SassyBlonde

Isn't it amazing how fast time goes when you have a deadline?

I was so tired last night that I slept right through my alarm. &^$#*@^$$! I've only got a rehearsal today, but I also have to put my house in a little better order-- Cello Chick is visiting from PA tomorrow and my bathroom is scary.

Anther rehearsal with the kids and hubby tonight and then more house cleaning. Y'all entertain yourselves until I can get around to the YouTube RoundUp tomorrow.

Seriously--

Whiskey.

Foxtrot.

My head is on fire at the moment. Apparently, for my thirtieth birthday the universe has decided to give me an overactive immune system-- I'm now allergic to every shampoo you can think of and almost as many make-up products.

I've spent the last three weeks trying to recover from various stages of lizard-face from trying new skincare regimens in order not to have every pore on my face (I mean this literally, unfortunately) erupt in the most painful breakouts I've ever experienced.

Lizard-face is not, by the way, a joke. If you felt an iguana's back and then felt my face right now, they would in fact feel remarkably similar. Or rather, I should say, identical to the skin of an orange. That is so incredibly disgusting.

And now my head has decided to get in on the act-- my entire scalp is broken out in tiny little super-painful zits. For fuck's sake, I only used my husband's generic organic grapefruit scented shampoo once.

Sexy. Very sexy. I am so not getting laid anytime soon.

I think that I shall never see
A poem as lovely as a tree

-Joyce Kilmer (1886–1918)

Especially when said tree was once a pest and is now lying in a bundle on the curb waiting for the mulch truck pickup on Thursday.

D and I spent all morning wreaking havoc on what we, ahem, fondly refer to as our "mulch pile" in the backyard-- basically the repository of four years of yard detritus. It was a five foot tall pile of leaves, grass clippings and large branches, a monument to our gardening laziness, safely out of sight behind the neighbor's fence. So well forgotten that small trees had grown up through it to about ten feet high. Now?? It's gone.

Happy happy, joy joy.

And now I have a potting corner, where there will shortly be a table and all manner of fun pots and accoutrements. I also have a place for a real compost heap once I rake out some of the leaves and grass clippings as well-- Aunt C would be proud. Yay!!!

I came home from hanging with Red to find that a lovely dove with beautiful aqua eyeliner has made a nest in the hanging basket by my back door. She sat still and quiet as I opened the door to come in the house, simply looking at me from one calm eye as I snapped a picture or twelve. One luminous egg underneath her as she shifted to better see me through the screen. Now what do I do? I have students coming and going through that door all day... any advice anyone? Can I move the basket if I don't touch the nest? Maybe to a planter hook down to the side of the porch? Oy vey.

UPDATE: Well, she's here to stay, folks. I can't move her basket and she seems utterly unperturbed by the comings and goings of our back porch. The Muse has named her Bella, and we have immense amounts of fun just looking out the screen door at her perched on her little nest.

This was my breakfast today (at least that almond croissant in the front was). I loves me some summertime farmer's market, man. All righty-- back to cleaning and press-kitting.

Jee-zus people... where did my week go? I've been home from Alabama for almost a week and I feel like I've got nothing done. D comes home from camp tomorrow and Red comes back from New York, so I'm soon to be sans dog and plus one husband and a lot of dirty laundry. Where the crap did all my time go? *grumble*

All right, must go scrub a toilet before heading off to Baltimore to visit Dr. Mudslide.

This morning's wake-up call came in the form of a bright red electrical burst. A little before 8 am, the incredibly huge tree behind my neighbor's house gave up the ghost, and let fly half its mass onto her roof. And the power lines.

This I took to be a sign from the gods that I should go to brunch with D, so we bought ice and moved the cars in case of a full collapse and headed to downtown Silver Spring, where I now sit typing to you at a poached Baja Fresh table. I can't be entirely peeved about the wake-up call because I got to go back to the farmer's market as well and get some lettuces and a beautiful loaf of bread.

Soooo... the agenda today has abruptly changed from website maintenance to... yard work? K bye.

Summer days driftin' away, to uh-oh those summer nights...

Uh well-a well-a well-a huh
Tell me more, tell me more
Was it love at first sight?
Tell me more, tell me more...

Sometimes there are days where you wonder how you haven't sprained your jaw from its enormous amount of drop-down momentum. Seriously.

The Muse decided to hang with us tonight for dinner and meet her ex for happy hour beforehand. All was going swimmingly until she received a series of phone calls from him in which he first ran a red light, then got pulled over, and then the coup de grace: a call from his phone by an officer informing her that her erstwhile date was being arrested at that very moment and would not me making his appointment with her. Eventually he called her back to relate the details and we were all rolling:

Apparently in DC you can be arrested for having false information on your license, such as an incorrect address, and so he was. When they stopped him for make the collar, he was so savvy that he got the arresting officer to call the Muse and let her know he wasn't standing her up. He was, in fact, so good that as they put him in the car the police officer said :You know, you have a great way with people. We're hiring, by the way,"

Holy insane application process, Batman.

Can you imagine? Filling out your application: How did you hear about us? Well, when I was being arrested last week...

For the full scoop, visit The Muse's blog.

In other news, did you know that in downtown Silver Spring it is apparently common practice to walk into some stranger's yard in broad daylight and start picking their produce? Yeah, neither did I, but today I witnessed it firsthand: some random woman parked her car on the street, strolled right into my yard, and started picking my figs. And this tree is not on the edge of the yard-- she had to walk all the way across the yard and around an in between our cars to the neighbor's fence line to get in on this action. Seriously, in the South you can get shot for that sort of thing, easy. As it was, she seemed totally surprised when my husband and I walked out to confront her and completely baffled as to why I was pissed off. I think I may have found the woman who stole my tomatoes last year. And D wonders why I keep saying I want a fence.

Here's hoping tomorrow will be a little more normal.

I finally got a basket full of those beautiful figs yesterday which have so tempted passersby on my street for the past week, so I decided to make fig preserves last night. I dug out my grandmother's recipe and set about cutting figs and lemons, and cooked up a right tasty batch. This morning I ran out to get jars and unearthed my mom's boiling pot to process the jars.

Now, if you've never used a boiling process pot before, it's a huge pot which you fill with water to boil the jam jars and kill the germs, as well as seal the lids. When I say huge, I mean HUGE. It took me about ten minutes to fill it up with hot tap water, and when I turned away from the sink I didn't notice that the faucet had gotten turned around to pour water on the counter instead of in the sink. I didn't even notice until I heard it splattering to the floor off of the counter top, at which point there was about a quarter-inch of water pooled up there from the sink all the way over to the oven and water was running across my kitchen tile like a river. I didn't know what to do first-- turn off the water, turn off the jam, put in the jars, who knows. D ran in when I called with an armload of towels and we mopped furiously at the floors and counters until we were both soaked and exhausted.

And for all my troubles? Three tiny jars. Poop.

Mmmmm-hmmm. Pulled pork barbecue and peach sangria on the last weekend of functional summer have become a tradition around here, so I'm going to spend the rest of the day stuffing my face and drinking myself silly with my friends and family. With that, I'll leave you a sure-fire recipe for happiness:

Secret Peach Sangria
Two bottle of good Chardonnay
One half-gallon of orange juice
Two 12-ounce cans of apricot nectar
16 oz good quality triple sec (is there such a thing?)
8 oz good vodka
Sliced peaches or nectarines

Combine all above ingredients in large (LARGE, mind you) glass container or pitcher, stir and chill. Best made the day before and chilled overnight. Enjoy!!!

*And yes, in fact, as lots of you have asked, this is my own recipe. Enjoy!!

I think the Powers That Be are trying to tell me something. So far, in the course of the last week, I have broken my toe, broken my sewing machine, run a tight schedule of finishing a bridesmaid's dress, and as of today, the luck (or lack thereof) continues.

This morning I woke up a little late and scurried around, taping my toe, showering, and getting generally ready to go to my show in less than thirty minutes. Until I got around to packing up my sax for the show. Or should I say, my friend's sax. (Mine had to be taken to the shop, because it was leaking. See what I'm already up against?) My mouthpiece was nowhere to be found. Remember when I lost my keys before I left for a matinee that time? Same deal.

No. Fucking. Where.

Sooooooo, I ran out to the two-blocks-away-music-store-that-is-a-major-danger-to-my-wallet and proceeded to quick pick a new mouthpiece, new ligature, and high-tail it out of there, but not before I saw one of my favorite colleagues, who I respect and revere and love playing next to.

Did I mention I didn't have time to put on any makeup of fix my hair, thinking I would do it in the car on the way to the theater? And that I threw on my black yoga pants and a tee-shirt (read: looking a little sloppy) and forgot to lint-roll myself (read: now sloppy while earing the visual equivalent of fourteen cats)? Right-o.

She was really nice and polite, and I was obviously freaking out, so I got the hell out of there as fast as I could (thanks, Annelisa-- you rock) and back in my car to get on the road.

But wait, we're not done here. It gets better.

About ten feet before the toll plaza I realized that I'd left my EZPass on the kitchen counter. And I had exactly $1.37 for a two-dollar toll.

Frak.

In short, by the time I got home from the show I was more than ready for beers with my buddy. (Shout-out-- did I mention tonight that I love you girl?)

I need a fucking vacation.

I just have to pause and say that husbands who come home from the store with Chocolove bars and flowers and gourmet toast points and cheese to rescue their wives from the practice dungeon are rockin' cool.

Now back to you regularly scheduled internet activities.

(This message has been brought to you by the letter D and the number two.)

In spite of having a great night last night, I'm sad again today, but for a different reason. My friend moved away this morning, to the other side of the country.

This isn't a shock-- we all knew and watched him go through the process of selling the house, packing up, cleaning out. We even dedicated our yearly neighborhood block party to him a couple of weeks ago, then helped him sort and stack and pack and move. And granted, he was here a couple of days longer than we thought we'd have him, so that was good. I said my goodbyes two days ago when he came down and bequeathed to me his garden supplies, scratched his intrepid canine companion (the best dog in the free world), and hugged him goodbye, so I was prepared. What I wasn't prepared for was how much I cried when I woke up this morning just in time to peek out my window and serendipitously see him drive his truck up the street and off into the wide world, away from here, with the world's best dog peeking out the passenger side window.

It's amazing how friends creep into your life in small silent ways. He was the first one to welcome us to the neighborhood here, and I could always count on seeing him when I was knee-deep in dirt wearing my floppy hat. I always knew if I had a question of problem with some esoteric plant or garden situation he would have an answer, or advice, or at least a laugh at my predicament. He would always stop and talk when he walked by, at the very least stopping for a minute so you could scratch the pup's ears before he moved on, and he never failed to ask and remember what was going on in your everyday life, whether you'd seen him every day or once in the past month. His friendship over the past four years grew to be an expected presence, and it makes me sad to think of going outside to dig without being greeted by a wet dog nose and a smile.

I know I shouldn't be sad, because he's off on a grand adventure across the country to be closer to family and other friends, bet let's face it... I'm selfish. So I'm going to go repot some plants on the potting bench he gave me, and cry, and wish for him an amazing trip, and hope I'll see him again.

People, I am DONE with the laundromat. Not only do I have to endure being hit on and cat-called, but apparently it's a gathering point for sickos as well. Why you wonder, do I say that? Because... (drum roll please)...

Today while I was there SOMEONE STOLE MY UNDERWEAR. I shit you not.

I had put all of my articles in the washers and went to go get change, leaving my delicates bag full of frilly unmentionables on top of one of them, and when I came back it was simply gone. Thinking I had lost my mind, I checked on, in, around, under, and behind the row as well as at the lost and found and in the washer in question (kind of like when I lost my keys), but it was simply gone. I was gone for, at most, three minutes. I thought, well, maybe I just stuck them in one of the other machines with something else, and I'll find them when I fold. Nope. Gone.

Seriously? My *&%!@# underwear? It's more amusing than anything, except that now I have to buy new bras, but seriously. That's just nasty.

It's gray and moody outside my window right now, and I'm sitting here fretting about having a root canal. At two o'clock I get to go in for torture (I say this, but I know my dentist is fantastic and it won't be) and then, joy of joys, I have to go to orchestra rehearsal tonight. Awesome.

Because playing Daphnis and Chloe isn't scary enough on its own, we're also playing Shostakovich 9. And I have had zero time to practice either part. And I will be drugged to the nines. And sitting next to (well, almost) a colleague who is convinced that he should have my job. Feh. Gonna be a great night, I can just tell.

I have the entire day off tomorrow. The entire day.

As of 7 a.m. tomorrow morning I have approximately thirty-six hours of unadulterated time off. I'm almost beside myself with the prospect. I've already decided there are certain things that are off-limits, including:

1. Job-type work of any sort (I swear to God, if my phone rings with Battlestar Galactica tomorrow I'm gonna kill him)
2. Cleaning (because that's what I've spent my off-days doing lately)
3. Cooking for my own subsistence (now, if I feel the need to cook, say, a rockin' chocolate cake, that's different)
4. Practicing because I have to (hey look, we all need a day to slack and if I feel like just toodling some Irish tunes on my lovely flute, then that doesn't count)

The weekend, dears, was fabulous. A little schadenfreude auction, a little five-star wine party, a little five-star concertizing, a few pairs of five-star designer shoes worn, but not so much on the practicing.

Have you ever had something you had to go do that you dread, I mean, really, really dread? Not just the Ick, I don't wanna kind, but the scrabbling with your fingernails, Must escape from the thing coming around the corner kind. Yeah, well, that's me today, and I'm counting minutes until that rehearsal is over at one o'clock. You'd better believe that at 1:30 there will be a beer in front of me somewhere.

Well, having survived the Twenty-Two Days of Christmas Tour, The Five Days of Parental Visitation, and the Two Days of Christmas Wrapping-and-Unwrapping, I am now left to ponder the state of my domicile, and it appears that I will eminently be embarking on the Seven Days of Cleaning.

For those of you who wondered, I think D did exactly as I hoped he would do while I was gone: go to work, come home, play internet poker, and clean up any messes he was responsible for. In fact, he did remarkably better than I had hoped-- there were, of course, piles of things everywhere, but except for a month's worth of dust, everything was relatively clean, and in most cases, cleaner than I left it. (W00T) The toilet, did not in fact have a talking bowl ring (thanks for that image go to Mike, from that period in the slum-lorded apartment where he lived in T-town when I met him years ago) and the refrigerator was not serving as a home for wayward life forms. Considering that these things sometimes happen even when I am home, I think he gets a gold medal.

Now, that being said, the house wasn't spotless when I left, so it's now my goal to get it spic-and-span before the students show back up in January. I'm so tired of having a cluttered house, and I have a lot of projects on the list that will make this house a hell-hole if it isn't clean when I start. (Paint cans stacked on stacks of old newspapers, quilts laid out on unwashed carpets... no thanks.)

A day off? What's that?

I've been struggling with how to post about this all night.

I can't tell you why, but at this moment I'm more lonely and sad and scared and angry than I've ever been in my whole life. I joked about my life being a big fruit-basket-turnover to some of my friends this past week, and that will teach me to tempt the Devil, I guess.

The upshot of this is that posting might be a little sparse for a while around here. When I can, I'll tell you why, but it may have to wait.

I would appreciate it greatly if you all would say a prayer for us over here at Chez Sassy tonight. As they say, there are no atheists in foxholes, and we need all the help we can get. Thanks much.

Well folks, it's been almost a month since my life got turned upside down, and I really feel like I owe you an explanation. Over here at Chez Sassy we're all in one piece, albeit a little worse for the wear and with a few more gray hairs. Thanks for your prayers and thoughts and good wishes from that last post and keep them coming. We may yet need them. I've got so much to say that I've been keeping close to the vest for so long, so I guess I should start at the beginning.

About a month ago, for reasons that I still can't really talk about here, D abruptly lost his job. Don't worry, no one's dying or dead or in jail, and no one did anything illegal or crazy or life-threatening. It simply was a decision whose time had come and had to be made quickly and unfortunately very very abruptly for the sake of everyone involved.

I know to a lot of you, this won't sound as catastrophic as I made it seem in that post, but there are a couple of factors you have to consider here:

1. Musicians don't come by steady jobs that easily, especially not ones with decent salaries.
2. Moreover, jobs with benefits are few and far-between, musician or not.
3. A cessation of said job means the cessation of both of the above perks.

Pretty much.

Oh dear God, save us from the germs that are invading.

So far this year I've been able to avoid the Death Flu, sinus infections and general sorts of colds, but there's always at least one occasion where I'm done in by my students every year, and buddy this is it. I love the fact that parents have no qualm about bringing a sneezing, hacking, snot-dripping kid to my house for their music lesson, even when it's clear the little snotlings can't breathe enough to play (hel-lo... wind instruments, much.) I turned two kids out early and sprayed the whole place in Lysol, but to no avail. By the time lessons were over Tuesday night I had a telltale tickle in my nose and I could tell things were about to go downhill. That'll teach me to declaim loudly about what I'm going to do on my day off, because Wednesday morning I woke up with a head full of wool, a fountaining nose, and headache and body aches that would fell a bear.

I don't think I've ever been less pleased to encounter a cold bug-- that day was supposed to be reserved for a day full of dirty, grounding yard work, and I had been looking forward to it for a good long time. Unfortunately, I spent half of it in bed and the other half of it in and out of my hammock, which was my place to rest in between bouts of weeding. My mind is a strange place-- I refused to let go of the idea that I was going to get something done in the yard, so there are now five neat rearranged rows of strawberries in my garden, lush and blooming and ready for the season.

Of course, my cold was less than pleased about that and I missed the show today because playing woodwinds with a Grade-A head cold is torturous if not dangerous and seriously unsexy, not to mention that I wasn't able to crawl out of bed before it was time to go, so they had to do without me today. I'm sure I'll catch hell for it when I go back, but I'll bake brownies or something I guess. Even if I had gone in then everybody else would have gotten sick and then I would really have been in the dog house.

Yeah, I know. Boo-hoo, poor me, I got to lay in the hammock yesterday and today (because seriously, listening to beginning trumpet players through germ-assaulted ear canals is about as appealing as poking myself in the eye with a fork, so I escaped outside to knit in the hammock again today) but it's not exactly an ideal situation. At least the strawberries are happy, and the garden's set up for planting. Now if I can just get the rest of the yard ship-shape before the Big Barbecue, then we'll be talking. There's no motivation like a little pig fat and two hundred of your closest friends examining your borders, right? And hopefully by Saturday I'll be able to play again so I can go back to the theater. Yeesh.

I need to leave this place. It's gotten to the point where I feel like a caged animal, looking for any and every opportunity to run from this city, temporary or permanent.

There are a lot of things I like about living here, but there are certain things that are starting to wear on me in ways that I know are permanent and terrible. I'm starting to channel Joanne's toast and outlook just a little too much for my own good.

I have a lot of problems with here, but by and large the biggest one is the people. They're rude, self-centered, and mostly just sadly ridiculous. And entirely too self-righteous. I know there are exceptions to the rule, and granted I'm probably just seeing the world through gray glasses at the moment, but it makes me tired. I don't know how people like Jen can do it, living among so many people who are so indifferent and smug and keeping her light shining bright. I love my good friends here, but they are few and far between and surrounded by energy vampires, narcissists, and passive aggressive clowns. It's the me, me me, it's all about me thing that bothers me the most at the moment, because this week there have been a number of occasions where that attitude has cropped up even in people I thought were beyond that stage.

Music is an unrewarding job sometimes, sure, but there are times to bootstrap yourself and take it on the chin and just get the job done, cost be damned. I was always taught, both directly and indirectly, that once you gave your word to be somewhere or do something, you did it or died trying. This goes for taking gigs as well-- if someone calls you to do a gig and you accept, then you're committed. If someone else then calls you to do another gig which pays more money that conflicts with the gig you already have, you then have a dilemma: do you take the higher paying gig and leave your first contact high and dry or remain a person of your word and turn down the second offer? To me, the answer is obvious-- I was always taught that once you've taken a job, it's unethical to back out simply because something better comes along. Now granted, it's a weird microcosm we work in: "jobs" can encompass one night or a year or more, and there are sometimes gray areas where you can bait-and-switch your way out with a sub, but you never, ever simply bail out without a plan in place. Not if the gig pays anything, and not if the gig pays nothing, and not if it's a great gig, and not if it's a crappy gig. It's simply unethical.

My problem this week has been that I have been dealing with entirely too many people who, it now appears, were not raised with the same ethical compass I was given. I learned growing up that if you're friends with someone, you should bend over backwards not to screw them over, not that because you're friends you can screw them over and they'll understand. Apparently that's not how it works here, because there's a whole group of people that believe that's fine and that's how they operate.

I am so done. Now pardon me, I have to go practice so I can win a job and blow this popsicle stand as soon as possible and let these jokers kiss my ass on the way out of town.

Personal Soundtrack: "The Ladies Who Lunch" (click here)

(Above cartoon by Hugh MacLeod, one of my favorite bloggers and artists.)

Dear Universe,

I would like to apologize for whatever I've done to piss you off lately. Obviously there must be something very, very wrong with our relationship that I've failed to address in the last four months, and I would like to do whatever I can to help bring us to a better place in our interpersonal relations.

When my husband lost his job, I just thought it was a bad turn, but you've been kicking a girl when she's down and generally playing dirty. I would have considered any bad karma debt evened out with that-- I mean, it was a pretty all-consuming master stroke, but the past week or so, you've been adding insult to injury in ways that make me want to poke my eye out with a fork. As for the whole gig-bailing friend thing, well, that was underhanded enough, but then there was the "You park like an asshole" note which creeped around my windshield under the wiper for the whole forty-five minute drive to the matinee show (ummm... hello, I was parked in my own driveway this morning... I am so confused.) Did you have to give me a flat tire on the way to my show tonight? And seriously, I had already fixed the tire, but did you have to make that cork fall off my sax five minutes before the downbeat once I got there? I'll let the fact that my audition CD was a non-starter go, because that's beyond either of our control, but seriously, I can't take it anymore.

I am a quivering heap of badly disillusioned humanity at the moment. You've done your job. I realize that I am but dust under your feet and you can own me at will (I felt the bitty earthquake the other day-- that's proof enough for anyone.) I get it. Now will you lay off please?

Sincerely,

Sassy B.

=================

Yeah, you read that right-- I got the skinny letter from the recipients of the much fretted over audition CD-- it's a "no" for this one. Ah well, their loss, and not the end of the world for a lot of reasons. More luck next time and back to the grindstone, I guess.

Dear Universe,

Thank you for your prompt reply yesterday. I am going to assume that this recent spate of bad luck was simply oversight on your part, because you issued a major correction so swiftly. I am very appreciative of D's new job, however I thought it was a little catty to include a major head cold in the timeline for me yesterday.

Oh, and while I'm at it, I should give you credit for sending me such amazingly helpful friends and family. It's always good to have a relative who's a massage therapist on days like yesterday, and friends like Annelisa and Heidelah are always welcome and rock my socks with thing like the little gift they gave me today, my own Hebrew-inscribed hamsa hand to help the luck balance even out.

(*insert raspberry at petulant universes here*)

Sincerely,
Sassy B.

UPDATE: P.S. I forgot to mention that friends like Frankenberry and Boo Berry are also tops on the awesomes list too... I mean, first with the awesome Amazon gift card for my birthday and then with the free beer today? Good Lord, I'm getting showered with gifts. (Not that I'm complaining.) Love these people. Seriously.

There are times in this world when I really believe in the concept of serendipity. Like this morning, when I checked to see if we had enough money in the bank for me to buy a couple of groceries and discovered our tax refund. (This is good because: a.) the big annual barbecue is today at our house, and b.) I will be paying the dentist large sums of money on Monday, but more about that later.)

And more and more this week I've had demonstrated to me the difference between real friends and the other kind-- a find I truly wasn't looking for, but which has been demonstrated in spades in innumerable ways this week. Friends who will show up and sight read a cello part at the dress rehearsal for a major concert on bassoon, just so the rehearsal goes smoothly. Friends who will clean your bathroom and save your ass when the time runs out and you've hit the wall. Friends who will plan a trip to a whole different continent to offer help and encouragement when a dear friend can't. Friends who live on the other coast, but it doesn't matter because each conversation is like they're right with you in the room. Friends you haven't seen in ten years who love you like it was yesterday that you talked. Friends who will fight like dogs for you right to the end. I never say things like this, even though I probably should more often, but I'm truly blessed to know these people.

Now it's time to relax and enjoy these folks, as there is an epic amount of pig in my oven, smoked and ready for takeoff and five gallons of sangria ready to keep me mellow all day.

*sighs*

Life is good.

This morning left a little to be desired, even though all I had to do was accessorize my new dress: people, nude shoes are becoming as scarce as hens' teeth. Yes, I said nude shoes.

I've been meaning for a while to shell out for a good pair and a matching bag, but I just never seem to get around to it. I'm sorely lacking in any sort of brown accessories, but it makes sense I guess: I looked through my whole closet last night and realized that I didn't have one solitary dress that wasn't black or black-based in some fashion. (I'm a musician, okay?)

Yay for Loehmann's, because I walked out with a smokin' dress for next to nothing, at which point I realized I had no shoes, no bag. Yikes. Run to Filene's-- nothing. Run back to Loehmann's-- nothing. Note to self: advance preparedness is good. In the end, it didn't really matter and I cobbled something together and got to the wedding.

Speaking of which, maybe I'm just old-fashioned, but when did it become okay to whip out your point-and-shoot, flash and all, during someone else's wedding? I can only imagine how frustrated the photographer must have been, having to try and dodge about twenty different flashes and not get shots filled with other peoples' cameras. And if I were the bride I'd be more than a little pissed if my friends' asshattery ruined my thousand-dollar investment in a pro. I realize we all live in an age where information is instant and content is personally supplied, but common courtesy would seem to dictate that people sit on their hands and let the man do his work. It was her wedding, not theirs. I'm just saying.

Regardless, it's been a while since I've been to a wedding, and today was a party nonpareil-- D's college roommate finally got hitched and seriously, those two know how to throw a shindig. We ate, drank, and danced 'till we couldn't move. It was rockin'.

More importantly though, it was exactly what a wedding should be: the bride was beautiful, the groom was handsome, and it was clear to everyone that they love each other completely.

*le sigh*

I am so excited I don't know what to do with myself-- by the time I get home tonight The Muse will be at Chez Sassy, back in D.C. for good and all and crashing with us until she finds her own digs. (See, she's scooted back up into the D.C. blogroll over there.)

So what have I been doing all week? Scrubbing and vacuuming and rearranging and washing and filing and generally returning order to a house that has been egregiously out-of-whack ever since I went back to school three or so years ago (geez-- that's a long time.).

As I may have mentioned before, I am a devout believer in the art of the To-Do list, and house cleaning is no exception: every week I endeavor to work my way through a three-column, ten-point-font list of tasks, and every week I somehow fail to finish or reconcile them all. Anal-retentive, yes I guess, but you have to remember that my house is also my place of business and I have kids and parents in and out all week, inspecting the bathroom faucets, lounging on upholstered chairs and sofas and hopefully not getting covereds in cat hair, and perusing the contents of the magazine rack and the bookshelf.

It's always been a point of pride for me to try and keep a clean house-- my mom always had us helping her keep the place ship-shape on Saturday mornings after cartoons and before we went out to play, and I can vividly remember the disgust in my mom's voice when she talked about the house of somebody she knew when she was younger-- clothes thrown everywhere, trash piled up in the corners and dog hair everywhere-- and how it was her worst nightmare. Not that I'm OCD about it necessarily--anyone who's ever been her could tell you that Chez Sassy has its share of clutter-- but the point is that I try.

At any rate, for the first time in a long time, I'm actually close to FINISHING. THE. LIST. I may be one of the oddest people on the planet, but I can also tell you that if that happens I'll be one of the happiest, too.

There are very few things that I pine over heavily in life. Most of the time they happen to be shoes, but every once in a while I find something that truly makes my heart go pitty-pat for reasons other than accessorizing. Case in point: this LG combination washer and dryer.

Let me say this first-- I absolutely love the house we live in. It's not ours, but it supplies almost everything we need with only one major exception: it has no laundry hookups, and since we rent, none will be forthcoming. Considering that the median home price in our neighborhood is $550K, we won't be remedying the situation by moving down the block any time soon. Nor could we really move anywhere else nearby and still keep the business we have-- we'd have to completely rebuild our teaching business and D's job (and maybe mine soon) is a fifteen-minute drive from here.

For the past five years that's left us with only one option: the laundromat, and we all know what happens when I go there. So I've been trying to figure out more cost-effective and less frustrating ways of getting this stuff done, with kind of mixed results. I ordered one of these gadgets from Laundry Alternative and so far it's not so bad: it'll basically dry a load of laundry-- a real load, not one of those oversize ones you can do in a big washer-- enough so hanging it up for an hour or two gets it completely dry, even jeans. I've been looking forward to using the little washer contraption that goes with it, if it would ever get here (apparently it takes two weeks longer to get one of those... weird.) That's all well and good, but what I really want is one of these, because fluffy towels don't grow on trees, or rather, laundry lines.

Now, this isn't just an empty waah, boo-hoo, I don't wanna go to the laundromat question: D and I spend about $130 a month at the laundromat between our clothes and the household linens and towels, and we're trying to cut back on the spending since we're basically busted flat at the moment. And well, laundry really isn't an optional kind of thing, so we're trying to figure out how to make all this work without spending loads of cash in the process. And I'm not gonna lie, doing this stuff at home would be a whole lot more palatable than getting propositioned or harassed every time I go out to do it. Ah well, for now it's washerwoman, me. Maybe I can save some pennies and figure something out after the holidays, barring any unfortunate feline vet emergencies.

*That sign up there completely cracks me up. You can get it here.

So here's the thing:

I've missed you guys.

I've had some pretty heavy things going on in my life this year, things which basically have changed the face of my entire existence in one way or another. And I haven't really felt comfortable talking about that here, in public, for anyone and everyone to read. More importantly, there are very good reasons why I can't and shouldn't.

And frankly, it's killing me.

Because if you're still reading this, then I've probably known you, or had you as a reader, for long enough that you're probably wondering what the hell happened to me.

Because if you're still reading this, you're probably one of the people whose opinions and love I value enough that I'm going to need your help in the next year.

Because frankly, I need an outlet more in-depth than Twitter and less personal than Facebook.

So here's the other thing:

On March 1st, this blog is getting a makeover. I'll be moving it to a new server, shaking up the layout a little, and converting it to a new CMS, though the site address won't change. The ranting and raving and silliness will stay the same, only there will be some things that I don't want to share with everybody, some things that I may need to share and say, but only within certain circles. I'm tired of keeping it all pent up and I've done that for long enough.

If you're still reading this blog, and you're been a loyal reader or friend or even a long-time lurker, email me at (sassy{at}sassyblonde{dot}net) with the title of this post in the subject line or comment on this post and request an access key. I'd love to have you in the circle.

Til then, I'll be cleaning house and doing some renovation, and I'll see you on March 1st.

UPDATE: So, snow and circumstances being what they've been around here, I'm going to have to ask you guys to wait around a little longer, which actually ends up being appropriate for a lot of reasons. I've gotten all your emails and comments, and if you can hang tight for a few more weeks, I'll have the next phase ready on April 1st.