It's the heet.

Hot enough for you?

This week's weather is brought to you by:
The Devil. Making toast out of poor tortured souls since...well, eternity!
And Nelly. His hot single from summer 2002, "Hot in Herre" is more apropros than ever.

Scary insects.

While some people are scared of spiders, they've never seemed to bother me much. However, if I cross paths with a slug, caterpillar or praying mantis, the mere sight of either of these creatures is enough to trigger fountains of tears. Earlier this afternoon I became suddenly curious about potato bugs. Having seen one on a recent camping trip, I nearly picked it up in my drunken state and held it in my hand. I decided to see if I could find out what would have happened if I did. Would it have bitten me? Maybe. More likely, it would have pinched me and I would have screamed and dropped it's fleshy body. So then I started wondering about praying mantises for some reason. Don't ask why; I'm very frightened of them. I decided to look them up and see if I could find a tell all site that would say if they bite humans or not; they don't. So I started looking up photos of these insects (goodness knows why) and nearly brought myself to tears.

If ever I were an actress, sitting in my trailer outside of a movie set, gearing up for an especially emotional scene, instead of pouring over my lines, I'd be flipping through pages in picture books all about banana slugs, praying mantises and exotic caterpillars. The gossip columnists on page six would catch wind of and write about my bizzare acting method while stalkers would take to sending me "fruit" baskets of insects and mollusks.

Tanks in downtown Sacramento.

I just wanted to take a minute and address the subject of these tanks downtown. I know you all are probably wondering to yourselves, "Where are these tanks coming from?!" I happen to know the answer to this question and it's really quite obvious.

The Tankery.

They have all kinds of tanks there. Including, but not limited to: Drunk Tanks, Fish Tanks, Think Tanks, Gas Tanks, Tank Tops, bottles of TANQueray, Septic Tanks, Tanker Trucks, Tank Girls and Dunk Tanks.

Just so you are aware. You know, about the tanks.

Po-po.

It's not the protesting that freaks me out, but the police presence. There is an excessive ammount of heat standing about downtown Sacramento. They all look so menacing. On foot, in cars, in SUVs, mounted on horseback in helicopters. No less than THREE helicopters circled for hours yesterday afternoon and into the evening.

OK. Some of the protesting freaks me out. But just the scary black bloc protesters that run around with the black bandanas covering their noses and mouths. I don't want to eat GMO food, but please don't hate on me if I'm not out there marching and dancing in a drum circle.

Seriously.

In honor of McSweeny's Lists....some of my own.

Some nicknames I have had (and who has given them to me):

Choo-choo Train (Mom)
Popcorn (Mom)
Gunga Din (Sister)
Mi (Dad)
Niki-Noo (Dad)
Cha-cha (Dad)
Nik-a-Nik (Neighbors)
Nikelodeon (Friends)
Nickel (Friends)
Pickle (Friends)
Niki Six (Friends)
Picky Niki (Friends)
Nik-O-Nik (Denise)
Tricky Niki (Friends)
Sicky (Jerry Kent)
Bookie (Jerry Kent)
Flickie (Emily)
Niki Sue Francis (Sierra)
Tiny (I gave this to myself, but I make Leon call me this)

A Happy Accident

Last night I went to my (supposed) spanish meet up at the True Love. It was starting to cool off finally, so I decided to walk the two whole blocks. On the way I thought I saw Jana riding by on a red bike. I waved enthusiastically and the girl, who was probably not Jana, grinned at me akwardly. I will blame that one on my aging contact lenses, which, because of this situation, I promptly changed this morning to a fresh pair. At any rate, I showed up to the coffee house a full five minutes early. Kelly, the host was no where to be seen inside. Instead, there stood a circular formation of stuffy old people. Some of them had beards. This certainly didn't look like the spanish meet-up folks, nor were they speaking spanish, so I wandered outside towards the sidewalk again. I must have looked lost because a girl sitting at a full table next to me said,
"Are you here for the meet-up?"
"Yeah," I said and smiled. I pulled up a chair and I introduced myself to everyone at the table. We all talked for a little bit about this and that. Then the girl asked me if I had attended the last meeting, to which I replied that I had and then told them how it was a little akward for me last time and how I'd hoped that more people would have shown up.
"Wait," the girl said. "Where did you meet?"
"Here," I said.
"Hmm. Last month we met at Fox & Goose." She replied.
"Oh. Is there more than one meet-up group?" I asked, thinking that the reason only three of us turned up at the last spanish meeting was perhaps because we were at the wrong venue.
"More than one Athiest meet-up?"
"Oh! I'm here for the spanish meet-up!" We all chuckled. I ended up at the wrong table. "Well, I certainly qualify for this meeting," I said, "but I really came to practice my spanish, so I'll be looking for the rest of my group." I took another spin around the coffee house and still didn't see anyone I recognized at ten minutes after. Of course that could have been partly because of my foggy contact lenses too. So I decided to enjoy the rest of my unexpectedly free evening eating kung pow tofu at the co-op and picking out a new hair product at Rite-Aid.

Party lunch

I typically have a bunch of snack foods on hand at work. The vendo is so over priced and chock full of junk, so when I get snacky, I have my snack drawer.

Current inventory includes:

generic triscuts
pita bread
pretzel sticks
instant oatmeal packets
microwave popcorn
and a cup of dehydrated split pea soup

in the fridge I have:
string cheese
hummus
fruit and veggies
veggie burger patties

So today, with nothing better to eat for lunch, I had hors d' oeuvres. Cheese cubes, pita, hummus, carrot sticks, apples and peanut butter. Something happens to food when it's chopped into bite-size pieces and served on a giant plate. 16 essential party vitamins are unleashed. It was so party-like that I instantly became exhausted after lunch time and I fell asleep at my desk for about five minutes. I woke up and my hair was all tousled. Party hair.

Seannery O'Conner

I had a very full, very fun weekend. By Sunday evening I was ready to pass out from exhaustion. On Friday we went to the city for shoe exchanging, Mosquito watching, band noodling and red wine drinking. We managed to do all three before midnight. New shoes: Gola trainers and some Saucony dealies.

A rhyme about my new Golas:
I got some Golas
But I'm not a chola
On Friday, I'm going to see my Yo La
Tengo
And when you see me in the club you can say hello!


Saturday we went to Grass Valley for excessive ingesting and sleeping outside. I ingested and partook in so many indulgencies that I told everyone that the guy from London reminded me of Seannery O'Conner. I don't think he heard me. After that, we happened upon a carton of rocky road ice cream in the forest. It was such a divine happening that we all had to eat a scoop. The food, beer and everything else managed to get the best of us eventually and the four of us retired to a two person tent. Somebody snored, somebody farted and everyone else made condensation on the inside of the tent skin.
We woke up and went for a drive to the Yuba river. The drive was wonderful, except for the part where we almost got killed in a head-on collision. The river was swift and cold so I only waded in and sunned my pale skin for a little while. It was nice. Then we drove home. I visted with my family for a while and ate some food. Sometimes they drive me completely crazy and I can hardly stand it. This time they were all suprisingly tollerable so I stayed for a couple of hours. And I still had time for band practice.
It was a whirlwind. And now I'm ready to relax.

Dogs.

I love dogs. I can't wait to have my own one day (again). A friend of mine is getting a cute little baby lab tomorrow. She said I could be the aunt. You have no idea how much this elated me.

I'm a dog aunt!

Like anyone cares.

I finally saw a real, live amorphophallus titanum (corpse flower) yesterday evening. It was at UC Davis, so we drove all the way out there to see it. It was pretty big as far as flowers go, but probably not as big as some of the others that have had news coverage in the last couple of years. It smelled like.....a plant. Maybe the big ones smell worse. I'm glad I got to see it, but the smell was a bit of a let down. Next on the list of things to see and do before I die: see an octopus beak.

It's the air quality.

Bad air is giving me a constant headache. Friday, Saturday, a little Sunday and today, my head throbs when I lower it and raise it again. So I'm trying to remain stationary. Let's just hope I don't end up in any situations today that require any signifigant ammounts of bowing or playing leap-frog.

The headlines today:
New haircut bowls over office staff.
Art department blares bad house music.

The headlines Sunday:
Band practice ends in major drug story swap. 12 pack of cheap beer is annihilated.
Local girl makes cold sesame noodles to the delight of live-in boyfriend.

The headlines Saturday:
Migrane subsides to vodka tidalwave.
Deductive reasoning concludes body dismorphic woman sees Teeni as fat.

The headlines Friday:
Teeni Santini wins a pizza!
El Cheapo burrito purchased at expensivo price of $4.50.

You are getting very sleepy.

I was up early today for a dentist appointment. Praise from the dentist on my healthy gum tissue, but a warning about over zealous flossing, as I seem to have cut myself a couple of times between my teeth. So that's that dull pain I'm feeling.
And now I think I'm working on a master headache. It feels as if someone is playing giddy-up with my left optic nerve and hooking a fishing line into my eyebrow and neck.

If I could only stay awake enough to work, we'd have a good day, wouldn't we?

I should change the name of this blog to: What Happens When I Wake Up At Night.

I can't sleep the night through anymore. Every night I wake up at least 4 or 5 times. Last night it was because the cats were sitting in the bedroom window, freaking out over the bats zooming around outside. I was terrified that they were going to jump out of the window and die and woke up three times to shoo them off the sill. I woke up a fourth time when one of the cats left the window and came to sleep at my feet. She was out cold, exhausted no doubt from watching bats. All of the sudden I thought she might be dead so I woke her up. She wasn't dead, phew. So then I went back to sleep. Then I woke up again after having a wedding nightmare. I won't explain it, it was just terrible.
All of this interrupted sleep is starting to affect me. Right around 2pm, I'm ready for a nap. Right around 6, I'm ready for another nap. My eyes have huge dark circles under them and I get cranky too easily.

I'm no joy to be around these days.

So much.

*Trying to meet sales goals at work.
*Trying to increase sales for stores in Seattle down 20% from last year.
*Trying to put together my first ever tour date for the Frenchmen in Seattle.
*Being in a band and preparing to go on tour for 2 weeks.
*Planning a wedding.
*Trying to stay in touch with family and friends.
*Devoting a few hours a week to helping at a friend's shop.
*Trying to make time for excercise.
*Trying to make time for relaxing.
And most importantly, trying to always remember the importance of being in love and how that alone makes everything written above that much easier.