SupaCoo

Last week, my work computer caught a mysterious porn virus and I lost a lot of precious, valuable information. Including all of my wallpapers of various locations we’ve been that I have on my desktop which change every 15 minutes to remind me of the fact that “Hey! I’ve been there. And look how much nicer it is than this cubicle.” *daydream for 15 minutes about awesome location, then watch new picture appear and repeat*

And since I can’t stand that horrible Windows generic wallpaper, one of my first priorities was to get out there and go through all of my pictures to get some more pretty stuff up. And then it hit me.

MY LIFE IS INSANE.

In the last 370 days, I have been:

• Norway
• Luxembourg
• Belgium
• Holland (only four times)
• France (three times)
• Greece
• Malta
• Turkey
• Hungary
• Poland
• Italy
• Czech Republic
• and multiple trips to the U.S. and throughout Germany.

And next week Egypt, then back to the Netherlands (at least twice, maybe three times), then Austria, then maybe Belgium again.

And that will all be happening in the next six weeks.

Oh, and also? Planning a move halfway across the world in less than three months.

So, do I REALLY need excuses why I don’t have time to blog?

*back to daydreaming at pretty pictures. Oh, look, it’s Malta!*

(Actual picture on actual desktop as I type this.)

February 5th, 2010 | Category: random | Leave a comment

My daily routine lately.
8:00 wake up. (&*SH!T!*& I meant to get up at 7:00.)
8:15 breakfast and Facebook. (Yeah, I know. It’s like my coffee in the morning, ok?)
9:00 leave for work. (If I’m lucky.)
9:15 at work. (Love that commute)
10:00 actually start work after catching up with co-workers,  seeing if the house I want in Denver is still on the market, checking CNN to see if any wars broke out while I was sleeping, and getting a cup of tea.
10:15 Thinking “I’m totally going to update BOTH blogs today.” Updating Schnitzel.
10:30 work
12:00 lunch time already? I don’t have time, I’d better work through it. But first, let me check to see if the apartment we want to rent is still available IN CASE the house we want to buy is sold when we go back.
12:15 Found 8 other houses and apartments that could be nice. Sent all to Travis.
12:30 Back to work.
1:30 Realize I need to do some random one-off thing that I forgot to do last night but if I don’t do it today it will keep me awake all night (i.e. book a hotel in Austria, look up the CDC rules for bringing a cat to the US, price one-way airline tickets home, see if I have enough frequent flyer miles to upgrade a flight).
1:45 Back to work.
3:00 Denver people start responding to e-mails. Things get crazy.
4:00 Meetings begin.
6:00 Meetings end. And I’m starving! Time to go home.
6:30 Dinner. And maybe a glass (bottle) of wine.
7:00 Facebook again. Maybe some online poker. Sometimes writing the Schnitzel post for the next day.
8:00 Shower and hair dry so I can sleep on it, and grease it up and have it under control for the next day.
9:30 Off to bed with my nook. Maybe some good night kisses. (To the nook, of course.)
11:00 Still reading.
11:30 Realize I have to go to bed so I can get up at 7:00 (or 8:00). Lights out.
12:00 Realize I never updated the friggin blog. Mentally apologizes to the SupaCoo faithful.

February 1st, 2010 | Category: Life of I | Comments (1)

The other day, the lovely and talented Candice posted a story about keeping the heezie clean, which was perfect timing for my own story from this weekend.

I don’t like secrets, neither to hold them or to have them kept from me. If there is any notion - at all - that something is being kept from me, I will bug relentlessly until I am satisfied that there will be no surprises. I may or may not hack into people’s e-mails and Facebooks to help me with my investigative work, too. (And by “people’s” I mean “Travis’s”.) (Unless Travis is reading this, and then I totally mean other people.)

Not long after we got married and moved into our house in Denver, I had a cleaning lady come by after I realized that 2300 square feet was too much work for my lazy ass. She told me she’d be happy to clean our place for $100 a pop.

I told Travis that the cleaning lady would be coming every other week at $100 a visit, and he FREAKED out. That was too much money, we’re on a budget, am I insane? And yada yada.

But the cleaning lady, on the other hand, had three children and this was her only job and she was really sweet. I couldn’t really tell her she was fired before she was even hired.

So I did what any young newlywed housewife would do - I told her to come once a month, instead. And since I managed the checkbook, a certain husband would never be the wiser. And plus? I could totally win good housewife points for keeping the abode so spotless. Win-win.

Last weekend, something bubbled up in me as we were cleaning. I asked Travis if he ever wondered why we never had to clean the house in Denver but here we had to clean it every week. Then, I spilled the beans.

After the expected response of “WHAT THE FUCK?” and “What OTHER secrets do you have?” he laughed at me. And then he asked if I ever took credit for her cleaning efforts.

The answer to that, my friends, is a secret I’m not prepared to share yet.

January 15th, 2010 | Category: The better half | Comments (1)

I know everyone has some quirks, and a few of us may be more OCD than others. For example, I have a small panic attack if my shampoo and conditioner are not at the same level in the bottle. As nutty as that sounds, if I run out of shampoo but still have some conditioner, down the drain it goes and I buy two new bottles. Considering I hate wasting things, this is a pretty bizarre habit. But I’ve become resourceful in using up one or the other just to keep them even, for example, by shaving my armpits with shampoo for a few weeks I can usually straighten the mess back out.

That’s probably the strangest of my strange habits, and there are a whole slew of additional minor things that drive my husband apeshit. But I don’t even hold a candle to a woman I work with.

When I was back in Denver for Christmas, my team at work went out for a white elephant exchange + dinner at a casual pizza joint. As my boss passed out napkins, I noticed the girl sitting across from me at first tried to refuse it, then thought better of it and took the napkin. But instead of putting it on her lap - you know, like a civilized adult - she put it on the railing above her head, next to her.

I thought this was a bit odd, so I asked her, “Don’t use napkins, huh?”

She blushed and glanced away before responding, “No, actually, I hate them.”

Of course this piqued my interest and I couldn’t help myself. “Hate napkins? WHAT?”

“Well, this is gonna sound crazy, but…” she began. And it really WAS crazy. She can’t stand the feel of paper products. For toilet paper, she carries around her own wet wipes. Napkins she opts without. Cloth towels are always given the nod over paper. She won’t dry her hands in the bathroom if there’s not an air dryer. She even told me that when she eats popsicles she stops at the stick because she can’t stand the feel of the wood.

Of course, I teased her relentlessly over this CRAZY and then, to make her feel better, told her my shampoo and conditioner story. And she had the nerve to insist that it was not her but ME who is the nutter, that I am the one who should be locked up.

Personally, I agree that I might be a little out there, but not being able to eat POPSICLES? She totally takes the cake.

January 13th, 2010 | Category: random | Comments (2)

Ok, let me preface this by saying I REALLY DO NOT SMOKE CRACK. Because otherwise this entry is going to sound like it’s straight out of bizarro-world. But really, I don’t.

Last night I had a long, elaborate dream in which I went to the Esprit outlet store and was shopping and Cate Blanchett was my personal shopper (although she was employed by the store, but she was totally MINE). And she found me all of these bargains for things for like, $1. I ♥ you, Cate!

But Cate wouldn’t let me buy a sweater, and I was a little bitter for her enforcing her tastes on me. She would only let me have dresses and jackets. A bit format for my tastes, but still. CATE BLANCHETT.

After I left Esprit (in my dream), I went out to dinner and was sharing this story with a few people. A few people who just happened to be New Kids on the Block. And I was sitting next to Jordan (barf) and across from Jon, but I was focused on my dreamy Joe, wondering how I could have ever crushed so hard on him. And also? Jon was gay.

And you would think this crazy dream ends here? No, it kept going, and involved some kind of football celebration where someone in a black and gold number 54 jersey sprained his knee celebrating a big win. Which I thought was totally funny, because he didn’t get hurt in the game but he got trampled by the crowd celebrating.

Really? Not funny at all. In fact, frightening.

But this is how my mind works. I wonder what kind of awesomely frightening dreams I would have if I *did* do drugs.

January 12th, 2010 | Category: random | Leave a comment

I had never heard of this chick until today, but apparently she was a born and bred “socialite.” Just what that is, or how one attains that job title I’m not completely certain. Apparently it requires copious amounts of rich ancestors.

In other curious news, how does one get the name “Sale,” as in the deceased’s mother’s name? Ah, the lives of the rich and famous are just too difficult for some lowly one like me to understand.

And finally, I know I live in Germany and all but I didn’t realize that was another planet, cause WTF? There is actually a person named Tila Tequila?

Now excuse me while I go to Monster.com and save my job search for “socialite.” That’s totally up my alley.

January 6th, 2010 | Category: Life of I | Comments (1)

And here I thought I was old! Jeezalmighty, no. Although, the past three days may have aged me significantly.

First there was New Year’s Eve, and the party started early (7:00) so we could see our friends with babies and expecting babies. We went to our favorite dive bar and ate our faces off. The owner was so happy to see us that he sent over multiple rounds of shots. Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about.

Somehow we stumbled out six hours later and piled into a cab. I am not sure how we got a cab on NYE at that time of night, especially for six people, but we did. After a vigorous two-hour hot tub soak (in which an entire bottle of vodka was chugged straight from the bottle - we’re classy like that) we all passed out around 6 a.m.

YES, 6 a.m.! Rock-fuckin-star, ya’ll!

Two hours later (ahem, TWO!) when we all woke up, I’m pretty sure I was still drunk. We went out for a nice brunch before heading to the airport for our flight. And here’s a tip: if you fly three bazillion miles a year like we do, sometimes the airline pimps you out. So the first leg of the trip from Denver to D.C. was in first class, high in the sky. (Insert rest of lyrics to that crappy song here.)

We got to D.C. where there would be no upgrade to first class or any other class for the D.C.-Frankfurt leg. Bah. But since I’d porked out on the first part, I wasn’t hungry and popped my sleeping pill, skipping dinner. There were not one but TWO screaming babies in our row, which was pretty lame. Screaming babies + New Year’s Day flights = should be illegal. I was pretty zonked on the flight and made it almost all the way across the Atlantic before waking up for good.

When we got here, we were committed to celebrating New Year’s Eve, the redux, with our friend that was cat sitting at our house. And since we owed her after three weeks of her life in our pad, we couldn’t back out. A short nap charged us up somewhat and then on our way out we went. Until seven-friggin-thirty a.m.

(I’ll be signing autographs later who anyone who wants one. Just sayin’.)

So yesterday when I woke up at 11 and looked out the window to see snow, my first thought was “Damn, it snowed! How am I going to get back to Frankfurt? I hope our flight isn’t delayed.” And then I realized I already was in Frankfurt. Smarty pants, I am. And then on top of that? I realized I was still completely drunk. I guess the bonus there is that the hangover can’t really kick in until you’re sober, which for me was about 5:00 at night.

I’m joining rehab today.

January 4th, 2010 | Category: random | Comments (2)

Man, you ship me off to the States and I just disappear from the blogville for awhile, it appears. For some reason it seems like there’s a lot less time in the days over here and blogging kind of falls off the list of priorities.

So, we’re heading back to Germany on Friday. “Friday?” you ask. “As in, January 1?” Ah yes, indeed. We’ll be boozing it up real solid and then heading onto a plane. Which, believe it or not, I actually did LAST WEEK as well and it wasn’t pretty at all. But that was only a two hour flight.

You see, the night before we left to Iowa, to visit my tee-totaling parents, it also happened to be Travis’ company party. And Travis’ company party included a fine portion of the evening called “tequila tasting” but which was really just shots.

Fast forward two hours and find me, passed out on the floor under the rows of desks. Which is a much better place than where I was 30 minutes later, when I was found puking in the boss’s office.

(BTW, mesh trash cans are not great for disposal of stomach contents.)

The next day on our flight to Iowa (which was at 10 a.m., owwwwie!), I pretty much sat with a barf bag in my lap for the entire trip.

I’m a smart girl. Does anyone want to take bets on how this Friday’s flight will go?

December 31st, 2009 | Category: sucky, the "useless" organ | Comments (3)

Ok, I don’t really hate it. The National Anthem still gives me chills. I love the instant gratification, and the my way, any time, any day part is great.

But I do hate the cop that pulled me over this morning and gave me a $190 speeding ticket.

$190! Isn’t that a little excessive??

I will admit I was going a little bit over the speed limit. Like, 12 mph, according to him. But I was only going 32. THIRTY TWO. That is SLOW! Is it my fault that it went from a normal, residential 30-mph zone to a school zone with NO warning? And he was sitting on his lazy ass right there behind a tree?

Now, keep in mind, I’m driving a friend’s car, which happens to be a brand new Beemer. I obviously don’t live in this country, with my German license I handed over and the registration that was not in my name. I told him it was a friend’s car. He knew it was an unfamiliar vehicle; he knew that I was on unfamiliar roads; he should have known that I was jet lagged and didn’t realize how flippin slow 20 MPH is.

As he made me sign the ticket, he told me “thank you” three times. I may or may not have rolled the window up and said “FUCK YOU.”

Merry Christmas, asshole.

December 17th, 2009 | Category: annoying | Comments (3)