest is a mystery. :) That's how I like to plan trips, because it keeps things interesting.

 

I have a lot of things on my mind (ha, that's no surprise coming from me) that I really need to not think about and try to get over. I found out something pretty big last night that got to me more than it should have, so I'm trying to deal with it. This trip should hopefully help with that. I love road trips with great friends! :-D

So, this morning I got up out of my bed and did my usual routine, but I was still so tired, and had no energy to move. I went to my window and opened it, but my eyes were kinda cloudy, like when you first wake up and it's hard to see straight. So I was trying to get my eyes to adjust, and said to myself "I'm still dreaming." I went to my computer, turned it on, and said out loud again "I'm still dreaming, this is weird." Then I went to my bathroom, turned on the light, said again how I think I'm dreaming, and stood there for a little bit still trying to clear my blurry eyes. So I blinked hard a couple times, and woke up--for real--in my bed, never haven gotten up!!!

 

Has anyone heard of lucid dreaming? I used to have a book about it.

 

Wednesday: So after tabling all morning for BARC (tons of people came by today, it was great), I head to my 1:30 French class, and there is a note on the door that says class is canceled. So I think: "WOOHOO, I get to go home and chill for a couple hours before my 3:30 class!"

 

Well, on my way back to the apartment I see this little brown object in the road ahead of me, and it isn't until I'm right on it that I notice that the object is bird who looks injured and cars are continually driving overhead of him! [Note: they're not running him over with their tires, he's positioned in the space between both side of the tires and has enough clearing from the bottom of the car].  So I do a VERY illegal U-turn and pull over by the median, jump out of my car to help, and meanwhile cars keep zooming over top of him, and he can't move and keeps trying to fly away but something is wrong with his leg, so he can't. So I motion for the cars to go around, and then gently pick up the bird (who is fucking adorable, btw) and it looks like his leg is broken and contorted in a weird way, so I'm trying to think of numbers I can call to help. I thought about moving him/her off of the road in the wooded areas, but then if he did have a broken leg that would be awful to leave him there suffering. 

 

Then the Parking Services people on campus pull up behind me and are like, "you need to move your car, what are you doing here?!" and I'm like, "look, I found this bird (still in my hand) in the middle of the road and he looks injured, and I'm trying to get ahold of someone to help." So the guy all of a sudden is nice, and calls a woman he knows who gave him the number for a wildlife rehabilitation place right by UCF. So I call it, and the woman says I can take him there and she gives me directions (which I have to try to write with my left hand since I'm holding the bird in my right).

 

So I get in my car to head over there, and when I sit down, the bird all of a sudden stands confidently on both legs in my hand and flies over to my passenger-side window. And I'm like, "what? Is your leg better now?" and he starts flapping crazily and I don't want him to be scared, so I try to calm him down, but it doesn't work. Then I don't know what to do. The best thing would be to leave him near where I picked him up, so he wouldn't be separated from his bird friends... and it looks like his leg is fine now and he's able to fly. So I think, "well maybe I got to him just right after he was hit by a car, so when I picked him up he was still stunned from the impact which is why he was so calm while I was holding him for about 10 minutes. And so when he started walking and flying again, it was because he was coming out of the "stunned state" and was physically OK..." SO I make a decision to let him go on campus, so I wait for the cars to clear out on the passenger side of the road, and then roll down my window, and he waits a little bit, and then flies off safely into the woods.

 

I call the wildlife rehab people back and tell them I won't be coming after all. Then I decide to skip my 3:30 class and work on BARC stuff.

 

 

(My apologies if the bird is really female. I just got masculine vibes from him/her)

Last Friday I went with a group of Orlando AR activists to Gainesville to attend the Demand Liberation conference. We crammed 9 people into a single motel room, and it was so much fun. I love my Orlando activist friends! Gainesville has some excellent vegan-friendly restaurants, I have to go back and eat at more of them. :) The places I went to are called Farah's (which has falafel!!), and Reggae Shack Cafe (which is spicy Jamaican food). Both were yummy. I guess I did a lot of eating this weekend, haha. Chas made everyone at the conference a vegan picnic-style lunch both days and so I pigged out. His food was incredible.

 

After a little problem getting back to Orlando Sunday night, I made it home kinda late and immediately started working on a gigantic Humanities paper/powerpoint presentation that was due today. Even more important was the major French test I had to study for before I took it Monday. Needless to say, I was up SO late working on these Sunday night!

 

Then after taking the French test (which I know I messed up on), I met my partner to work on our humanities PP project. It appears we got the coldest study room in the entire library, so that sucked. We managed to get most of it done, but there was still stuff to tweak. Then I spent the rest of the day finishing my humanities paper. About midnight last night, I get an IM from my partner, who says he's decided to drop the class and would it be OK if I finish it up on my own and present it to the class by myself. Um, sure...

 

The presentation went fine and my paper is turned in, but I am so exhausted. After getting back from my Humanities class today, I went straight to studying for a Peoples of the World test at 4:30pm. The professor I have for that class, I've had before, and knew the test was going to be a breeze. I still had to allot about 4 straight hours to study though, which was hard to cram in my schedule this afternoon. But I got it done, and the test was very easy. I fucking flew through that thing in record time! I was the first one done, and It couldn't have taken me longer than 5 minutes to answer all 50 questions. I'm not joking.

 

I was back in my room by 5pm and went to sleep for an hour or so. Tomorrow I'm tabling in the morning for BARC and then have to get ready for our meeting at night in between classes. I NEED TO SLEEP!!

The Ringling Bros. circus was in town for the last 4 days. Every day I was at the shows before and after passing out fliers about the animals that have been injured/died under Ringling "care". As expected, there were some angry people that preferred to live in a bubble and pretend nothing was wrong with the circus (I only got cursed at a few times), but I absolutely think all the AR activists out that day made a difference and got the message across to many of the circus-goers. I had one-on-one conversations with several people asking me questions, so that was very rewarding.

 

But OMG (!!!) it was SO cold. Standing outside for hours at a time basically the whole day was pretty rough on me. Not to mention, my hands kept going numb while I was holding the fliers and then occasionally when I would try to talk, my jaw would be shivering so bad that I couldn't form words. hahaha.  Even though I hated being outside, I was happy to be there sharing information with people.

 

Sunday was an incredible day, but very emotional. I was standing in a different spot to pass out fliers, which happened to be right next to where they kept the animals. They would bring in the elephants, horses, zebras, etc. right past me to the back entrance of the arena for each show. Well, when they brought out the elephants all in row (the typical way: one holding the tail of the other in front of them) all of the trainers walking the elephants had bullhooks in their hands. I got some really good photos of this, and pretending I was an unknowing spectator, I asked one of them "Excuse me sir, what are those metal hooks in your hands?" and he said "It's called an Ankus", "Well, what do you use that for?" and he hesitated a second and said "it's used to guide the elephants." I was so overcome with emotion then, and couldn't ask anything else because these beautiful animals were only about 10 feet from me and I knew that bastard was flat out lying to me. Seeing the sad looking elephants and just thinking how terrified they must be and all the pain they must have gone through in the past was too much for me. I started crying, I would have broken down into sobbing tears if it weren't for the fact that I had to compose myself and pass out more fliers to the people walking by. I made eye-contact with the trainer behind the guy who spoke to me, and he gave me the nastiest look because I know he had to have seen me with the AR people earlier and knew what I was up to. So I gave him a look back that said "yes, I am one of the animal rights people, and I fucking hate your guts. I want you to know that I'm onto you and I'm sure you know I don't buy the bullshit your friend just told me about the ankus. You know that I know the truth, and I hope that scares you... I want you to know I think you're the scum of the earth, so eat shit and die." Well, something like that hahaha. I was pretty outraged, let's just put it that way.

 

After the last show Sunday night they loaded up the tigers and some other animals into trucks, but then paraded the elephants, horses, and zebras about 3 miles to the official Ringling Bros. train where they loaded them into the boxcars. So me, Mary Anne, Joe, Sarah, Cooper, and his gf Kelly followed the long procession the whole way. At one point the police blocked off the road so we couldn't pass, but we knew a short cut to intercept them a little ways down the road. Keep in mind, the animals were being taken all throughout the streets of downtown orlando by police escorts who would stop traffic to let them through and it was dark and cold outside. It was very surreal. So anyway, we saw them use the bullhooks on the elephants to get them up the ramps onto the train, and one woman told Sarah that once inside one of their legs is shackled and that they have no bedding to stand on--just the cold train floor. That's a terrible way to travel across the country! I got some photographs of all of this, but unfortunately they didn't come out so great because it was dark. :(  Witnessing it first hand was enough for me though.

 

Someone please tell me how I can get photographs onto the internet, so I can put them on my LJ (!!!)

Well, I started feeling slightly under-the-weather last Monday, and then it's all been slowly building so that today I feel like complete crap. I hate being sick. Especially around the Holidays, because I have family to visit with and so many errands to run. Tonight I'm going with my mom and Jerry to a family get-together at Jerry's brother's house. I've been dubbed the "designated driver" as a good amount of alcohol will be present and consumed tonight. The highlight for me is that Jerry's sister-in-law insisted on making me a vegan meal to accompany everyone else's. I have no idea what it is she's making for me, but I hope my taste buds return to normal so that it doesn't taste funky--as all foods do when you're sick. Apparently she has two vegan nephews, so knows all about vegan food and cooking. Unfortunately her vegan nephews (who are around my age *wink) will not be there tonight. Sad. I'm going grocery shopping with my mom right now to get stuff for tomorrow's Christmas dinner. I'm making more green bean casserole! YEEEEAAAHH!!   :)