Hooray!

I know how desperately you are all waiting for more pictures of my cups.

Here is the Micro Farm Jug with the handle Chrissy made for me. And also Nino's elbow.



Here is me with the Mega Jug. I had to put two straws together to make one Mega Straw just to be able to drink out of it. Please don't think I normally dress in vests. That is my work uniform. So, I guess I do normally dress in vests, since I work 4 days a week. Whatever.

It Kinda Worked

Okay, Jack helped me out and I managed to get one picture on here. Blogger still won't let me get any of the others, but here at least you can witness the greatness of the Mega Jug next to a normal cup. Please note the awesome bucket handle and the fact that I wrote in Sharpie "JR's Mega Jug." I am so lame.

I would like to apologize ahead of time for the number of times I use the word "cup" in this post. It annoyed me.

Cups at work have a habit of disappearing. Not the glasses or coffee mugs we use for customers, but the staff cups. The staff has to use plastic cups with lids, because we are klutzy people that break and spill things all the time.

That may sound like sarcasm, but it's totally true. Remind me to tell you about the time a certain anonymous commenter on this blog accidentally knocked/pushed over an entire stack of full glass racks. Or when she broke an entire shelf just by walking past it.*

So anyway, lots of my cups have gone missing over the last (almost) 5 years I've worked there. One incident that sticks out in my mind was the week when TWO of my favorite Baja Fresh cups disappeared. That was a rough week, you know, emotionally.

No one knows where the cups go. The situation is similar to socks in the dryer, you know you had it there earlier, but now it's just gone. But instead of being left with a spare sock, we're left with random things like plastic lids and those thick plastic straws, all thrown together in a bustub** with the cups that have managed to hang on. And also? Silverware that doesn't match the restaurant silverware. Who knows where that comes from. Maybe there's some sort of fairy that trades out our cups for mismatched silverware. Like the toothfairy... Wish she'd leave cash instead of spoons.

As of right now, I have been using the same blue plastic cup for, oh, probably 6 to 8 months. The lid is long gone, which has resulted in many spills, because hey, I'm JR, that's how I roll, but the CUP HAS PERSEVERED. It's covered in scratches, probably from all the times it's had to fight off would-be thefts, but it is mine and I love it.

But this is a story about a few weeks ago when my blue cup went missing for THREE WHOLE DAYS.

I thought it was gone forever. I threw a hissy fit, as I am wont to do. I wandered around the kitchen, yelling something to the effect of, "Why can't we keep any damn cups here?!?!?! This is some BULLSHIT! That was MY CUP! What am I supposed to drink out of now, huh? WHAT?!?!?"

It's okay, I work with my friends and they are all used to my histrionics.

In a brave effort to calm me down, risking life and limb, our head chef told me I could have one of the brand new cups.

I am awed. "We have brand new cups? Where? How?"

"Somebody sent us a bag of sample plastic cups like they use at fast food joints. Since we don't use those I threw them in the back, but you're welcome to take whatever you want out of there."

I think I may have hugged him because, as everyone knows, I am my mother's daughter and I gotta have my beverage with me, yo.

So, I go running to the back, and there it is, a bag just chock full of brand new cups. And I see it. The first cup in the stack. It's beautiful. It's amazing. It's the biggest cup made of flimsy plastic that I've ever seen. It claims to be able to hold half a gallon of the beverage of my choice. And not only does it have a handle, the handle is on top, like a bucket! It's a bucket cup!

I promptly claimed it as my own, and began calling it the MEGA JUG. People laughed at first, but I'm pretty sure as the night wore on and all I would say to anyone was, "Look at my MEEEEGAAAA JUUUUUG!" it got a little old.

Man, I loved the Mega Jug. It was awesome, in the true Eddie Izzard sense of the word.

The Mega Jug was the source of much humor that night at work. Like the time I lifted it off the drink shelf to have some soda, and literally grunted like an old person lifting weights. Mid sentence. Dude, the Mega Jug was heavy.

Or the time I had just taken a drink, and my hand was wet from the outside of the Mega Jug. So I wiped it on the back of Boss' chef coat as he walked by.

"What the hell?!?!?"

"Don't worry, it's just MEEEGAAA JUUUG condensation."

"BOOB SWEAT?!?!?!?!?"

Apparently he was the one person in the restaurant that hadn't heard me talk incessantly about the Mega Jug.

The next night my blue cup was still missing, but miraculously the Mega Jug was still there. All was somewhat okay with the world. The jokes about the Mega Jug continued, and I was happy.

The third night, the Mega Jug was gone. Just like that. The blue cup was still missing. And me? I was a wreck. I mean, come on people, drinking vessels are serious business.

Someone pointed out to me that we still had some of the other brand new cups, I should go through those and see if there were any I could stand to use.

I went through all the brand new cups, and I finally found one I thought I could make do with. It was the smallest cup in the batch, and it was covered with pictures of farm animals, which I found endearing. Certain other people thought that some of the pigs might be doing something dirty on the cup; I choose to believe they were hugging. I named it the Micro (Farm) Jug.

The only thing I didn't like about the Micro (Farm) Jug, aside from the fact that I had to refill it every time I took a drink, was that it had no handle whatsoever. Luckily, I have great friends***, and Chrissy promptly took it in the office and fashioned a handle for me out of cardboard and masking tape. It was very cool and could hold the cup up if there was nothing in it.****

But the Micro (Farm) Jug was only barely a tolerable substitute for the Mega Jug. There's not as many jokes that go with a Micro (Farm) Jug. But that didn't really matter, because the next day my blue cup magically reappeared.

I still have the Micro (Farm) Jug, safely stored away from the thieving hands of fairies. The handle fell off when the dishwasher tried to wash it for me, but that's okay, it's not a very functional cup anyway.

But I tell you what, if I ever find a fast food place that uses the Mega Jug, I'm so gonna stock up on that, it's not even funny how many Mega Jugs I will buy.

I will be the Queen of Mega Jugs.

Which I think was actually one of my nicknames in high school.




*The shelf actually did fall ON her, which caused a bit more injury to her than the shelf. But she's fine now. Well, as fine as she ever was, really.

**I'm sure everyone knows, but those are the big black tubs busboys carry dirty dishes around in. Only the one that holds our cups is clean. Really.

***Or they just hate to listen to me bitch.

****Obviously I realize that some pictures of the Mega and Micro Jugs would have been nice for this post. And I did take pictures of both vessels at the time. But I took the pictures on my cellphone, emailed them myself, and then tried to add them to this post, and Blogger won't let me. It will let me add any other pictures, but not ones from my cellphone. So if you want to see the pictures, if your life is so revolving around my cup adventures, email me and I will send them to you.

Fancy Paws

I can't decide if he's a poodle or if he's doing a Jennifer Beals impression.

I Will go By The Name 'Junior Bobo' And Dye My Hair Black

Last week, I took Bubbas to the vet for his annual check-up. Being 11 years old and being far to feisty to ever allow anyone near his mouth has apparently taken quite a toll on his teeth. The plaque and tartar build-up was so great that parts of his gums were swollen and bleeding, and one of his canines was broken.

I could not possibly feel more guilty about this.

One of the problems is that while Bubbas is a sweet and loving baby at home*, when a vet gets near him Satan** takes over his body and people are at serious risk of losing fingers, eyes, and chunks of hair. When we went last week for the check-up, it took two people to hold him down so they could look in his ears, and they kept getting scared and jumping back. I actually thought it was funny as hell, and there's a good chance my vet hates me now for laughing. Although I am the only one that sustained any wounds during the exchange. And now his chart is peppered with big red stickers that say things like, "MAY BITE," "SHORT FUSE," and "CAUTION." This all means that in order to clean his teeth, he has to be under anesthesia and fully asleep, which is really very dangerous. Because of my fear of losing him, I've always just kinda hoped his love for crunchy food would keep him clean enough.

It didn't.

So last night, Bubbas had to be locked in our room and adjacent bathroom, with no food or water after midnight. And he had to use a clean litterbox with only a little bit of fishtank gravel (plenty of that around) so that I could take a urine sample in with us this morning.

Only problem there is that Bubbas has Truly Astonishing Bladder Strength. Once he was accidentally locked in my closet for over 24 hours while we were out of town, and he didn't pee or poop the whole time. He is very brave. You should all send him treats.

So there was no pee for me to collect, which means the vet had to collect it, which means I had to pay an extra $20 on top of the original $9,000,000 estimate. Good thing I got that week of paid vacation.

Last night I barely slept at all, because I am my mother's daughter and I worry about things until my stomach hurts and my hair starts falling out. Bubbas, however, slept great. He seemed rather appreciative of having the room all to himself for once, no annoying sisters trying to steal covers or jockeying for pillow position.

But by the time my alarm went off***, he was ready to go find his food and water. So while I was getting dressed, he very gently reminded me that I had, obviously accidentally, locked him in the room all night. He purred and rubbed all over my legs and was all sweet and forgiving.

"I know you would never do this on purpose, mom, because you are beautiful and kind, but clearly it is time now for me to be fed and to get some water and a real litterbox. Oh, and maybe those annoying black cats will be gone when we got out there, wouldn't that be great mom? Gosh I love you, let me rub around your legs some more..."

Then he jumped on the bed, and I petted him for a few minutes, cause, you know, I worry, and I would hate to not have petted him that last time. He was rather giddy...

"Oh, wow, a whole night alone with you and I get this extra love, I feel certain that today must be the best day ever, you must be trying to make up for getting that dog and then letting that strange woman look in my ears last week..."

I picked him up and carried him out to the living room.

"I even get to ride to the food bowl! I hate when you make me walk! I love you so much mom..."

I set him down in front of the carrying case.

"What's this? I don't want to go in there, surely you aren't thinking of putting me back in there..."

I started shoving him into the carrying case. Satan took over.

"YOU BITCH. THIS WAS ALL A TRICK? MRRRRROOOOORRRWWWW. YOU LOCK ME UP ALL NIGHT WITH NO FOOD AND NO WATER AND THEN YOU SHOVE ME IN THIS BOX. I HATE YOU. I HATE YOU. YOU {bleep} BITCH I'M GONNA KILL YOU. I WANT TO TEAR YOUR HEART OUT AND FEED IT TO THAT HORRIBLE DOG. MMMRRRRRROOOOOOOEEEEEEEERRRRRWWWWWWW."

On the way to the vet's office he tried to guilt me into letting him out.

"Come on, I didn't mean those things I said before. I still love you. Please, look how pathetic I am. Surely you haven't the heart to leave me in here. Please, mommy, please..."

But I am strong, and I dropped him off and went home to sleep some more.

He pulled through just fine of course, because he's totally tough****. When I went to pick him up he was already in his box and ready to go. Half way home we were at a stop light so I stuck me finger in the carrying case to keep him entertained.

He tried to bite it off while yelling obscenities at me that I don't even use.

Once we got home I realized the source of his ongoing anger. One of his front legs had been shaved for the IV to go in there, and as Mark says, he now looks like a poodle cat. I think he looks like a flashdancer. He seems to think I am determined to steal all of his dignity from him, since he still hasn't quite forgiven me for the time I took him in and had his manhood cut off.

He wouldn't speak to me at all for a couple of hours, but once he got some food and water in him he made some forgiving gestures. He even let me look at his pretty pearly whites. But he did make me promise not to ever do that to him again.

I promised with my fingers crossed, of course. Turns out he has to go back in a month or two and get 4 teeth pulled. I may need to join the witness protection program after that trip to the vet.



*Except during play time. See, I got Bubbas when he was only a teeny tiny thing of four weeks (hence my ridiculous attachment to him), and it was just so gosh darn cute when he bit and scratched at me... And I was only 17, so I didn't know any better... I thought he would grow out of it... To this day the only other person I've ever seen able to handle actually playing with Bubbas is my friend Melinda, who, it should be noted, has a blind cat that hisses and wants to kill everybody.

**Little known fact: The nicknake 'Bubbas' is derived from his REAL name, Beelzebub.

***At 7am. Dear lord I will keep my cat's teeth clean from now on if you only never make me get up before 10am ever again amen.

****Somebody remind me to tell you the dog attack/gangrene story sometime.

Sammie loves her grandpa!

I am the lamest lame in the world

The other day I had this conversation with my brother online:

JR: How are you?

Bro: Good. Sarah is sick so I'm working from her house today.

JR: Because you are her bitch?

Bro: Yeah.

JR: Awesome. So, my new slang term I'm supposed to learn is "ghetto fab." I have to integrate it into my vocabulary.

Bro: Please don't start saying that.

JR: I have to! I'm learning!

Bro: Learning what? How to be a black person from 1997?

JR: Yes. Or, how to be a gangster, yo.

Bro: Clearly you mean gangsta. And clearly you suck at it.

JR: Dude, I'm still learning. I should get cornrows, that might help.

The Post Wherein I Publicly Announce My Cluelessness. And My Love For Owen.

I have very little awareness of what goes on in the world around me. I know that this makes me a bad American. But I HATE watching the news. It's so upsetting. Can't everyone just chill out?

So, I live happily in my little ignorant cave, completely unaware of anything outside of my circle of friends.

But sometimes, somebody will bring something up to me and I am shocked at my own stupidity. "Hey, did you hear about the meteor that hit in your own backyard*??!?!?" "Was it in US Weekly? No? Then no."

All this month the manager of the restaurant I work in has been vacationing in his home country of Cyprus. Which sucks because it means I have to work more, but is awesome because hey, the boss is gone! Although I will admit that, surprising even to me, I have missed him. But if any of you repeat that to him I will hunt you down and tell you fascinating fish tank stories for three hours.** That will be your punishment for ruining my front of hating everyone.

So anyway, the boss is in Cyprus. And today my friend Fletcher called me, all worked up.

F: "You know that war that's going on?"

JR: "Sure." (Thinking she means the war in Iraq, of which I am aware, my cave isn't that isolated.)

F: "Well, I just heard on the news that they're evacuating Americans to Cyprus! So I looked at a map and it's RIGHT next to Lebanon!"

JR: {beginning to realize that I have missed something...} "Evacuating to Cyprus? What? Wait, what war are you talking about?"

F: "Lebanon and Israel. The bombing."

JR: "Um.... I don't watch the news..."

F: "Oh my god, you just said you're online right now, stop by cnn.com every now and then! Lebanon and Israel are bombing the shit out of each other, and it's right by Cyprus and that's where Boss is!"

JR: "Dude, that's crazy! I was just kidding when I said I hoped he would get stuck there..."

F: "You gotta get a map and look at how close it is."

JR: "Well, I just went to cnn.com cause you told me to, but the first thing I saw was a place to click for an article about Owen Wilson, so I'm reading that now. I'll read about the fighting after that."

F: {Laughing}


*Dude, there was no meteor. I would notice that, at least. But it is true that I have an addiction to US Weekly.

**That would be one hour for every tank that I have in my house, for now... Yesterday Mark says, "Are you planning on getting more fishtanks?" I said, "Are you gonna let me get more dogs and cats? No? Then yes, I will be getting more fishtanks."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I would like to note that I not only did read about the bombing online, I also turned the tv on to CNN for my background noise today. I miss my usual Jack FM, but maybe I should know something about something every now and then.

But also, I am already depressed. Stupid people killing other people.

No Intro Needed

"You can not be a white girl married to a black guy and have the last name 'Brown-Johnson.' It's just too much."

Give Whirled Peas A Chance

Sunday night Mark and I performed our favorite activity.

Oh, you people have such dirty minds. Like I'm gonna blog about that where my parents can read it.

Cooking dinner and then eating it while we watch Iron Chef America.

We LOVE Alton Brown. But then, who doesn't? We, however, love him so much that we invented a drinking game for watching shows with Alton Brown in them. It involves drinking whenever he says things that we recognize as phrases or words he uses frequently. For example, when we watch Good Eats (da da da dada dada dadada), we drink anytime he uses the word "thusly." Try it, I promise, you will drink at least twice in a half hour episode. And when we watch Iron Chef America, we drink anytime he makes a cheesy, bad pun. Like in the lobster competition when he said, "We're at the tail end of the competition..." Also anytime he says, "Kevin." We started that one by drinking whenever he said, "Talk to me, Kevin," but discovered it's more fun to just drink anytime we hear the name Kevin (even sometimes when we're not watching anything with Alton Brown and instead just hanging out with people named Kevin). Those are just a few of the things that we drink on for Alton Brown, come play with us sometime if you want to learn them all.

Anyway, Sunday night we kinda threw together dinner out of a bunch of stuff we found in the fridge. We ended up with diced, sauteed chicken, onions, mushrooms, and spinach sauteed together, and all of it piled into tortillas. Oh, and corn bread. Which doesn't really go together, but hell, I wanted cornbread, so get off my ass.

I kept trying to think of some kind of spread we could put on the tortillas for flavor, and I ended up taking some sour cream and mixing greek seasoning and chili powder in it. I call it "Sour Cream Dip with Greek Seasoning and Chili Powder." Now, I know what you're thinking. "She's a freaking genius! Nobody's ever done that before! Forget Alton, this girl needs a food show!" I know, I know. Remain calm, we can have worship services at the altar of JR on Friday night. At the bar. You can buy me a shot. Because truly, I may have changed your life forever with the Awesomeness of the Dip.

Anyway, enough about my dip.

So, the Iron Chef episode on Sunday was great. The secret ingredient was FROZEEEN PEASSS (that's how the chairman says it, only he makes a funny face, too). I think that is a cool ingredient. They did some really interesting stuff with it.

At one point, early on, Mark and I were (I thought) trying to guess what they would make with the FROZEEEN PEASSS.

Mark suggested, "Pea soup!"

"Pea pie!"

"Peas in porridge!

"Pea sorbet!"

"Peas in porridge served cold!"

"Pea sorbet with frozen pea garnish!"

"PEAS IN PORRIDGE NINE DAYS OLD!"

I was cracking up; I hadn't realized where he was going with that, and when he yelled it, deadpan, I almost spit my beverage out.

That man is always trying to make me spit out beer.

---------------------------------------------------

Later that night, as I stuck my finger in the dip to eat some...

"You know, I'm thinking about dipping potato chips in this tomorrow."

"I know you are."

Maybe you had to be there to hear the dejected tone in his voice. But I think sometimes he knows me too well.

I have no funny stories, so here are some funny animals

Lucy is a wee bit slutty. And also, check out the girth on that girl!*

Bubbas wants everybody to f--- off, or he will suck your blood.

Ethel can't believe I woke her up just for picture time.

And now, here are two shots of The Amazing Sammie from Poopville that demonstrate her enormous growth capacity.

At 10 weeks old, when we got her:

And currently, at 5 months and four days old:

*Ethel is actually the bigger of the two. By a pound or so.

I'm tired of trying to think of titles.

Last week my friend Tyrone got hit on by a guy in a bar. Only problem is, Ty's straight and his hottie girlfriend was sitting next to him. But the guy hitting on him had such a great first line, we have been tormenting Ty with it ever since:

"Dude, I love your 'hawk."

Now how could you not want to go home with that guy?

----------------------------------------------------------

In honor of the 4th, I decided to have blue hair for the day. And in honor of Ty's (apparently) lovable 'hawk, I decided to have a blue mohawk.

After an exhaustive search* for wash-out blue hair dye (with the awesomeness that is Laura), I finally found this stuff that is actually hair gel, but blue colored. It didn't have quite the blue-ness effect that I had hoped for, but it did wash right out. Which means I got to talk Mark into letting me use it on his hair, too.

So here we are. Blue hair and mohawks and your mom, oh my!



*I may be exaggerating slightly. We went to three stores, and two of them were across from each other in the mall. But, as has been recently pointed out to me, I am a lazy American (I blame Bush) so that was a lot of walking for me.

Busting out the razor

The other morning I was laying on Mark's shoulder, mostly still sleeping, when I got a hair up my nose. Luckily, I was perfectly logical and calm.

Lifting my head and swatting violently at my face, I yelled, "DUDE, STOP PUTTING YOUR NIPPLE HAIRS IN MY NOSE!"

"You might be the first person to ever use that phrase."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Then this morning I was trying to get Mark to get out of bed, so I went to zerbert him, and I inhaled a hair.

"DUDE! I just inhaled a nipple hair! They are out of control this week!"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Funniest thing is, Mark has very little chest hair (which I am eternally grateful for). So I think I may actually be inhaling rogue cat hairs.

I may have to shave all the animals in house.

Except the fish. They would get cold.

Good Lord, I love me some Laura

Today, my stomach hurts not from the gastritis, but from the excessive laughing. I love when Laura comes to town. I think if she ever moves back here, I will end up with six-pack abs* from the laughing.

Seriously, the woman tells the absolute funniest stories ever, and she totally makes anything we do fun. I never had so much in PetSmart before, and I go there A LOT.

And Laura, I promise, the next time you visit I will remember to dry the grass.

But it wouldn't fit in the tank.


*Chrissy tells me this is possible. I have my doubts, but I'll never be thin enough to really find out.

-------------------------------------------------------

The other day it rained here while still being perfectly sunny outside. So we went out to look for the rainbow, and DUDE, it ended in OUR YARD.

Seriously.

Sammie from Poopville is sleeping on my right foot*

I read online that my stomach problem is caused because I eat to much steak and dairy, which are considered acidic foods, and not enough vegetables, mostly raw. Mark had this to say:

"I love vegetables. I wish we ate more vegetables."

"I'm sorry. I will buy more when I shop."

"Nah, I wouldn't eat them anyway."

As you may have guessed, this conversation occurred during our second bottle of wine. Which may be the ACTUAL cause of my stomach problems. But regardless, Becker Vineyards rocks.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dude, my doctor told me I have to give up beer, soda, really anything carbonated, and.... CHOCOLATE. Seriously. I looked at the man like he was a damn fool, and he leaned into my face and said, "No more chocolate. Until I say so."

I almost cried. So hell with it, I ain't giving up my vino.


*This is irrelevant, but true.