Sore feet, chewed gum
This past weekend, the kar-a-tay school did a series of demos at a local kids fest thing downtown. The first demo of the day was around 9 a.m. It wasn't too bad. It was indoors...air-conditioning...padded floor for the feet. The second one, around 11 a.m., was a bit uncomfortable...outside, no a/c, red-brick under the footsies. The third demo was excrutiating.

We took to the stage, or should I say, we stepped into the frying pan around noon. By this time, the blistering hot sun had baked us all into our do-boks (i.e., karate pajamas). It wouldn't have been so unbearable, except that while it was baking our finely tuned karate machine bodies, it was also baking the red-bricks we performed on. The only thing that could have made it more painful, would have been if I'd applied cooking oil to the soles of my feet.

The nerves in my feet were fried beyond their ability to accurately register information. When the torture session had finally ended, I hobbled over to my belongings to insert my crispy feet into the safety of my tennis shoes. Lo-and-behold, what did I find? At some point, I had stepped in a wad of discarded, chewed gum. I stepped in chewed gum in my bare feet and my nerves were so shot they could not send the signal of "GROSS!" to my pain-racked brain. Not only had my feet been forced to suffer the indignity of standing on red-hot bricks, but they also had been made to bear the weight of bacteria ridden chewing gum.

A crappy day
My dog died yesterday. I found her curled up by the fence at about 7:45 p.m. At around 8 p.m. last night, my honey was out in our dust bowl of a backyard trying to jackhammer out a burial spot for our dearly departed Slammie-girl.

While the man attempted to hack out a grave, I was inside trying to console myself by doing some busy work with the kiddies. I put the 22 month old on the pottie, so she could pretend to make poopie while unrolling an entire roll of toilet paper.

Since I had the toddler trapped on the toliet, I made my way to the kitchen table to put the eight-year-old to work on his styrofoam model of the solar system. I had him just about ready to go to work on his own, when I hear the "no potty" call from the toddler. I went to unravel her from her toilet paper wrapping.

Since pottie time was finished, I stripped her down to put her in the tub and then started running her bath water. I didn't think I needed to wrap a diaper on her only to take it off in less than five minutes. So, the naked toddler and I went to finalize things in the kitchen so the boy could work while I bathed her.

The boy and I are standing facing the kitchen table with the toddler tooling around behind us. We hear the sickening sound of a splat which could not be mistaken for anything other than the sound of liquid poo hitting the floor. Yes, the toddler squirted diarrhea all over the kitchen floor and the backs of our legs. The toddler, intrigued by the sound behind her, is turning back and forth, trying to figure out what has happened. As she does this, the end of the blanket she always keeps in tow, is drug back and forth through the puddle of liquid poo. The eight-year-old doesn't help the situation. In between his screams of "gross, get it off," he makes dry heave sounds. I'm thinking "great." What could be better than cleaning up liquid poo? How about cleaning liquid poo and vomit?! Woo-hoo, sign me up!

My dog is dead. I have poo splatters on my leg. I'm standing beside an eight-year-old who's going to spew vomit all over me if I don't clean his legs off immediately. And, I'm about to hear a toddler's shrill, ear-drum-busting scream because I have taken away her beloved, poo ridden blanket. Life is good.

Is it really so difficult to say "no"?
I'm the content manager of my institution's homepage and "upper tier." I fondly think of myself as the "no" bitch. I see myself as the last line of defense the homepage has between being a functional portal to the rest of the website or being a confusing mass of random, meaningless links. When people ask to have stupid links placed on the homepage, I thank them for their suggestions and tell them "no." Unfortunatelty, a few people are able to overrule me and my otherwise content reign of power. "Upper Administration" or as I like to call them, the "non-thinkers," have the power to make me add links to the homepge that are useless to 99.999999999999999% of our users. A particular "non-thinker" at my institution believes that the homepage is actually her "personal favorites" page. I make my case to my immediate supervisors as to why we should explain to this non-thinker that the link she wants to add is a waste of precious real-estate. My plea always ends with me trying to figure out a way to add the useless link without completely screwing up my homepage. Why is it the lowly underling (i.e., me) is the only one who has the balls to say "no" to a bad idea?

Hobby Lobby sucks, but not as much
Hobby Lobby called wanting to know more about "the incident." I explained. They offered a free framing job. I declined. Told them I'd probably shop in the store again, but that I would never try to get anything framed at any Hobby Lobby ever again...not even for free. Just walking into the framing section would bring back memories of anger and insult.

Abs of Tang Soo Do
Karate was especially brutal last night. It was an ab burning night. My tummy is completed burned out after about 60 crunches. Sa Bum Nim was not even close to stopping at 60. The variety and the volume of crunches he makes us do is mind boggling at times. After crunches, it's on to forms and sparring.
For the record:
sore tummy = sucky form = crappy sparring.
(In all honesty, not all the crappy sparring can be attributed to sore tummy.)

Hobby Lobby Still Sucks
I hate Hobby Lobby more and more each passing day. I e-mailed the corporate customer service office, complaining about the local Hobby Lobby's lack of customer service and I haven't received my apology from them. Apparently they don't realize that I'm a valuable customer and if I don't get an apology I will never spend money in a Hobby Lobby ever again.

Hobby Lobby Sucks
I hate Hobby Lobby. I dropped-off a piece of cross-stitching to be framed several weeks ago. Four days after it was supposed to be framed, the rude people in the framing department called me to tell me they hadn't even ordered the frame yet. When I told them I needed it framed by June 5th (and not the June 10th they were telling me I could have it), the apathetic voice on the other end of the phone said, "What do you want me to do about it?" My response was "nothing, I'll be picking up my piece in about 15 minutes because I don't think I want to give you any more of my money." I promptly picked up my unframed piece of cross-stitching from the Hobby Lobby monsters and drove it over to the home-grown capitalists at the Elizabethean Gallery. God save the "mom-and-pop" businesses of this world. To hell with the evil, corporate "Hobby Lobbies" of this world!