I want you to meet Lynda. She is one of the bloggy friends that I’ve known for quite a while. She is a wonderful woman, that happens to be from Dutch descent, living in the US. Most of you will know her, some may not (but you should, she’s great). I got to meet her at ConFab in June ánd she had me talk (in Dutch!) to her Mom on the phone while we were there. She and her family have been through a lot in the past years. Worst definitely being the loss of her sister, their daughter and Mommy in 2005. She died from non-smoking related lungcancer at only 25 years old. You can read more about Laurianne’s story HERE.

Now for the part where you come in and why I am telling you: Laurianne walked in Relay for Life herself in 2005. In her memory Lynda walked the 2006, 2007 and 2008 Relay’s for Life and this year, 2009, she is going to sink her teeth (or rather her feet) into it again. She needs to raise money for that. Her goal is US$ 2,500 and well… she is still over US$ 2,000 dollars from her goal…

and Relay for Life is SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 12. That’s next WEEK!!!

So I am making a plea to all of you to help her reach her goal. If you can donate, please go over HERE and do so. And if you can’t donate (of course also if you can) you can help her by spreading the word. Mention it on your blog, your Facebook, your Twitter, Stumble it, Digg it, tell your family, tell your friends, tell your colleagues. Whatever you can to help her.

I would realllyyyy appreciate if you can help out. That’s what friends are for, right? * SMOOCH *

Dave and I during happier times.

Those of you who attended ConFab, Baby! back in June may remember Dave.

Dave is a karaoke regular at Southland.  He’s the guy who sings like he’s making a hostage tape.

He’s also just about the most annoying little cocksucker I have ever come across.  And I have come across a great many annoying little cocksuckers in my travels.

He is excruciatingly socially awkward.  He is needy.  He is clingy. He has the attention span of a housefly whacked out on crystal meth and Red Bull.

He used to think we were best buddies.  Every week he would text me during the week to make sure we were going to be at Southland.  He would always mention how much he values Turnbaby and I as friends.  We fended off several invitations to dinner.  I think he envisioned being the Robin to my Batman.  And I’m not even Batman.  At best I am Die Fledermaus.

Now, I am a nice guy.  No, really.  So I put up with Dave’s antics.  There were times when his idiocy amused me.  He would have made a great court jester back in the day.

But ultimately he was a pebble in my shoe.  A fly in my ointment.  A turd in my punchbowl.

I finally reached my limit last month.  There was a festival downtown that Turnbaby and I were going to be at.  Dave and Holly were also attending, and he made it clear that they wanted to hang out with us.  We wanted no part of that.  Even if I had, Turnbaby would have put the kibosh on it.  She hates Dave with that special brand of loathing that one usually saves for child molesters or mimes.

We managed to avoid them during the festival.  I ignored his texts.  I ignored his phone calls.  Eventually we ducked into a new Irish bar we had wanted to check out and we relaxed with a beer or two.

Finally I answered one his calls.  I pretended that I was falling down drunk.  It’s a role I’ve played to much acclaim over the years.  For once, I was the difficult one to talk to.  He couldn’t get off the phone fast enough.

Finally, some peace!

Well, for a few hours.  Then he sent a couple of texts asking me if we got home okay and if we were going to Southland on Friday.  I ignored them.

The next day was Sunday, and we were enjoying a nice peaceful day at home when the texts started again.  I finally snapped.   I saved some of the texts for your reading pleasure.  I have reproduced his just as he typed them.  My responses are in bold.

Did you guys make it home okay last night?  And also are you and (Turnbaby) going to southland on firday?  It will be good to see you.

Did you guys make it home ok yesterday?

We are fine. Don’t know about Sunday.

Can I give a ring?

No. Stop calling.

Your not mad at us are you?

If you are mad can I ask what we did?

I thought you were friends but I will take your number out of my phone and holly and will never again step foot in southland so why are u mad at us?

Can you tell me what the heck is going on I have to know what is going on

If you would can u call me we need to talk

Stop being a posessive psychotic little bitch. And stop fucking up my quiet Sunday.

Don’t worry I will never again show my face at southland I guess you was never are friends people at southland good I never fucked your sunday who said it

And with that text, I never heard from him again.  He has not been back to Southland, at least on Fridays when we go.  Karaoke is fun again.  I didn’t realize just how much of a drain he was on my psyche until he was gone.

What causes a 40 year old man to act like a 15 year old girl whose boyfriend is breaking up with her?  Have you ever seen such a thing?  It was bizarre.

By the way, he’s also a gun nut.  So if I am ever found dead outside a karaoke bar with a 9mm hollowpoint slug imbedded in the back of my head, you’ll know who did it.

Not a bad way to go.

Wooden shoes are meant for CLOGDANCING! And yes, when I give a gift I DO provide “after care” when needed. So here goes. The instructions. Pay attention my dear Fab and Turnbaby. Practise, practise, practise. Then make a video of the 2 of you clogdancing and hand it over to me to post it!!! (everybody say “YEAH”)

Clog dancing

Step 1
Stand flat footed in a circle or square. Clogging can be done with a partner or by yourself.
Step 2
Take one step to the side with your right foot.
Step 3
Do a ball change with your left foot, transferring your weight from right to left to right and lifting your right foot off the ground in the process.
Step 4
Kick out with your left foot brushing forward and back.
Step 5
Bring your left foot back and do a ball change and brush. Brush with your right foot.
Step 6
Repeat this process until you are doing step, ball, change, brush, brush in rhythm to the music and with alternating feet. Stay in one place and clog until you get the rhythm and master the changing of your feet.
Step 7
Move forward, and then to the right and to the left with the rest of your circle or square. This can also be done in a large line around a room

So there ya go… I can’t wait for the brandnew upcoming video, soon on a blog near you, “Fab and Turn go clogging”. Can you? I know! Right?

Clog Out!

* * *

If you have a minute to spare, please go over HERE and give Mah Girl some moral support. She could do with some. Life is not exactly a breeze for her right now.

I was just getting over the last slithers of jetlag,  when yesterday I had to host the annual day out of the dept, which meant “herding” 50-something people thru the city center of Leiden. We had arranged for a boat trip thru the Leiden canals, then a workshop in Black Jack and Poker -I unexpectedly rawked at BlackJack and expectedly sucked ass at Poker- and then a BBQ at a local restaurant. It was all relaxed and good and judging by the emails received by the organizing committee everyone had an awesome time.

My mind is still halfway, somewhere over the Atlantic, right now. I am still basking in the emotions and feelings of ConFab, Baby! And yes, I know that the ones of you that were not there are probably getting sick of it right now but it was just a lot of fun. There are really no words to describe how awesome it was to meet up with everyone. I am still bouncing around on all those wonderful times that we had. I miss you all and some of you fiercely, fiercely, fiiieercely! I went over there with a lot of anticipation and came back with a heart filled with wonderful emotions of all the people I met, with joy on getting the opportunity to come over and meet you, with all the wonderful bloggers I hugged, laughed with, drank with, had fun with.  It was great to meet you and you are all SO welcome to visit me in Dutchyland anytime! If you ever have plans to come over here, let me know!

Me is a happy girl for having gotten to go on what has turned out to be one of the most wonderful trips of a life time, and all thanks to Brad and Turnbaby! I love you guys! And I miss you like cuh-razy!

OK, that’s it! I am coming back over there RIGHT NOW! Someone call The Chief and tell him I won’t be back in the office. I am off to pick up The Kid and catch the next plane out of here!

I wish… Sigh…

It’s back to life, normal regular life, but with a lot of new memories, great memories of all of you! and you! and you! and you!

Now I need coffee… loads of it…

Right now I am…

Happy, very happy, feeling awesome for getting to have such a great weekend, but tired. I will be back posting within the next few days when I get back in to the swing of things here…

Latah bitches!

I got up pretty early, as my brain is still halfway Dutch and US time. When I got downstairs Brad was sitting at the kitchen table and Turnbaby was off for a run to the grocery store. After she came back Brad went off to get Shelli and Turnbaby and I explored the wonders of the new coffeemaker in their kitchen. Hmmm, coffee!

After making potatosalad (Guys, if you find blood in there tonight, it’s mine, I bled for you making you food!) and getting showered and dressed, the next of the “posse” arrived: Karl, Kyra and Mah Girl Jill!!!  Jill and myself pretty much squeezed the life out of eachother after not seeing eachother for over 10 months after she had to go back to Florida. I got to meet Karl and Kyra for the first time, and they are great. On his way back from picking up Shelli in Louisville, Brad swiped John from the local airport as well and they were the next to arrive. It was awesome meeting them too! We had lunch and right after that Soda and Lynda arrived. Another pair of wonderful blogger to meet.

After lunch Jill, Kyra, Karl, John, Kathy and myself went off to have a tattoo, but not after saying hello to Ginger and Janelle who were just arriving… As far as driving to the tattoo place is concerned: well, Jill, Kyra and Karl got there in one go. Let’s just say that it took Kathy, John and myself a tád longer to get there… Must’ve been the shitty instructions we kept getting… I mean, WTF? Just tell us WHAT side of the street it’s on already! And if you say you are going to stand outside the shop, be there! Just sayin’.. right? Kathy? John? We’re pretty sure we were being messed with just for a few cheap laughs… Pffff…

Then Mah Girl Jill ended up having the nail on her coffin tattooed over! Finally you cannot see the name that was on her boob anymore! A weight has been lifted off her shoulder boob! After the tattoo trip we came back to Bliss Manor to find that Coal Miner’s Daughter, Monique, and Laci had arrived and straight after that one after another kept coming in. I am sure I am missing people in my list and forgive me if I do (my head is pounding with Margarita punishment) like Sybil, Metalmom, Marty, Kim, Bubblewench and others. The place kept getting more and more filled up with wonderful bloggers. Britt, Hilly and Adam joined us and then, after pizza, it was off to Karaoke night!!!

I have to tell you… all the stories you’ve ever heard about Mr and Mrs Karaoke (a.k.a. Brad and Turnbaby) are true. They are awesome at it! Our hosts at Bliss Manor do a mean karaoke, bitches! We drank, had fun, talked, hugged, smooched, cried with Becky over the Penguins taking the cup (she honestly made me cry, the bitch!), some of us took a shot at karaoke (you couldn’t get me drunk enough to try so stop trying already) and we took tons and tons of pics. I forgot my camera but I am pretty sure I am in plenty of them on other people’s cams and I want them ALL! I also got to meet Shiny and Crystal at the bowling alley! At 1 a.m. it was time to go back to Bliss Manor and as, to my fucked up brain, by that time it was somewhere in between 1.30 and 7.30 a.m. I pretty much went up to bed as this morning I am off with Turnbaby to the Farmer’s Market to get all of you smoochies fresh veggies and fruit. Ya know… to get us back on track for the next round of Karaoke, BBQ and Jello Shots! Well, that is if the peeps sleeping in the basement haven’t gone thru them already by themselves.

I am looking forward to Dana, Geeky Tai-Tai arriving, hopefully Kapgar too, and I know that last night Nobody got to Lexington and I will get to see him (and Mrs Nobody of course)! I am having tons of fun, as are all the others. This is the by far already the awesomest trip I’ve ever made and all the ConFab people I’ve met so far are awesome.  A.W.E.S.O.M.E!

Anybody up for teaching me how to shoot pool by the way? I need something to do when everybody else is embarrasing themselves singing Karaoke at the Bliss Manor stage tonight! Seriously! Heh…

(and yes… I know the pics suck ass… I am really bad at keeping my camera with me at all times, but better pics will be showing up on Facebook and other blogs in the course of the day/week I am sure)

I made the HUGE mistake of coming to the office to print out my boarding pass and drop some stuff off. I thought I had made it out of the office failry “unharmed” until I ran into some people in the elevator that needed me for something (no, not like thát, I am nót the local elevator slut, thank you very much). And it resulted in me rushing to the airport and straight to the boarding gate. At the gate (after almost completely undressing cos I kept making the security check alarm go off, sigh, I think they have a button and make it go off on purpose) I found myself sitting in between 4 business men, that at some point were all having their own private conversation with me and kept trying to get a word in in eachother’s conversations. I was glad when we could finally really actually board, as keeping up with 4 conversations at one time is kinda exhausting. I was one of the first in the plane and had a whole row of seats to mahself! Yay! There was only 51 people on board on the whole Boeing 757. They actually almost canceled the flight. I will tell ya, the airport wouldn’t have been able to stand the racket I would’ve made had it been canceled. I mean, come on man!, it’s ConFab, Baby!

The flight was fairly uneventful: I slept a bit, I watched 2 movies (Defiance, wow! and Taken, cool!), and I read my book… and at some point was stupid enough to break the seal and make about a kazillion trips to the bathroom… But other than that it was alright. Airline staff was enjoyable (well, yeah, if you only have 51 people to take care of, how grumpy are you gonna be, right?). We landed on schedule and then I had to go thru the security check. The security guard kept smiling at me with his big brown eyes and I just “politely” smiled back… ok, I might have put a girlie look in there too.. and I got thru security faster than I ever have before… and was moved on to Agricultural check… sigh… they went thru my whole fucking luggage… but I was able to bribe them by giving them part of my pot stash and get thru that one quickly too… and then… I got thru the security check gate, went down to the terminal and…

There was Turnbaby!!! I cannot tell you how good it was to see her! I think we squished eachother for a few mins. The bruises on there, this time round, are not inflicted upon her by Brad. They’re from hugging at the airport. It was wonderful to finally be here and say hello. We went up the stairs to find Brad, who was in the bagage claim area hugging his cell phone. I walked up to Brad, was toootally squished (bruises… Brad’s fault), then lifted into the air, put back down again and smothered, heh… My longtime bloggy friend, my ex-bliancée, Liz’ great hubbie!

We went off downtown where Turnbaby had to attend a convention for about an hour. We sat down in the bar next to the hotel and there it was where I had my first virgin experience: Fried Pickles… Lemmejustsay…. umm… “special”… Who the hell fries pickles! We ordered some snacks and then talked and talked and joked and talked. Until Turnbaby had to go off do important stuff and Brad and myself ordered Top shelf Margarita’s from the cute waiter, who touched my arm when walking off to get them… Brad and I armwrestled to see who had dibs on the waiter and of course I won. We then, while sipping our 2nd Margarita, tried to establish the waiter’s age as I felt he was waaaay too young for me… Of course, tho Brad will tell you otherwise, I won that challenge too… Funny thing tho, that I have noticed about Kentucky? Once you give a man a compliment he is done with you and he starts trying to get rid of ya. Turnbaby returned from her task at the convention (where she had been nicely surprised by the rest of her peeps not showing up and a folder with instructions being left for her, ahem..), we finished our drinks and drove our asses over to Bliss Manor.

I finally was able to get out my gifts that I brought, amongst which Turnbaby’s own special pair of Dutch wooden shoes to match Brad’s that I got him a few years ago. I took my stuff upstairs and just before I did so Becky called that she was almost in Lexington and informing us the Orlando Posse, Britt, Hilly and Adam, had arrived as well. We quickly freshened up and changed and went out to meet up with them for a quick drink. So I already met up with them last night! Granted… by that time to me it felt like 3.30 a.m. and I was starting to get a bit hazy at that point (OK, I started violently crashing, shaddup). But it was great to finally meet them. We went home and I laid my ass to sleep. I think I was off the moment my head hit the wonderfully soft Bliss Manor pillow. It’s now 3.30 a.m. and I will be laying my ass back to sleep for another few hours. I can’t wait for the next people to get into town: Mah girl Jill, Karl, John and Kyra!!! And after that in the p.m. one after another will be arriving at the house…

Fun fun fun fun fun!!! FUN!

To be continued… now I am off for some more hours of sle… *zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz*

Liz and Brad ! I am SO psyched that in about half a day I will be able to hug and be hugged by you! I can hardly wait to see you guys and be at your place for a few days.

All the people coming over to ConFab, Baby! I can’t wait to see you either! Like.. DUH! It’s going to be so much fun! And to all the people that can’t be there, I am so bummed I won’t get to see you, but I hope I will someday.

See you on the flip side! I will be bringing my tiny Vaio and I already have dibs on the Bliss Manor internet connection, so you will surely be hearing from me during my stay in the U S of A!

* KUSJE ! *

(kiss)

It’s a bank holiday in Dutchyland today. And now, don’t go asking me “how many bank holidays does that country of yours in the hell have?!”. We really don’t have that many, it’s just that we have a few fairly consecutive ones in this time of year due to Easter and such. And truth be told: weeks like this fuck me the hell up. There’s less time in the office -which in itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing- but it fucks with my schedules, with still having to finish the same workload in shorter weeks… and well, it’s just fucking with my daily rythm… Don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining about having a day off here and there… I am just really bad at this time of year with those weeks that loose all their rythm and consistency… at least that is what it feels like to me… I am a creature of habit and regularity, I learn that about myself more and more…

And the fun is not done yet: this is a shorter week due to Bank holiday today, and next week I will only be in the office for 2.5 days as…. on Thursdaymorning June 11 my arse will be on a plane to ConFab, Baby!!! Now if thát is not going to fuck with my regularity, rythm and biological clock, I don’t know what is: travelling, jetlag, long days, short nights, booze, avoiding the karaoke stage, and loads and loads of friends! Oh well, that will be worth every second of coming home on Monday June 15 totally fucked up, right? Oh, and did I tell you the day after I come back is the annual day out of the department? And that I am in the committee organizing the event? Yah… like that…

Anyway: there will be some working from home today I think, and some R&R as my body is not cooperating with me (now that it is being switched from one asthmatic bronchitis med to another), soaking up some rays of sun and hopefully later today working through that bitch of a skyrocketing feed reader. Or I may not… and just click “mark all as read”.. jury is still out on that…I might be more tempted to sleep off a bit of the bronchitis hickups and feverish bouts…

Hope you all have a great day! I know it’s Monday, but I will be thinking of you all, I promise, and send good vibes to get you thru the day! Trust me! I am good like that.

* * *

P.S. just one question for the day tho… HOW THE HELL DID IT BECOME JUNE!? I mean, sheesh! I blink my eyes for just a few secs and wham! It was February just a few weeks ago, wasn’t it?