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Those of you who enjoy net radio should have your panties in a twist about now. If you don't, you may be like me and just not paying enough attention. I listen to Pandora.com nearly every day. I'll buy songs that I've heard on it from iTunes. It has this cool feature that lets you do that. But now, some boring men in dark suits in a small room in Washington D.C. are trying to ruin net radio. While I'm an uppity person, I usually don't like to get all uppity if I don't have to. Like to conserve my energy and such. But this is making me uppity. I've called my congresspersons and hope you do the same. It only takes a minute.

Come on now, get uppity with me.

The parents, the intern and the picnic

The parents
The parents were here last week, thus the lack of posting. What? Oh, yes, lack of posting can't be blamed on the parents. They came to town with their beagle and left her with us for four whole days. My brother and his wife eloped on Groundhog Day (thank you, brother, for sparing me the pain of a wedding) and decided to throw a par-tay for everyone in their world. So the parents come, stayed with us for a few days, left their dog with us for a few days and came back to get said dog. If you're playing along at home, yes, we had four fucking beagles in our house at one time. I did not sleep. Not kidding.


(And, no, I hadn't planted my summer annuals yet, I'm a little busy. Back off.)

But these parents of mine. Oy. They are in their 60s, which to me is not that old. But they are of the generation that must sit in the living room whilst drinking iced tea and enjoying pleasant conversation. I'm so over pleasant conversation. Especially when sober. It's got to be a known torture method watched by Amnesty International. Since the parents are die-hard Bush/Cheney conservatives (hey look, it's two of the 22% who still like them) and non-drinkers (worse in my opine), our topics are limited to: family, childhood, weather, lawn maintenance and snack foods.

It's like Madlibs, really. Play along:

When I was 12 (or 8 or 5) and we went to:
a) the Grand Canyon, b) the motorhome trip, c) Disneyland, and
i) I met this crazy Arab kid who wanted to kiss me, ii) I got sick from licorice ice cream, iii) our beagle Holly Hooters, and
1) it was really hot that day, 2) the rain wouldn't let up so we played poker, 3) the snow was this high

You could insert "parents," "brothers," "dogs," or "guy we met in Canada" for all those options and the game would still work.
Ohhh, it's so much fun. If you were drunk. Which I wasn't. Not even close.

The Intern
I'm all official and shit 'cus I hired an intern. She's super cute. She's doing all sorts of intern-y stuff that I don't want to do. Right now she's developing a mission statement. I personally can't stand mission statements, but it floats her boat so what do I care? She's also doing a competitive analysis of all them competitors out there. Meanwhile, I sit back and catch up on some lost drinky time.

We meet once a week and then I'm taking her to all sorts of "business" functions. Networking things, leads groups, bars, taverns, shanties, etc. It's like having a mini-me but with way more energy. We talk about Facebook and lipgloss and compare our cute cell phones. It's awesome.

The picnic
It's June so it must be time for the annual beagle pic-i-nic. Rocky, aka Champ, looking to avenge his abysmal 4th place finish in the 2006 Musical Plates trained all year for just 5 minutes in the ring. His hard work for Scooby Snacks payed off this year. That's right, Rocky kicked all those woosy beagle asses and is the current reigning gold medalist in Musical Plates! As a dog parent, I couldn't be more proud. Working on pics. Damn fancy cameras. But I'm really proud.

We tried to whore out Lexi but a picnic is hard on beagles. She wanted to catch up on her required 18 hours of nap time. And so she did. In the shade. All alone. Off leash. For an hour. Paddi discovered the agility course and loved it. She'd do anything for a liver treat (and I mean anything, check out her myspace page if you don't believe me) so we used them to train her. She got the ramp in about two attempts, then we couldn't get her to stop.

The best thing about the beagle picnic is the post-picnic napping. Olympic style naps were had by all. With hooch.

accepted

Dear readers and lurkers, the moment I've been holding my breath for has finally arrived. My friend Kenny at DU called to tell me that I've been accepted to the masters program. Wooo!(?)

Everyone on Earth is busy right now and you're the second person (people?) I've told. Everyone else? Alllllll my friends and family? Well, the mister is on a plane for work travel. Unreachable. My BFF is in training. Unreachable. Only my mom was at home and very excited for me. Of course. She's a mom. She has to by law.

Note to self: I've got to get more friends who have no life as I do and are available for calls at all hours.

Another note to self: get me some financial aid.

And maybe a Snickers bar.

And a glass of wine.

ta-da!

Well kids, my second GMAT test has come and gone. Ten hours of tutoring and several hundred dollars later for said tutor, test fee, and therapy beer... I kicked ass. OK, I kicked ass for me. I raised by overall score by 80 points, raised my writing score (essays and shite) from the 73th percentile to the 87th percentile. On a scale of 0-6, I received a 5.5, last time it was a 5. Take it for what it's worth. My Verbal score increased from the 56th percentile to the 80th percentile. My Quantatative score remained low (shocker!), but improved slightly. What really improved, and was worth every penny, was my attitude and confidence towards the test.

Kiss my squirrel, GMAT, kiss my squirrel. Thank you.

It seems like the test consumed all of me and my ability to focus on other priorities. Especially the math practice. I spend hours, days even, sucked into factoring and unfactoring, word problems, finding the angle of x, and other trivial details. You know on LOST, when they have a flashback scene, there would be that swooshing sound pulling you into into/out of it? That's how my math studying felt. Like a giant vacuum pulling me in, blocking out any other part of my life. When I'd come out of the math coma, the sun would be setting and the dogs would be milling around, waiting for their supper.

In dog news, Lexi is still with us. She's cute and sweet but she needs to go. She's upsetting the balance of power in our home. That and she doesn't play with Paddi, which makes Paddi very distressed. Paddi's learned to baaaaaark at Lexi to try to get her to play. It doesn't serve any purpose other that to annoy the shit out of everyone, including Rocky.

Have you seen that Saturday Night Live skit with Amy Poehler and Horatio Sanz? She's an annoyingly hyperactive 12-year old and he's her step-dad? Rick! Rick! Rick! I got a cone my head! Rick! Rick!

Yeah. Paddi is the hyperactive kid, Kaitlin. Rocky is Rick.

Paddi: Rick! Rick! Rick! Look! There's a squirrel in the tree! Rick! What is it doing!? Rick! I found a bug on the ground! Look Rick, I can lick my ass! Rick! Rick! Play with me!

Rocky: Cripes. I need a nap.