Drunk texts = FUN!

So I have to share with you this drunk text conversation between Lerin and I on the night of my Super Sendoff party. Lerin and I had hung out before the party, and she was unsure if she'd make it to the actually party. By 11:45 she hadn't shown up yet, and my friends Patty mentioned this fact, which prompted the conversation as documented below -

Me - "Patty andi r so sadu didnt show up. asad . SAD? YES? Sad.

Lerin replied back that she was in a bit of a funk and wasn't going to make it, and accused me of being drunk, to which I replied

Me - "Girl! yes i is DRUNK! WITH PATTY! we are EPIC. I heart you . your funk sucks. i might barf. forget that. i heart you. This = best text ever!"

Beware the dangers of tequila, kids!

Al's Good Riddance Party!

Last night was my Super Sendoff Shingdig! Many a friend came out to join me in merriment. The evening began with drinks at Toulouse Petite with Chelsea, Lerin and Danielle. I had a very tasty cocktail and shared spicy shrimp with Chelsea. There were pictures taken, but I can't seem to find my battery charger for my camera. Really hoping I find it before I leave... anyway, the photos below were taken with Uriah's awesome phone. So after Toulouse, Chelsea and I went to The Paragon for a shot of tequila and a shot of Crown Royale (guess which one of us drank what!) and then headed over to The Hilltop Ale House. We kicked it at the Ale House for about 3 hours. I ate half of a steak sandwich, Uriah also had a steak sandwich but was disappointed that it had cilantro all over it. JHo brought his own cashews. There was much beer. Hannah had Spice Girl's lyrics written on her hand. Shea left me the cutest, saddest voice message ever. I arm wrestled
Hannah and she won the first two times but then I was victorious on the third. George gave me a cool little book, I think I'll write song lyrics in it. Patty gave me a card that plays music and encourages me to dance. Jumana and Jason came even though they are getting married in just over a week and undoubtedly have loads of things to do. Sandy and the Jensen girls came and they ALL wore skirts! I didn't get to chat with Nick, Jordan, Lacey or Charlie nearly as long as I would have liked. Z and Aliki are champs and I wished they lived next door and not in Northgate so I could see them more often. Benny took the number 4 bus. Mass was there too. I'm so lucky and grateful to have such amazing friends!

Wow. I'm almost all packed up. And by almost I mean not nearly as close as I'd like to be. Due to the massive quantity of alcohol imbibed last night, today was not as productive as I would have liked it to have been. It was a day-long battle of comfy bed vs. anything other than the comfy bed. The bed won a lot.

So I leave tomorrow. Gotta get up, go to work until 6ish, get the rats over to Benny's, make sure the apartment is in good order for Josh, the subletter, and get me and my over-packed luggage to the aeroport for the excitement of a red-eye to Dallas. From Dallas to Miami. From Miami to Santo Domingo. There will be a driver waiting for me with a sign that says my name. Cool! I'm gonna feel like a movie star!


Why hello there...
Me and Patty and a breadstick
Mass and I
My darling Monte!
I'm so cute sometimes I could barf
When you have very little hair, it's fun to play with other people's hair
Fun with hair!
Smashing evening! And by that I mean I was totally smashed when this picture was taken
Hotcha!

One week to go!

I'm one week, one hour and 40 minutes away from liftoff. Things are progressing well. Baked some cookies tonight with the bag of chocolate chips I was trying to use up in the pantry. My friend is hosting a neat monthly food club thingy and basically this month the theme is Mexican-ish, and really you're supposed to bring a variation of the basic recipe that is sent out, but if you feel inspired you can make something to accompany it. So in an effort to not add more things to the food supply in my house and, in fact, use up the stuff I currently have, I lamely altered the chocolate chip cookie recipe to produce "Super Mexi-choco Space Wizard Shazam Cookies!" How can my friend not be swayed by that great name! Plus the deliciousness of said cookies is scrumptiously astronautical! Heck yeah!



Is it the surface of some distant planet - NO! It is Space Cookies that are out of this WORLD!

Sad news comes to the Rat City

While my morning tea is steeping I thought I'd take a moment to deliver the sad news on the home front. One of my fuzzy babies, B.U. Phinnaeus died last Saturday night. It was particularly tragic as apparently she choked on something. And, yes, I did actually try the rat Heimlich maneuver - there is such a thing! - and when she stopped breathing I attempted CPR but to no avail. As I always try to look to the good in bad situations, I figure that she was a little sickly and I was worried that she's die when I was in the DR. So at least this way I could be present for passing and take a lovely walk through Discovery Park with Benny where we saw many happily abandoned pet rabbits and several zippy hummingbirds before finding a particularly horrid spot for digging (sorry Benny!) for Phin's final resting spot.

She is survived by her sister, H.T. Vanderrat and her special friend Umlaut.

She will be missed terribly.

Gettin' Close

Subletter person guy - CHECK!

Sold my scooter - CHECK!

Travel insurance - CHECK!

Fluency in Spanish - Not so much

Packing up the apartment - Not even started

So I'm mostly on the ball with all this. A little more than two weeks out and it still isn't particularly real to me. My sister and her family left the US today. How strange it's got to be knowing that your whole life will change so completely. For me it's not so big; theoretically I'm coming back to Seattle and all my comfortable things and people. It's hard even for me to imagine starting a new life in a city I've never even visited before. Still though, I guess with the right job offer and the right amount of money I'd go just about anywhere... maybe.

Sublettin it all hang out

A potential sublet person is visiting today. Is "subletter" the proper term? Because the spell check doesn't recognize it. Screw you spell check - I break ALL the rules!

Ah, anyway, I'm blogging while I probably should be tidying up. Then I'll be eating cereal while I should be tidying up. And I'll probably end up watching the last half of that Pushing Daisy's episode instead of tidying up at all. And I'm sure it won't matter a damn.

This subletter would work out perfectly. He intends to move to Seattle (from Portland) the day after I leave. So monetarily that would work out rad for me. Plus, he's the first person to see the place and if it works out then I don't have to keep slogging through e-mails and tromping strangers through my messy apartment.

Right-o. Cereal time.

Hello again!!!

Hello all you sweet little things, it's so good to have your eyes back along with your eager curiosity to hear what thrilling adventures await me on this spin of the Wheel of Life!

So as you've all probably heard, I'll be traveling to the Dominican Republic on August 19th (exactly one month from today!) and so I'll be writing about the preparation for travel in the upcoming month, and then I'll be filling y'all in on my daily adventures once I'm there. Fab! I'll be living with my sister and her family - her husband, Dave, their son, Aidan, and the two dogs, Neuf and Jack.

The first question that usually comes up is "what will you be doing there?" The answer is - a whole lotta nufin. My sister is a part of the foreign service and will be working at the US consulate (or embassy, I'm not sure what the difference is) so I won't really be able to get a "job" like I did in Ireland. There might be some volunteer work, and I'll pitch in as much as I can helping out around the house and watching my nephew, but overall I'll have a lot of free time. I just started playing guitar, and much to my utter surprise really liking it, and so I'm looking forward to devoting a lot of time to practicing and ideally writing some stuff too. Other than that, I'll read, pick up some dirty Spanish phrases, drink lots of beer, meet some folks and ideally not get into too much trouble - though if I do it'll be all like, "pffft, whatever, do you know who my sister is?"

The second question that usually gets asked is "who is watching the rats?" The answer to that is my most excellent good buddy Benny. Benny is tops and I owe a lot of my relative sanity to him, plus he's super great with animals and loves the rats! He watched them while I was in Asia last April and did a brilliant job. Of course, they did come back to me complaining that the cheese I give them was for too quotidian, so, whatever, Benny's cheese is better, like I care.

So, a month out, and it's just beginning to set in that my life is going to change radically in another month. For now it's day to day, trying to deal with some difficulties life has recently presented me, and from time to time remembering that I'm off to tropical good stuffs. It couldn't have come at a better time. Sometimes everything unfolds in a most curious and beautiful way. Also, often it is painful and messy, but I believe that the beauty is there if you sit with it long enough and allow it all to unfold. Undestructable, my friends.