Erin The Great

Great News Everybody! I am officially homeless no more!!! YAY!!!

It was a crazy weekend! One of my Best friends (Mel) from High School came into town on Friday and it was really great to see her. She’s been working as a flight attendant for Southwest Airlines for the last 2 years or so and her last day is the 31st of this month. There are a lot of things I’m going to miss like hanging out and going to dinner, the view of unwashed miscreants urinating on the walls of the gas station next door. Oh what a 6 floor view from a hotel will give you.

The only unfortunate part about Mel quitting Southwest is now I have 2 weeks to use up 4 plane tickets. Where would I go? What shall I do? Maybe I’ll go home but then where? I have to think of where my other 3 destinations will be… If only Hawaii were an option.

Meanwhile as I imagine myself in exotic destinations like Iowa and Kansas I am brought back down to earth by the fact that I’m supposed to be working. Luckily the office is pretty calm today which means 1 thing! I get to play with this new ‘genius’ feature on my iTunes. At first I was a little leery. How can a computer program feature exactly what I want to hear? The thing I fear most when I pull up the ‘party shuffle’ mode on my iTunes is that it is going to play the crappy songs that I haven’t gotten around to deleting off of my computer. The genius so far hasn’t disappointed me one bit. All it does is takes the information about the song and puts other ‘like’ songs together. So far I’m a fan. A very big fan!

So as I sit listening to the awesome playlist that the ‘Genuis’ has set up for me, I will continue folding, stuffing and sealing mailers while basking in the comfort that I am no longer a transient, and think of the far off places that I’ll get to see really soon.

I normally don’t do this but my Cousin Anna has been living abroad with her family. 

Being the history buff that I am, I can’t wait until she posts pictures of her adventures to places like Scotland, Paris and Wales… I am pretty jealous actually. Go to her Blog and check out the sights and be sure to scroll down and when you’re done, be sure to leave her plenty of comments!

Her kids are really cute too!

There is also a giveaway over at Jillene’s Blog… Go over and win a Bracelet! Or a Necklace…

Also, I am an author on the Steve Colbert Blog… Basically my friend Nate is raising money to name a room in the library of UVU after Steve Colbert because well… Why not?

PS… Anna, don’t kill me!

It was like any other normal Sunday. I had gone to church, came home, went to break the fast, and finally ward prayer…More like ward stare in my ward’s case.

So there I was, going over to give my friend a hug when all of a sudden there was a huge *POP* *RIP* AHHHHHHHH! Oh, my knee! The good one! My only chance at getting through the winter relatively unscathed! It finally gave out on me! BAAAAAA!

Oh the searing pain! Was this karma for not being able to make it to Kristina’s ‘Meet and Greet?’ Was this payback for finding the last Argyle cardigan sweater in the entire store on Friday? I finally realized that it was merely from years and years of putting extra strain on my knee because my other knee bit the dust years ago… Oh well. At least it’s fixable right?! Right!

Count your many blessings name them one by one…..

Any-hoo… Did you know that Applebee’s has ‘Karaoke Night’ on Tuesday nights? Holy awesome! My friend and I went last night so see another mutual friend off (she’s leaving today). The funny thing is this. Karaoking, like many other things in Utah i.e. bowling, sporting events etc. are much much different.

In any other place in this great nation, there are certain things you expect; like walking into a bowling alley filled with cigarette smoke, drunken people while Karaoking. This is not really the case in Utah Valley. Not that I don’t appreciate this fact, but in a weird way it’s odd and un-natural.

Sometimes the best thing about karaoke is when highly inebriated people get up to sing ballads like ‘Total eclipse of the heart’ and ‘baby got back’ totally off key while stumbling around on the stage. This was not the case last night but it was still unbelievably fun… even if songs weren’t being massively butchered.

There was a remarkably ‘on key’ rendition of ‘Nothing but a good time’ by poison… Rocked my world! There was also a little ‘Rhinestone Cowboy’ that had me rolling in the isle… Heaven Bless Karaoke!!!

SNL really nails it on the head with their ‘REALLY!?!’ segment on the AIG debacle… Oh so good.

They are only recapping what the whole country has been thinking since this whole ‘Bail Out’ happened…. REALLY!?!

I was just working hard on something, minding my own business when all of a sudden there was a familiar sound on all the plasma screens in the office…

Link to what I heard since ‘Youtube’ won’t let me embed the video on my blog…

The head programmers ‘Rick Rolled’ The entire office! I’ve provided the ever so popular Rick Astley video for all to enjoy. I was even nice and gave you all the VH1 ‘Pop-Up Video’ version….

I don’t remember if I have blogged about this or not… I’m going to go with no because I think this occurrence happened when my laptop was sick and needed a reinstall.

It was a bright day in July when I went swimming over at a swim park of no consequence. Because it was a swim park of no consequence, you have to do crazy things to make the water slides a bit more thrilling. My friend and I decided to go down feet first facing the opposite direction. The only problem with this was she had grabbed a hold of my ankles and I had my legs tucked under me. Suddenly realizing that there was a drop I decided that saving my knees was my first priority and proceeded to un-tuck my legs. Unfortunately I miss judged how much time I had, and as I was un-tucking my legs, I found my self dropping while my face slammed against the slide chipping my right front tooth and jamming the left.

As luck would have it, I managed to get my chipped tooth fixed but a few weeks later my left front tooth started turning grey leaving me looking a hick from the Ozarks. Since I was ‘in between’ jobs and therefore ‘in between’ Dental Insurance Companies, my only option was to suck this fact up and wait until last Monday to make a dentist appointment… This is where it gets good.

Today I get to the dentist office which is conveniently located in the office community where I work. I get to the dentist’s office and he begins to tell me that I need a Root Canal. Ok, that’s cool, I had my iPod and was almost excited at the thought of jamming out to Led Zeppelin while high on Nitrous Oxide…. Until I realized that this wasn’t Oregon and that Utah is very stingy with their Nitrous Oxide. Now the thought of a root canal is looking a little scarier…

Usually when I have dental work done I am under the soft pillow of laughing gas where everything is relaxed and happy, but NOT this trip. Here are some things I’ve noticed when you’re not higher then a kite while getting drilled into…

You will feel like your lips have inflated to the size of Angelina Jolie’s Lips

At one point you will see smoke from drilling

Local anesthesia is most definitely not enough anesthesia!!!

The words ‘You might feel some pressure’ can be loosely translated into ‘Brace yourself, this is going to hurt like the dickens’.

And finally, it’s hard to not notice the dentists attempt to not laugh at your attempt to smile or swallow.

I miss Oregon where they knock you out when all you need is a cleaning.

I am currently ‘Post’ Root Canal and I am seriously considering never touching another water slide as long as I live… but that’s just crazy talk.

The hoodie I was poilitely asked to remove when I was at my place of employement….

Unfortunately I work amongst many University of Utah fans… Ugh!

Oy! I can’t wait until November 22 when BYU beats the crap out of the U of U… and this is coming from a duck fan! Go Pac-10

I’m going to now do what I do best by finding absolute hilarity in an unbelievably crappy situation… Here goes.

Things I’ve learned about being a transient/homeless… whatever.

• Make sure you have an over-night bag packed full of underwear or you might find yourself in an unwanted commando situation.
• Simplicity (less is more theory) is the way to go. Sometimes all you need to make you happy is Dr. Pepper, contacts, Jeans, T-shirts and mascara.
• All cars during this process will develop a weird and mysterious ‘odor’. Just febreeze the crap out of your car and wait a few days and the mystery scent will inevitably disappear….eventually…. hopefully.
• You really learn who your friends are.
• I’ve realized that having 5 blades on my razor has turned me into a lazy shaver. I’m using a double blade and I come out of the shower looking like the victim of a shark attack.
• Febreeze just might be the best invention of the century…. That’s all I’m going to say about that.
• Couches and floors aren’t that bad if you have a crap load of pillows and incidentally if you’re organized, your car can act as your closet. Organization, it’s sweeping the nation.
• Caffeine and heat are NEVER over-rated.
• Mommies will still worry like crazy even if it’s 800 miles away.
• Never pass up an opportunity to pee. This sounds a little ‘class-less’ to say but you never when you’re going to have access to a bathroom… it’s the little things people.
• If you lose your sense of humor, then you have lost everything.
• The most important is that things can always get worse so don’t complain and say ‘it can’t get any worse’… because it will… and impressively so.
• Just for good measure, and I don’t know why, but it is sort of frowned on trying to live in your Storage Unit…. I’m not quite sure why, it’s convenient and it makes sense but whatever.

There is a really good reason why it has been over a month and I’m still homeless… it’s just a long story which I don’t feel like telling, so please don’t ask. I’m sure it will come out eventually in a blog post. Most importantly keep smiling and laughing… snort while you’re at it… it makes people wonder what’s so stinking funny

I know what you’re thinking… Does it really matter if I vote? Absolutely it does! If everyone in the world thought like that our governemtn would be over run by monkeys… oh wait! It already is! Register to vote! It literally takes minutes.

We’ve been given power… Use it wisely.

As I was blog stalking, I came across a rather unfortunate bit of information…

For those of you who ‘Anne of Green Gables’ fans, we all know what a disappointment the third movie ‘Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story was. Kevin Sullivan, the director of the first two movies stayed remarkably close to the story line until the third movie where he pulled a 180 and deterred so far from the original plot that poor Lucy Maude Montgomery was probably rolling over in her grave!

As disappointing as that third movie was, it’s not as bad as the tragedy that is about to befall us. Please welcome the 4th installment of the Anne Shirley/Blythe chronicles (keep rolling Lucy because Kevin Sullivan is butchering your good name and your characters) Anne of Green Gables: A new Beginning! Ok! This man has gone too far! Here is an excerpt from the plot line of the story…

‘Anne, now a middle-aged woman, is troubled by recent events in her life. Her husband, Gilbert, has been killed overseas as a medical doctor during World War II. Her two daughters are pre-occupied with their own young families and her adopted son Dominic has yet to return from the war. When a long-hidden secret is discovered under the floorboards at Green Gables, Anne retreats into her memories to relive her troubled early years prior to arriving as an orphan at Green Gables and being adopted by the Cuthberts. Still haunted by her early childhood, the impact of this difficult period has a far-reaching effect on this older woman, once she discovers the truth about her real parents. She begins a delicate search for her birth father. It is a journey through a past fraught with danger, uncertainty, heartache and joy. In the parade of humanity Anne encounters she also faces the root of her desire to find true “kindred spirits”, an inspired imagination and the impetus to use her talents as a writer to inspire others’

Seriously? Killing off Gilbert Blythe? Are you suicidal man?

Um…Is anyone else getting a little on the livid side? Not only is this a complete re-write of the original books, but there isn’t a single original cast member aside from Rachel Lind attached to the project. Really? Can you say Capitalistic Monkey?

If you’re going to make more Anne of Green Gables movies, why don’t you stick to the books? I know there is the whole ‘director’s prerogative’ thing, but if the author of the book that you’re trying to ‘re-create’ is long since deceased, then you don’t take director liberties by completely re-writing the books and still claiming they’re from the original author. Bad Kevin Sullivan!

Ps… Killing off the man that was a lot of girl’s first crush (Anne I’m sooory) is a BIG No No! But I digress.