Not it!

Here's a non-tag that I thought was fun. Feel free to utilize on your own blog.

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet & current car) Oreo Hyundai
2.YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (fave ice cream flavor, favorite cookie) Chocolate Chocolate Chip
3. YOUR “FLY Guy/Girl” NAME: (first initial of first name, first three letters of your last name) J-Mad
4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal) Pink Beagle
5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born) Ann Inglewood
6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first)MadJe
7. SUPERHERO NAME: (”The” + 2nd favorite color, favorite drink) The Turquoise Dr. Pepper
8. NASCAR NAME: (the first names of your grandfathers) Robert Jack or Jack Robert
9. STRIPPER NAME: (the name of your favorite perfume/cologne/scent, favorite candy)Pink Sugar Rittersport
10.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother’s & father’s middle names )Rutledge Norman
11. TV WEATHER ANCHOR NAME: (Your 5th grade teacher’s last name, a major city that starts with the same letter) Fleming Fresno
12. SPY NAME: (your favorite season/holiday, flower) Winter Rose
13. CARTOON NAME: (favorite fruit, article of clothing you’re wearing right now + “ie” or “y”)Strawberry Cardigany
14. HIPPY NAME: (What you ate for breakfast, your favorite tree) Toast Maple
15. YOUR ROCKSTAR TOUR NAME: (”The” + Your fave hobby/craft, fave weather element + “Tour”)"The Blogging Rain Tour"

The itsy-bitsy spider...

Crawled on my foot and bit the heck out of me! See exhibit A to your left. There are 2 of them and they're huge, purple/red, itchy, and painful. Check out the swelling and redness of the remainder of the foot. I've always prided myself on the fact that I never had cankles, which is probably why I'm sporting just one now. At first, I thought it was a mosquito bite, but then it started acting like a mosquito bite on crack! I've never had an itch that bad in my life. I called a Nurse Practitioner friend of mine on Monday night because I started to worry a little about the swelling and redness and she told me to watch it and if it got worse in the next 24 hours to head to the doctor. I still wasn't worried enough to go, when I found this one on my arm. And when I woke up this morning it had stuff coming out of it. Whenever "stuff" is involved, I head straight to the doctor. So in I went, and when I lifted up my pant leg to show the nurse, she gasped and jumped back a little. Granted, it was her first day on the job. She said "it looks like you got bit by an animal and not a bug." Yes it does, sister.

My trusty PA, Todd, came in and took a lookey and saw fang marks on the one on my arm, so that is definitely from a spider, but he couldn't see fangs on the foot. He's guessing the bites are from the same source. All three are infected, which explains the redess/hotness/itchiness/pain, so he hooked me up with the antibiotics and an ointment of some sort. While we're on the subject of "ointment," I just have to mention that the word is on my top 10 list of words I don't like, along with "moist."

I'll keep you, my loyal readers, abreast of my healing progress - if you're not too grossed out by the pictures. I need these wounds to be gone in 23 days, or I may look like a battered bride.

P.S. I am turning into my grandmother. She liked to take pictures of everyone's scars/incisions/bumps/bruises/surgeries etc. and show everyone who came to her house. Luckily for Grandpa, she decided she didn't need pictures of his prostate surgery. She also kept track of everyone's menstrual cycles on her calendar that hung in the kitchen. May she rest in peace.

Line upon Line

Barfing. At. My. Desk.

http://www.lineuponlinecards.com/

The line needed to be drawn a lot further away from this.

I'm popular!

Or at least my name is. I followed a link from my friend Chrstine's blog about how popular your name is and how many other people have it. Statistically, Jennifer is the 21st most popular name in the United States. Of the 1,420,869 people in the US who are named Jennifer, 99.9% are female. Who are these 1,420.9 men named Jennifer, and more importantly, what is wrong with their parents? There are 185 people in the US with my full name - I know for a fact that one of them is a shoe designer. I saw her stuff come up on Google when I searched under my name. I wonder if she is related to Steve Madden. Madden is statistically the 888th most popular last name in the US. Lambert, on the other hand, is statistically the 289th most popular name in the US. 112, 816 people in the US have that last name - most of which are probably made up of my fiance and his siblings ;) Speaking of my fiance, we're getting married in 1 month from today! Let the final countdown begin.

As an update on the cleaning lady, I threw out a banana that was way too ripe for my taste on Friday before I left work. When I came in on Monday, the banana had been taken out of the trash can and placed on my desk. Did she think it accidentally fell off my desk and then hooked 90 degrees to land in the trash can? I am of the opinion that, regardless of personal taste on ripeness of fruit, if it's in the trash can it should be left there. I took the banana into the break room, wrapped it in paper towels, and threw it away in there so that she wouldn't take it out again. I'm so including "not sifting through trash" in my note when I write it... and I'm so close to writing it.

BTW - the banana I threw away looked pretty much like the ones in the picture above.

Point it at Jen, she's hot!

This blog post is going to be kind of a random one. I was at the post office today, when the fire alarm went off and they evacuated the building. It turned out to be a false alarm and they told us we could go back in, and since I needed some stamps pronto, I went back in. Later on I was reading an article on men's fashion (so I can have some ammunition to convince Rob to get rid of the pleated-front pants), and there was a poll in the article of what kind of man in uniform most women like. Firefighter won by a huge margin. I agree that firemen are pretty smokin', no pun intended. So, those two things led me to this blog post.

Back in '98, I was living in the Regency Apartments, just south of BYU campus. It was a Friday night and I was in a lame mood, so I decided to go to bed early. My roommate, Liz, had done the same thing. I had been in bed for probably 2 hours when I heard my bedroom door fly open and smelled something smokey. I bolted up in bed and saw the most surreal image I've ever seen. Silhouetted in the dark, smokey doorway was a huge firefighter in full garb. I honestly thought I was dreaming and that it was the best dream I'd ever had in my life. What girl hasn't dreamt that a firefighter just busted into her bedroom? Anyhoo... I was really groggy and couldn't quite understand what he was saying to me, so he walked closer to me and started to pull me out of my bed. As he was shoving me out into the smokey hallway, he asked me if there was anyone else in the house. I told him that my roommate was asleep in the back bedroom. He told me that our apartment was on fire and that I needed to wake my roommate up. I went back to Liz's room and started shaking her to wake her up. She yelled and hit me, and so the fireman had to come in and get her.

He led us through the smoke-filled kitchen and out the door, where we saw our entire apartment complex staring at us, including our other roommates. The firefighters went back in and started poking around and our roommates filled us in on the situation. They came home and saw smoke coming out of the windows and front door, so they called 911. They didn't know we were home. After a while, this lady firefighter came out and told us it was safe to go back in. It smelled really bad in there, but it was pretty obvious that there hadn't been a fire. The lady started to explain to us that the motor in the furnace had blown out and just caused a lot of smoke to be blown through the vents. Since Liz and I had our doors and vents closed, we didn't smell anything. I guess the fire lady felt like she needed to explain to us how they deduced that there was no fire, so she whipped out her heat sensor and started showing us how they checked all of the walls to make sure the wiring hadn't caught on fire. Nothing happened when she pointed it at the walls. But then she pointed it it a light bulb and the sensor started going crazy with beeping. Liz was still totally asleep, but she said to the lady, "point it at Jen, she's hot." Fire lady didn't think that was funny. Crickets.

After fire lady showed us that every nook and cranny in the apartment was safe, they left and we all went to bed. What is the moral of this story? There isn't one... except that firemen are hot. And apparently, so am I.

P.S. I wouldn't recommend doing an image search for firemen on Google. And especially don't do it at work while people are walking past your desk. The only ones decent enough to post were old man firefighters and children dressed up like firemen.

The cup is either half empty or half full

I'm getting married in 36 days, but that's not what I want to talk about. Back a few posts, I talked about the awesome cleaning lady that came to the house and cleaned up after the roomie got married and moved to Germany. Well, said cleaning lady cleans the office I work at. She's really thorough, and by thorough I mean that she cleans everything on our desks... even things you do not want her to clean. I thought someone was playing an office prank on me by cleaning up the dust bunnies behind my monitor, making my calendar crooked, organizing my pens and papers, and taking my cup off of the desk, washing it and then placing it in the office kitchen cupboard. I thought I was going insane because I would leave my cup on the desk and the next morning it would be in the kitchen ,and since I didn't remember putting it in there, I thought I was for sure losing it. I finally figured out that my desk wasn't the only one that was cleaned/messed with. It was the cleaning lady who was taking my cup back to the kitchen and washing it. Darn her and her niceness!!!

So I thought I'd be OK with her washing the cup, but then one day I came in and my bran muffin from the Provo Bakery, which I had purposely saved in a paper bag from the day before, was gone! Oh, the humanity! I marched right into my boss's office and told her of the crime that had been committed and she said she would leave the cleaning lady a note.

Well, now the cleaning lady doesn't even touch my desk. I left my nail clippers next to my mouse pad, a half empty 32 oz. cup of Diet Dr. Pepper from Maverick, a bunch of papers scattered around, and my beloved turquoise cup sitting on the desk and she didn't do anything. She could have at least put the nail clippers in my drawer and threw away the flat Diet DP Maverick cup. Gosh, I just wanted my turquoise cup to be left alone, and now I'm being neglected altogether.

Maybe I should leave her a nice note that says, "Dear Theresa, " (yes, I know her first name), "Thank you for your thoroughness at cleaning the office. You have somehow managed to rid the office of an unknown stench that has been present since I started working here. You also do a marvelous job at dusting behind the monitors. I appreciate your hard work in keeping the bathroom mold-free. I have a few requests... can you please replace the soap in the bathroom with something like Sweet Pea scented anti-bacterial moisturizing hand soap from Bath & Body Works? They're on sale 5 for $15 right now. Also, I would really appreciate it if you would clean my desk, but please keep your paws off my bran muffins and my turquoise cup. Nail clippers and 32oz. half-empty Maverick cups are not on the exception list. Yours truly, JMadd."

I guess one can't have their cake and eat it, too. But I'm still thinking about writing her that note.

Living Alone

I was reading an article on MSN by the girl who plays Kelly Kapoor on "The Office" this morning and it was about living alone. You can check it out here if you want to: http://lifestyle.msn.com/your-life/bigger-picture/articlemc.aspx?cp-documentid=9128041&GT1=32001. I thought that I could blog about living alone, since I feel like I've been living alone pretty much this whole summer, and will live alone for 3 weeks before Rob and I enter into nuptual bliss. I need to emphasize that, although I am moving into the condo currently occupied by Rob, he and I will not be co-habitating during the 3 weeks that I will be living there before the wedding. There seems to be a lot of confusion surrounding that, so I thought I'd clear it up once and for all!

So, Mindy, aka Kelly Kapoor, says that she got so scared one night in her bed that she actually wet the bed. If she had been living with someone, maybe she wouldn't have been so scared and then wouldn't have wet her bed. I say that it was good that she was alone, so that no one would have to know that she peed in bed. Once, I had a dream that I was going to the bathroom, only to wake up and realize that I was really going to the bathroom... in my bed. Trying to explain to my roommate why I was changing my sheets in the middle of the night was embarrassing.

While we're on the theme of potty talk, living alone has its advantages when you run out of toilet paper or forget to bring a towel into the bathroom with you. You can streak to the hall closet without anyone else seeing you... unless, of course, your roommate left the blinds wide open in her bedroom and you run past the window. True story.

Sometimes I get scared while I'm in the house alone. I have this internal dialogue every night before I go to bed on whether I should sleep with my bedroom door open or shut. If I leave it shut, I might not be able to hear someone breaking into the house, and therefore, would not be able to hide somewhere or call 911 in time. On the flip side, If I leave the door open I would be more vulnerable to a possible attack if they sneak into my bedroom. If the door were shut I could have time to grab a high-heeled boot or nail clippers to defend myself before they open the door. I really do think about this every night.

I can be as sloppy as I want to be when I'm by myself. I don't have to do my dishes until I run out of clean ones. I don't have to pick my hair up off the bathroom counter if I don't want to, I can leave my shoes wherever I want to, and I can leave the shampoo bottle I dropped in the shower just sitting on the floor of the tub until I want to bend over and get it. And then I hear my mother's voice in my head, saying things like, "cleanliness is next to Godliness," and "the Spirit cannot dwell in unclean places," and "always wear nice underwear, even though no one is going to see it, because you just never know." I'm beginning to wonder why I even bother with the nice underwear thing, because no one has seen my underpants. But I keep hearing "you just never know...."

Another thing about living alone is that I can take my sweet time in the shower, and I can even sing Umbrella as loud as I want to while I am lathering, rinsing and repeating. I could never sing Umbrella in anyone else's presence because it is just embarrasing... "You can stand under my umbrella, ella, ella, eh, eh, eh, under my umbrella...."

And even better than singing, I can watch all sorts of socially unacceptable things on TV, like Ice Road Truckers, Dawg the Bounty Hunter, My Super Sweet Sixteen, Hanna Montana, and Rob and Big.

I also become suspicious of everyone and everything when I am living alone. One might say I become paranoid. The recluse neighbor suddenly becomes a creepy old man, a la Ted Kaczynski, who makes bombs and is getting ready to blow something up. Ice dropping in the ice maker is someone trying to break in through the sliding glass door, and my Jack Bauer alarm clock is really Jack Bauer, in my house, about to torture me with the frayed ends of a lamp cord. Scary!

Am I going to miss living alone? Probably not. I might miss Ice Road Truckers, but I'll get over it when I roll over in bed at night and see a 6'2", 225 lb (I hope he's not sensitive about anyone knowing his weight) man who could crush any intruders with a swift kick to the groin area in .5 seconds flat. I'm gonna love that part.

Not hard to believe!

What is this world coming to?

Chlorinated Chicken???

I read an article today that talked about European sanctions on chlorinated chicken imported form the US. Um, what? I didn't know that chicken was chlorinated. The article stated that the sanctions aren't so much about the safety of the chicken, but more about the taste. In a taste test group, chlorinated chicken and non-chlorinated chicken taste the same initially, but once re-heated the chlorinated chicken has a more "re-heated" taste. So if this isn't grossing you out enough already, the article then talked about why and how chicken is chlorinated. Back in the 1990's when there were a lot of e. Coli breakouts, the FDA decided that after killing, plucking, and gutting the chickens that they should be soaked in big vats of freezing cold water mized with chlorine to keep bacteria from growing or cross-contamination.

So, this entire week I have been smelling chlorine whenever I turn on the shower or the bathroom sink. At first I thought that my roommate cleaned with bleach, but that smell should go away after a day at the most. I grew up in LA and smelling a little chlorine in the water was par for the course, but this water smelled like someone dumped a bottle.. nay, several bottles... of Clorox into the water supply. Other than it smelling bad, I didn't think anything about bathing in it or drinking until I read this statement from the above mentioned article:

"That distinctive pool smell usually attributed to chlorine is actually produced by the combination of chlorine and perspiration, body oils, and urine."

Gag me with a spoon!!! Urine??? Needless to say, I'm pretty sicked out.

I guess it brings a whole new meaning to "European."