I had cabin fever today. One would think that I would go for a walk downtown since it's 50 degrees out. Or maybe hit up a local craft fair. I went to the mall. Now I know what you will say...'Are you freakin' crazy? Going to the mall 2 days after Christmas?' Here's the thing, parking downtown sucks and frankly, I really don't like crafts, so yes, I went to the mall. I didn't really have anything I needed to do so I figured I could just walk and people watch. I wanted to pick up a new shirt for the husband, some bath crap and some hot cocoa from Starbucks.
I get the new shirt, done. Now I really can just meander because the other shit I could possibly do without. I pass Starbucks. Short line, cocoa is on sale, score(!) and done. I am coming around the corner to do my last length of the mall before heading to Trader Joe's and something is off. I hear this familiar buzzing sound but of course I am really not paying attention, just walking. Then I see this new window, bright colors and a sign on the door, something about "pleasurable pain"....WHAT? I do a double take and there it is folks, we knew this day would come but I was hoping to be in my 80's so I could say to my grandchildren, "I got my tattoos by a hippie pothead in a seedy shop in the Haight/Ashbury neighborhood in San Fran, not a mall!" Yep. My mall has a tattoo parlor. This may not be news to some but I really don't like going to the mall so it's been awhile.
And here's my real problem. I have been wanting another tattoo for awhile. I've done the research and I am pretty sure I know what I want and where...but the fact that my neighborhood mall has a clean, pretty tattoo shop with teeny boppers for artists sort of makes it a little, well "uncool". Now I realize the whole subculture idea of tattoos and body piercings and all of that is to prove that we don't care what's "cool" or not, we just want to "express ourselves". Which of course is bullshit. I have 3 tattoos and I think I am pretty badass. But that is besides the point. The last thing I want to hear when I finally do get my next tattoo is "OMG! Did you get that at the mall?"

Alrighty...been awhile!
Now I am aware that I have quoted the genius that is the Indigo Girls before and guess what? Gonna do it again folks. In fact, I am going to discuss the same quote that I have used in the past and why I think it could possibly be my favorite song lyric ever.
Looking back it is no surprise to me that the last time I used this song lyric was to help describe a really simple, wonderful day. About a year ago I had the day off and I decided on a whim to take my dog with me for a ride to get some Dunkin' Donuts coffee. The coffee ended up being free and for some reason this shaped the rest of my day. The fact that DD was hooking me up made me decide that rather than head home I should see where the day would take me.
You can see the rest of that day in a previous blog. Back to the now.
I have this problem in my car you see. My husband calls it "the place where cd's go to die" and sadly, it is true. I try! I really do but inevitably my cd's end up on the floor scratched, sometimes even cracked, and in general, not the most "playable". Over time I have lost many a cd to this "problem", including a few Indigo Girls cd's, cause let's be real...what could be better than driving along, window down, listening and singing along with the Girls. So the other day when I had a chance to purchase an IG cd for pretty cheap I jumped at it. I bought Swamp Ophelia for what feels like at least the third time...oh well. It has some incredible songs on it including "Power of Two", "Dead Man's Hill", "The Wood Song", and "Mystery". Which brings us to our lyric.
Now I don't pretend to know what Emily and Amy were thinking about when they wrote "Mystery", I can only tell you what it means to me and I'm not even gonna do that. I have this very strong belief that everyone loves the Indigo Girls for their own reasons. Everyone has a Ghost of their own and everyone in some way or another believes that Love Will Come To You and I choose not to ruin how someone feels about a particular song. Just one line...that's all we're discussing.

"I could go crazy on a night like tonight when summer's beginning to give up her fight..."

Again, I don't pretend to know what this lyric means to the brilliant women who wrote it, I only know how it makes me feel. It can make me smile on the cloudiest of days, it can make my heart swell so much that I cannot contain my voice and I am forced to sing along and the sense memory of an evening like they describe can send me back centuries. It helps that fall is my favorite season but really, who doesn't know that kind of night? "When summer's beginning to give up her fight". Who doesn't know what that feels like? It's not even a change in weather. It's a shift, a tiny breeze and you realize that summer is over. It smacks you in the face one day and you pull out your favorite fleece pullover and cuddly jeans. A subtle change and a death has happened along with a rebirth.
Some people see that day as sad. Here comes the cold, back to school, no more long days in the sun.
I've never thought that way. I always saw that day that summer starts giving up her fight as a new possibility. A new season, chance to cuddle, a new school year, reinvention, and long nights by the bonfire.
I'm not sure why I feel so strongly about this for god's sake it's just a song. I guess when music and words join together so perfectly I see it as a little bit of magic.
And every fall without fail since I first heard that song, the day will come, the wind will shift just so and I will smile and quietly say within myself..."Look at that, here it is...summer's beginning to give up her fight".

Understudy steps in and shines - baltimoresun.com

So the following is a "review" of the last show I did by the Baltimore Sun. I put review in quotations because they couldn't technically review the production because of the short run but what they did was a post review of sorts..kinda saying "Hey! Look at what you missed, check out the next show they're doing!"
If I do say so myself, it's a pretty stellar review!


Understudy steps in and shines - baltimoresun.com

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Here's the thing about cars.

I hate them.....HATE. I hate that I have to rely on a hunk a junk, shrink my wallet, piece of soul stealing...well, steel!
Long story short...my husband and I moved away from the self sufficient, EL and bike riding city for a job in the "burbs". We thought "Hey, change of scenery, closer to parts of our family, better money, more time to figure out our lives, better place to raise a family, better place to "grow up".
What we got was cars.
Expensive, greedy, broken down on the side of the road cars. I have put at the very least TRIPLE the amount of money into my car than I actually paid for it. TRIPLE people.
What does that break down to? Close to $5000...and that does NOT include gas.
It also does not include the stress involved with worrying about what is going to go wrong with your car at any given moment and being stranded.....in a city, you miss a bus or a train? Usually there is one right behind it.
I'm about to make a very bold statement.
In a million lifetimes, I NEVER want to own another car again...EVER!
Really and truly, I don't see the point. They cost too much money, they're bad for the environment and dammit we could all use a little bit of exercise!
I lived in a city, a great city, where the public transportation, I believe, is one of the best in the world. At any given moment I could get to any part of the city I wanted by train, bus, bike or foot. Yes, there were frustrating moments of being stuck underground (longest I ever got stuck was 45 minutes....beats the 3 hour commute my husband can have if the traffic is bad) and I guess if you HAVE to get somewhere...I mean REALLY fast a car can be a good thing. But I truly believe that I could live a life without owning a car....and I will....(live that life...not own another car).
Here's what it breaks down to.
A CTA (Chicago public transportation) day pass (that's UNLIMITED rides for 24 hours) is $5.75...which is about $2100 a year. A 7 day pass (unlimited for 7 days..see you're getting the idea) is $23 or about $1200 a year. And yes they even sell a 30 day pass for $86, with fingers crossed that you don't lose it that's only $1032 a year.
Now ask yourself what you spend in gas per year....just gas.
But Sara, what about when you have children? What about major grocery shopping? What am I, an invalid? I once had a woman in a dog park say that to me....not that I'm an invalid but that you can't have children in a city....WHAT???? I would KILL to raise my kids in a well rounded, culturally diverse city where they can learn to take a bus and a train and ride their bikes places.
And do you know how many people move out of the way when a pregnant woman/mother with a stroller/parents with little kids get on public transport?......all of them!
That's what people don't seem to get when they haven't been exposed to a city that relies on public transportation. Everyone uses it! Not just the bums or the people that can't afford a car. People can actually be kind and courteous on the bus....yes, they can.
I know what you're saying...But Sara...you'll still be relying on a huge piece of steel. The difference is...for the most part this hunk of steel is reliable and I don't have to pay $1700 out of pocket the day it decides to break down right outside the beltway!
Oh and p.s. before we left Chicago I was riding my bike to and from work...you know what I was paying for that...a whole lot of nothing!
My long winded point being. While I love living close to family and I love my friends here and really Annapolis is pretty cool, I like having a car be a luxury in my life...not a necessity.
At this moment I could happily live my life relying on the lovely men and women of the CTA, my little yellow Madwagon beach cruiser bike and the occasional taxi cab.

Ca-Crack!

That is the sound of my heart breaking just a little bit today.
If you know anything about me, it's this. I love my dog. My Tootsie is my baby. I treat her like my child because essentially she is. She relies on me for food, shelter, general health care and tlc. Yes, I realize there are people out there (people who are friends of mine...family for god's sake!) who find this ridiculous. And I have this to say to you....bite me. We all have things that are important to us and she is just one of the things that is utterly important to me and my happiness. She is my family and if you don't treat your pet like a part of the family maybe you shouldn't have one.
That being said, not everyone needs to talk to their dog or have their dog sleep in their bed with them like I do...I'm just saying don't judge, bitches.
Anyhoo, back to my story. A while back the Tooter (as we affectionately call her) was attacked by another dog in our neighborhood. If you know the Toot, you are aware that she has a bit of a Napoleon complex. She is about 10 pounds and acts like she's a Rottweiler. She is a sassy-pants....especially on the leash. Off leash she will run, cavort, and of course bark in other dog's faces. But never in an aggressive way. She is a dominant female but she has never laid a tooth on another dog. But when she is on the leash she apparently gets very upset that she can't get to the other dog...or maybe it's that we pull her away, I don't know. All I know is that she looks like a crazy, rabid brat when we are walking her on leash. Once again, she never snaps or anything....she just barks.....like crazy!
Because of this I am always aware while walking her. I keep her close to me while other dogs go by and try to warn other owners of this behavior before letting the dogs meet.
Okay, so long story short....this "attack" was nobody's fault. Both dog's were on the leash it was just bad judgment in general. I shouldn't have let them meet knowing Tooter's behavior and the other dog (a black lab) was being walked by the owner's mother...who didn't realize that the dog she was walking would mistake my dog for a squirrel...aka dinner. I took my girl to the vet, got her some pain meds and the other owner paid for all of it. Done and done...so I thought.
Lately when we've walked her she hasn't wanted to go near their house. Now she wasn't attacked near their house so I was confused by this. Sometimes she gets all stubborn and just won't go, other times she's just fine. I let it go, chalked it up to a lazy dog.
Today, like many of my days off, the Toot and I were a bit lazy. A nice lazy day filled with laundry, Sex and the City, and many cups of cinnamon coffee. Halfway through my second load of laundry I decide the girl and I should go for a long walk. The rain had stopped, the sun was peaking out and frankly, Tootsie and I could use the exercise. My plan was to walk down passed the speedbump, passed the black lab's house, around the block to pass another dog named Kelly's house, down to the river and back up past our mailbox to get the mail. We start to head towards the speedbump....sometimes we only walk to the speedbump so it made sense that Toot would get stubborn thinking it was gonna be a short walk....I kept pulling. We made it passed the speedbump and start rounding the corner to the black lab's house. She starts to stop, I keep pulling, I drop my poop baggie, I bend down.....just as I do this I hear the barking. The black lab has come out onto her fenced deck...she can't get to us but she is sticking her head out of the fence barking like mad. I look over at my tiny little girl. Her tail has tucked itself under her little butt and she is pulling so hard on her leash in the other direction that I almost drop it.
I calmly turn in the other direction and continue our walk, I don't want to stress out my baby but folks I gotta be real with you. It was so sad to see that my baby girl was still affected by this. That the sight of this dog would get her so worked up again. She is still a sassy-pants with other dogs that I just assumed she was ok. It really did break my heart a little bit.
Not sure that we will be walking past that house again.
(.....makes me feel bad for the future bullies of my kid cause frankly, i wanted to walk over and kick the other dog for scaring my Tooter)

Let's talk about a little thing called Spring Break.
Remember in college, or even high school when Spring Break was this elusive, exciting, full of fun, trouble, love, dancing, drinking, get away from it all party? Remember that?
You'd plan these extravagant (well extravagant for a 20 year old) trips that involved beaches or road trips and definitely the opposite sex and booze.
And then your ass grows up and you can't afford Spring Break...or maybe you don't even get one. Maybe when you do, your landlords decide to get new siding done so that every morning at 7:30 they start banging on one of your apartment walls. Or you get a shitload of bad news and are back and forth from the hospital. Or you have to do your taxes.
In honor of our craptacular Spring Break (by the way, I don't get Spring Break, but Ty does) I will now write about a few Spring Breaks that were pretty f'ing cool.
Spring Break 1988
That's right folks! I had Spring Break when I was 11. Back then we called it "Energy Break" and it inevitably fell on the week of my birthday every single year. This particular year we had a dual break/work trip planned to San Francisco. Now you wouldn't think that S.F. would be a fun trip for a couple of pre teeners, one of which was on crutches but I remember it very fondly.
We stayed in this fantastic bed and breakfast that had THE best cornflake cookies in the lobby and gosh darn it if they didn't make my birthday kickass! We walked into this room and it was filled....I mean FILLED with teddy bears and there was a bottle of sparkling cider and champagne glasses with a card that said Happy Birthday!
We went to Chinatown, went shopping, my brother got a hundred dollar haircut. One day my parents were bickering about something (as parents often do) before we left for the day and my brother, god love him, said...."I am not going anywhere with you people if you don't stop fighting"...it was awesome.
But my fondest memory is a story ALL of us still tell to this day whenever we get the opportunity.
.........................................................................................................................................................................
That was a pause to see if any of my family can guess which story I mean. Got it yet?
One day we got into this cab. There were four of us so somebody always had to sit up front and that was usually Dad. This day was no different. We all piled in and Dad started up his shtick with the cabbie and we got to a stoplight at the top of a monstrous hill, I mean it was so incredibly steep we all thought we were about to go down headfirst. The cab driver looked at my dad, who was not wearing his seat belt.
The cab driver said "Sir, could you put your seat belt on please?..........I wanna try something!"
Did the cabbie actually go flying down the hill? Did my breakfast land on Dad's lap? No, he just wanted Dad to put his seat belt on, but he had us all going for a second. That was a fun trip!
Spring Break 2000
Now this was in college. Nobody had ANY plans. Our school took a New York trip every year but my friends and I had already gone. We were stuck. Nothing to do, nowhere to go. Then one night, 5 days before Spring Break began, over cheap beer and karaoke we concocted a plan. You see my parents owned this van. This nice van. And none of us had ever been to New Orleans before. And by golly wouldn't you know it? Five days later we finished a dinner theatre show, took some pictures by the van and we were off!
There were six of us and we drove 24 hours pretty much straight through to Louisiana. We stopped for breakfast in Kirksville, Mo, missed Graceland by 5 minutes (who knew it closed at 4 p.m.?) and had pizza instead, and frankly, got a little nervous driving through Mississippi at night.
Once we got there, it was fantastic. We stayed in a hostel the first night and moved to a hotel thereafter. We shopped, went to the zoo, toured a graveyard, ate at great restaurants, drank at great bars, some of us got tattoos while others showed their boobies for beads.......ok it was just me that showed my boobs but dammit, we were in New Orleans, somebody had to!
Spring Break 2008
That's right folks, one measly year ago. Was. My. Honey. Moon.
San Francisco again. But this time with my love. My husband.

So, Sara, how was your "Spring Break" this year? Well technically I didn't have one, I was sick, my husband was pissy cause of the noise from the siding and I found out my folks can't come see my show. So compared to the above it sucked big time.
But I have pretty new green siding on the roof over my head, my hubby loves me, I haven't lost my voice yet (knock on everything), I can talk to my mom on the phone anytime I want and dammit I have a great show opening this weekend!
Not bad...not bad.

Complete cop-out, stolen from Jill.

1. When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Broadway Actress and Orthopedic Pediatrician

2. What have you done in the past week to help someone else?
Babysat the niece and nephew and gossiped a lot(hey gossiping helps).

3. Who is the best-dressed person you know?
Hmmmm....probably my friend Ashley.

4. What is on your nightstand?
Oh lordy! Random jewelry, a cup o' water or two, a pair of glasses and some other unmentionables.

5. If you were a cat, what kind of a cat would you be?
A lazy one...oh wait...

6. If you lived in a house surrounded by acres of trees, what particular type of tree would you want flourishing on your land?
Totally stealing this answer cause I never would've thought of it myself.....Pecan tree...I freakin' LOVE pecans!

7. What do you find to be very overrated?
People and having to deal with them.

8. How many email addresses do you have?
2

9. Have you ever felt replaced?
Sure have

10. Would you rather watch football or baseball?
Top Model

11. What is the wallpaper on your phone?
A pic of the Tooter

12. Name a lyric from the song you're listening to.
Not listening to any music right now...but i have a song in my head. "For yoooouuuuuu"

13. Do you use a feed reader?
A what?

14. What chocolate do you always leave in the box?
Jill and I really are similar in a totally creepy way....the cherry.

15. What would you do if you found out your ex is engaged?
They are all pretty much married too...but i will say that one ex I was really happy for when I found out and another I was pretty devastated at the time but I got over it...quickly.

16. Do words hurt you?
Sure do

17. Are you a talker or a listener?
I would like to think I am a good mix of both....unless I've been drinking.

18. Have you ever walked on the beach at night?
Yeppers....and then I peed on that beach

19. Who is your favorite professional athlete?
I'll say Michael Phelps...only in the hopes that I can score some weed.

20. Which TV show have you seen pretty much every episode of?
Six Feet Under