A 1995 Mazda Protege.  More later.

Vanessa is 16.  That means, it’s time to get a vehicle.  I have about 2K from my income tax return that I’m trying to find her a car with.  Obviously it’s not going to be pretty; however, if you’re careful, you can pick up old Toyota cars for that.

Today was the first day we went out looking.  OH!  MY!  WORD!  Showed her a two door Tercel. Cute car.  She said, “It’s boxy.”  I’m looking at the slanted back windshield going, “Typically, boxy means square.  Squares only have right angles.  That angle is more like 45…maybe 60 max.  How can it be boxy?”  She rolled her eyes.  “Mom!  I just don’t like the Tercels.”  *scratch 3 cars off our to see list*  When we got home, I showed her a 4 door Tercel on the net, but scrolled down so she couldn’t see the name.  “That’s a cute car!”  …and then I beat her.

 NEXT!  My mom has a burgandy Toyota Corolla.  She keeps saying, “I want a car like G-Ma’s!”  So we looked at a white one - just like my mom’s.  “MOM!  Look at the black thing!”  “Vanessa, that’s molding.  G-Ma’s has that too.”  “No it doesn’t!  It’s ugly!”  Got home and I made her look at my mom’s car.  “Well, it doesn’t show up so bad on the burgandy one.”  I beat her again.

She shows me a car she loves.  A PINK Celica.  Yes, P-I-N-K pink.  We call on it and it’s sold.  She finds another one, but they want too much for it.  She pouts.  I scream.  She gets beat again.

After beating her, I told her about when I was a kid.  After walking to school in the snow uphill both ways for years, I finally got a little two door corolla that had a salvage title….and I was happy to have it!  My older sister got an old Monte Carlo tank that was burgandy with a black top!  Now THAT was a bad first car.

5:30AM is too early to get up - and 7AM is too early to be at work.

So last night I had a strange dream.  I dreamed that Emerys called me up and said to get ready.  We were going on a road trip and they were on their way to get me.  I packed - not knowing where we were going.    A few minutes later, a big yellow school bus pulls into my driveway.  Roki, Cytha, Greymoran and Em were there.  Trin and Xano were going to meet us at our destination.

We get there and there turns out to be some hotel in the middle of nowhere.  It looks like some motel from the front, but we pull around to the back and it’s done in Roman architecture.  There are huge columns that support a flat tiled roof.  All as white as snow.  There are two rectangular pools running adjacent to the building so that all the rooms are poolside.  The walkway in between was filled with greenery and statues as were the other sides of the pool.  It was beautiful.  The rooms though….looked like typical motel rooms - which made me a little worried about how often they washed their bedspreads.

We parked the bus lengthwise along the pool in front of our room and Xano & Trin came out to greet us.  We had a blast.  We ate, slept, and hung out on the bus, only going into the motel to shower and change clothes in privacy.

Xano and Trin had to leave a couple of days early, so Tras and Kadison came out.  By this time, people were getting off work and getting ready to party for the weekend.  Strange people were everywhere.  It seems we were at some kind of groupie motel.  /boggle

The last day there and Em had to leave early.  He took a cab back.  I asked the rest of the guys if they wanted to go swimming with me, but they didn’t.  I took off from the bus to the pool.  Right after I got into the water,  these two biker/rocker looking guys came.  They weren’t swimming.  They were just hanging out in their leather jackets, chains, etc.  I got out of the pool and went to our room…and these guys moved down to stand in front of the room.  Cytha saw and came into the room, but I’d already changed and was headed back to the bus.  He said he was going to hang in the room a bit to make sure these guys weren’t up to no good.

I went back to the bus.  Roki was up front on the left side of the bus watching Greymoran, Kadison, and Tras in the back of the bus with a bunch of groupie girls.  I found a seat on the opposite side of Roki a few seats back and fell asleep. 

When I woke up, we were cruising down a curvy dirt road with no one driving!!  I ran to the drivers seat (which happened to be on the right) and started asking where we were.  No one knew.  I looked around and realized that Cytha wasn’t even on the bus.  They’d left him at the motel!!!!  I asked who’s bright idea it was to just up and leave.  Everyone said, “Amber” and this young emo looking girl stands up from the back of the bus, “I just wanted to drive.  I’ve never driven a bus before.”

I turn the bus around figuring that was the first step to getting back to where we were.  I had no idea how long we’d been traveling.  I called Cytha and explained what happened.  I asked if he wanted us to pick him up or if he was just going to take a cab back.  He said he’d taken extra time off and wanted to be there to tell everyone goodbye. 

I pulled out the map - which covered up the entire front windshield and looked just like a WoW map complete with green circles for group mates.  You couldn’t see a thing with the map out so I guess the bus had some kind of autopilot.  How else could we have been going down that curvy road without a driver?

I started explaining to Cytha what was on the map and he began trying to give me directions on how to get back.  We came to a mix master with huge bridges and stuff.  I took this huge overpass with a steep incline.  When we were done, the map said we were in Montana.  Cytha said, “You missed the turn.  You have to go back.”  I didn’t want to because it was very intimidating to me, but Roki piped up at that point, “I remember how to get back from here!”  Thank goodness!

We got back and I was never so glad to see someone.  I hugged Cytha and said, “Good.  You can drive.”  Roki said he didn’t have time to escort everyone back, so he was taking a cab.  I ushered all the groupies off the bus while Tras laughed saying something about how I was a typical jealous female under his breath.  

I laid back in the seat and began napping again.

Luna had her second litter of kittens.  Don’t say anything.  I know.  Get that cat fixed!!!  I’m going to as soon as she’s able. 

Last time I was lucky.  I hadn’t seen her for a while and went looking for her.  When I found here, there she was with all the kittens.  This time, she decided to have them in the middle of Vanessa’s bed with Vanessa sleeping there.  Vanessa woke up with Luna yowling and promptly called me (yes - she called on the cell phone).  With 5 hours sleep, I helped deliver five baby kittens - all in the middle of Vanessa’s bed because Luna wouldn’t have it any other way.

Princess Pistachio wasn’t content with just watching.  (You have no idea how odd that is.  Generally, she oversees everything without taking part.)  She helped clean the kitties and Luna in between the babies being born.

There are five total.  Two white kittens with block dots on their heads.  One tiger striped kitty.  One black kitty with white socks and a brown spot on it’s neck.  One orange kitty.  I’ll get new kitty pics up soon!

I got a phone call this morning from a friend of my dad.  He said his wife’s company was looking for a bookkeeper and wanted to know if I’d be interested.  At first I was thinking that I actually like working in the pharmacy, but then he told me how much she was making and cha ching.  Suddenly I was thinking, “You know, I like working with numbers and it’d be nice to get weekends off as well as getting away from the sick people…”

Hi.  My name is Naye and I enjoy having money.

While I was disconNETed, I changed jobs, not employers though.  I’m now working as a Pharmacy Tech in Training.  The good news is I have every other weekend off and never work past 8PM (6 on Sat and 5 on Sun).  The bad news is, if I make a mistake, it has the potential to do real harm to someone.

Also, Luna kitty is pregnant again. =/  I had a tough time getting both the time off and the money to have her fixed.  Then one day, this white cat just shows up IN my house.  He let himself in through the doggie door and made himself at home.  I heard Luna growling, went running, and realized the reason for the cat’s visit.  Stupid cat.  I picked him up to throw him outside and he started purring.  Stupid, stupid cat.

My little sister has 12 standard size poodle puppies so I guess it could be worse.  I told her to tell everyone that comes to get one, they get a free kitten as a bonus!

I know lots of you are asking that question.  I was without internet for about a month.  I got rid of my old net and phone lines without making sure I had the shiny new broadband first.  They ended up installing that 50 foot pole on the roof of my house.  Not only can I now get line of sight to the nearest broadband tower, but I can also make my own King Kong movies!  So cool!

Can you imagine a month without internet?  I didn’t realize how often I use it.  I actually thought about keeping a list of just the things I thought of googling while away from the net.  Not so that I could look them up once my net was back up, but just so I’d know how many times a day I thought of google.

I cleaned house.  This was long overdue.  For the first time in years, my laundry is completely caught up.  There are no baskets of clothes sitting in the laundry room waiting to be folded.  I cleaned out my fridge.  I washed all the linens, the walls, and the animals.  

I cleaned out everyone’s closets.  I found two pair of Jessica Simpson jeans that Vanessa never wore.  Apparently they make her bootie look funny. She also had some Roxy and Billabong t-shirts that still looked brand new.  When I asked about those, I was informed that they are sk8r.  Once I finished flogging myself for almost suggesting that she wear something sk8r, I thought maybe selling clothing on ebay isn’t such a bad idea.

I watched tons of TV.  Did I mention I don’t have cable?  I think I’ve seen every CSI and Law & Order twice now, not to mention every single PBS show.  I realized my brain was beginning to rot when I caught myself thinking, “Maybe we should get satellite TV instead of broadband.”

Lucky for me, that was about the time they installed my net.  I’m so glad to be back!

I have lots to tell, but too tired tonight.  Just a quick update.  More tomorrow!