Giving up.

So, this little 60 in 60 thing isn't going to be finished. I haven't baked since the 19th of October, and that's fine by me. Life has been a little more than baking recently. So: I'm giving up on 60 in 60. Which is fine. I don't feel I've left myself down and I don't feel that I'm any less of a person because I didn't complete this. I had some fun, and I made a ton of great cookies. I also helped Bona Responds raise almost $250.

What have I been doing recently then, if not baking?

My brother turned 30 on the 20th. There was a party. I made cupcakes and a cake. Both were delicious. Then I got sick. Deathly ill, waking the boyfriend sick. The next day I did some theatre work at St. Bonaventure University. I ended up turning the houselights up and down for Michael Cooper. I also spent 20 minutes of each show being creeped out by a giant baby head. I did that for two days, then on Friday I spent the day with my friend, Lis. Since we're both ultra-broke, unemployed, former SAC employees, we spent the day walking around various shops, turning in out pop cans (nickels, FTW!), and looking at Owl Homes.

Owl Homes, for those not in the know, are pre-manufactured homes. Apparently, you choose one by going on a lot and looking through all the model homes and then deciding which one you like best. Some are even decorated so you can see their potential. Most of them have awesome kitchen islands installed. All of them have enough shower space for two people. One of them has a fireplace in the bathroom.

In the bathroom!

Since then I've watched a lot of television, and sat around on the couch a lot.

Sunday, on the other hand, is going to start a whole new challenge. (Well, I've done part of it before.) Sunday, I officially begin my 6th year of NaNoWriMo. It'll also be my first NaNoWriMo as Municipal Liaison (ML). If you don't know, being a ML is a big, huge, awesome responsibility. I'm, officially, in charge of herding cats, basically. All the other NaNoWriMo writers that go to write-ins and post questions on the forums and need pep talks. I'm in charge of them. Making sure they play nice, making sure they have all the answers they need to write, and making sure that they have all the pep they can handle - plus some!

Oh, and I also have to write 50,000 words in 30 days.

Well, it's 6am, that last paragraph didn't make sense, and my cats (the fur kind) need petting. Also, this post should have pictures, lots and lots of pictures. At least two of them should have bathrooms involved and at least one of them should have a bathroom fire place. There was even going to be a picture of me wearing a very large headset. But, alas, the laptop won't reconize the memory card from the camera.

Here, have a picture of puppies instead:

Making friends isn't so hard.

Recently, I went on a "last chance" trip to Niagara Falls, Canada with my brother and a few friends. We quickly ran low on money, but high on open bottles of alcohol. Since we were under the assumption (most likely correctly) that we couldn't take open bottles over the border, we needed a quick way to drink large amounts of alcohol.

We knew there was no way that we could drink all that wine, whiskey, and vodka by ourselves, so my brother and I decided to call a few friends over and make a party out of it.

First, at my brother's suggestion, I phoned room 110 to come down the hall for "wine, whiskey, and vodka drinks." They said they couldn't come down, even though they'd love to, but they're "going out."

So, my brother called room 124, our neighbors. No answer, sadly. Then I made the suggestion to call our upstairs neighbors, room 223, and see if they wanted to come down.

"Hi! Room 223?" My brother began, "This is 123. We were wondering if you'd like to join us for a few drinks. We have wine, whiskey, and vodka for screwdrivers." He paused for a few moments while the other line responded. "We're just four friends up here for vacation and we'd like to make new friends." Pause again, "Yeah, okay."

I had the video camera on him at this point. He turned to the camera to explain, "So, he sounds kind of interested, but he has to confer with his girlfriend. We may or may not being having guests over." He turned back to the phone, "Good. Wonderful! We'll see you then." A big grin on his face, he spoke to the camera again, "He said, and I quote, 'Despite my girlfriend's hesitations, we're just going to finish dinner and then we'll be down in about ten minutes.' Score!"

Twenty minutes later, we thought they had skipped out on coming to visit us. My brother and I ended up leaving the room with four glasses of wine and the video camera (no one else wanted to come with us). Out in the hallway we ran into a family who got the floors mixed up after leaving the pool area. As we were waiting for the elevator and chatting with the family about trying to make friends, a man and a woman walked through the hall, coming from the stairwell, "One Two Three?"

I turned, as did my brother, "Yes."

"We're two two three!"

About two and a half hours and two or three mad libs later, Ellie and Damien, from room 223, joyfully left our hotel room to get some sleep before the wedding they had to go to the next afternoon. They were full of booze, as were we, and they had a story to tell at the wedding the next day. And probably one to tell at home, in the Bronx, too.

See? Making friends isn't that hard, you just have to be willing to put yourself out there enough to face rejection. Try it next time you're stuck at the hotel on a rainy night. Who knows? You might just meet your own version of Ellie and Damien!

The sun didn't melt me!

The river near our pavilion.

Wednesday was the day of our "First Hopefully-Annual SAC People Picnic" at State Park.  I spent the morning cooking pies (two of which didn't melt), then I spent the afternoon outside..in the sun.  (I would add "with normal people," but these were SAC people, and they're not normal.)  

Timmy making a spork, because I told him to use the open silverware first.

(I didn't know there weren't any forks left!!)

Chef Hippie showing even hippies can double fist.

Brother making Gram's PBR Kielbasa.

The sun stayed out most of the afternoon and it was actually a semi-pleasant day filled with food and fun.  The park was quiet, except for us, and the sights were beautiful.

Our "SAC Height" badmitton net (we were missing a pole).

Mmmm...beer kielbasa.

Believe it or not, I took this while in a moving vehicle.

What do I do after spending a day outside?  I spent that evening, and most of the next two days in bed, alternating between napping and catching up on television shows.  Once, the curtains blew open and I was bathed in bright, bright sunlight.  I screamed so loud my neighbor yelled to the window to see what was wrong.  I replied, "The sun.. it burns!" He laughed and continued his yard work.

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And can you believe, while I was outside, a waitress was arrested for shooting a customer that threw a waffle at her? What is the world coming to where wait staff can't let off some steam on their less-desierable customers?

Stalking a stalker.

While I was waiting for the plumber to arrive early Wednesday morning, I decided it was time I put some actual work into the look of my blog.  Because I'm very lazy, I was looking for an old layout I used for my brother's old fan club, TOSJFC, where I could use the code and just replace the picture.  Looking through old files and emails led me to a very amusing picture and a very sad feeling.

The amusing picture:

The sad feeling:

I used to love rushing home from school to turn on 1490 WESB just to listen to my brother.  It was cool to have someone I know on the radio, especially AM's most popular area DJ.  My brother used the name Stalker Jay during his time at WESB.  He was only there for just over a year, nearly three years ago, and was fired for some reason that I never bothered to ask about.  

I have a sneaking feeling that the radio station was Jay's favorite job.  Not just because he had his very own fan club, but because it let him do something he is very good at, entertaining people.  The radio station let him entertain the masses, while still sitting around doing just about nothing.  It was enough of a real job to be proud of it, but there was enough messing around to make it a fun thing that you got paid to do.

It's not like Jay did nothing but slack off.  He had a fan club to please, for crying out loud!  While he was there he made Employee of the Month twice and even scored himself a ticket to go see OAR with his little sister. 

 (That was the first concert I ever went to, and I'm so glad it was them with my brother.  The St. Bonaventure gym wasn't very crowded, but the band was awesome.  This was OAR before "Shattered", back in the days of "Hey Girl" and "Crazy Game of Poker".  Jay was so excite about getting the free ticket that I remember he squeed like a little girl.)

I wish I could find the audio samples I recorded off the radio way back when.  They hold such awesome memories that no one really cares about, except my brother and me.  The one I really want to find is titled "prom problems."  Apparently, some girl (Sarah?) danced with her grandma's cousin's husband's cousin's grandson (Ryan?) and wanted to know if it was incest.  Stalker Jay broke it down and let her know that it was okay if they kissed, because there was marriage in there somewhere and we were from such a small town that accidental incest was bound to happen sometime.  (Okay, maybe I added the accidental incest bit, but I'm sure he was thinking it.)

Then there's the time we made him try Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans.. Or the time he took an on air poll to see if we could guess if he was wearing boxers or briefs (I guessed pink thong).. There was also the radio promo of our grandmother babbling on Jay's voicemail.. And we can't forget the Stalker Jay photoshop contest!

Every once in awhile, TOSJFC comes up in our conversation.  We chat about how much fun he had, how idiotic his listeners were, and the one guy who still yells "STALKER JAY!! I LOVE YOU!!" every time he walks in a bar, even though he's been off the air for three years now.

(Sorry, the TOSJFC site has gone to the wayside, so all the links are archive.com versions.)

(Double sorry for the post length, I didn't realise that it'd be this long when I started writing.  But once I got digging for old Stalker Jay stuff, I couldn't stop.  I even began to clean out my closet looking for the old audio files.  I know they're around here somewhere.)