and the verdict is:

i got laid off.

it is a relief to know that federal money is being poured into global violence, rather than spent trying to do something about domestic violence. way to go, budget cuts.

panic sets in

6:12 pm: morgan's work phone rings. it is morgan's supervisor.

morgan's supervisor: i wanted to call you before it got too much later. since the new fiscal year starts july 1, the managers and supervisors want to meet with people individually to talk about some agency changes. we need you to come in tomorrow morning at 7:30, we will be meeting in the director's office.

morgan: is this something that everyone is being asked to do?

morgan's supervisor: we need to talk to people individually.

morgan: is this regarding the legal advocacy program, or the agency in general? is this something to be concerned about?

morgan's supervisor: i really can't talk about it. we can discuss everything tomorrow morning.

6:14 pm: morgan hangs up, and immediately develops an ulcer.

oh.
my.
god.

false advertising

you know that show on tlc called "design on a dime," where they redecorate a room and the budget is $1000? well i don't think it takes any kind of special resourcefulness to redo a room with a thousand bucks. i could probably redo the entire east precinct with a thousand bucks.

a thousand bucks, i do not have.

what i need to know, is how to decorate a room with, say ten bucks. or five, even. maybe i just need tips on breaking and entering so i can loot other people's homes for shabby chic treasures.

i got this email today with little word play somethings or others, cleverisms, i don't know, and one of them was cashtration (v): the act of buying a house, which leaves one financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.

fer yer viewing pleasure

i am moderately concerned that all the dry wall dust poses some sort of threat to our health.

nevertheless, watching julie work, and listening to her curse, provides me with endless hours of amusement. hopefully you all will be equally amused.

monday.

so far today:

i started my period for the second time this month.

i discovered the bookshelf i decided to paint white this weekend is going to require not one, not two, but THREE coats of paint.

moochie vomited in between the washer and dryer.

oh goodie.

yesterday in the car

we were going the wrong direction.

julie: what do we normally turn on?

morgan: your mom.

late night home improvement/catch up

i still haven't gotten around to day 2, or day 3, of the family reunion. it went something like...sit around with family members and talk about things that happened a long time ago, and people that died a long time ago. look at pictures of people that died already. explain, again, "no, i didn't say we were neighbors. i said we just bought a house together. and we fuck each other." (not really that last part, but you know). the only thing i could eat -- at all -- was the raw vegetable platter that somebody brought from kroger or some such. i felt like a rabbit. meals were mostly meat, meat, a sidedish with meat chunks, and something smothered in mayonnaise. it was really good to see some of my family, though...there is just something different about being around people that are related to you by blood and saw you do things like poop your pants. on the way home, julie drove the first half and then i drove the second half...it pretty much was like a flash flood for the last 4 hours of the drive. luckily, we only had to pull over 3 times, and we only almost died from hydroplaning once.

tonight we have some kind of fiasco going on in the house that involves the bathroom ceiling, and julie sawing a hole in it...and me getting distracted and reorganizing the tool box. there are a lot of rusty nails on the floor, and i'm pretty sure i haven't had a tetanus shot, oh, since forever. what got this project started is the fact that we haven't been able to take showers, only baths, since we moved in. thats because we have a clawfoot tub, with a shoddily hung shower curtain ring, and no place to put the handheld water thing. the problem has really turned out to be much more complicated than we once imagined, like it maybe would have been easier if we had took a match to the bathroom and started from scratch. i still haven't ruled this out. don't tell allstate.

but when i say home improvement, really what i mean is home making-no-progress-and-getting-cranky-because-it's-past-my-bedtime.

family reunion, day 1

friday, june 16

4:35 pm
morgan and julie depart for kansas city, with mercy in tow.

4:37 pm
morgan begins her first snack: banana chips.

5:02 pm
morgan has her second snack: a fuji apple.

6:36 pm
morgan and julie have dinner in the car: curry tofu and salami sandwiches, respectively.

8:17 pm
morgan takes over the driving.

8:32 pm
traffic comes to a standstill, along about st. louis. the typical progression of any roadtrip julie and i take is that julie drives the first leg, which goes quickly and easily. the moment i assume the driver's seat, however, one of three things happens -- horrendous traffic, monsoon style weather, or road construction that lasts for hundreds of miles. this trip was no exception.

11:12 pm
though it may not seem like a late hour, i am so sleepy by this point that my eyes are starting to melt. i pass off the driver's seat.

1:30 pm
we arrive at the comfort suites in kansas city. we are met at the door by my cousin, who is a heavy smoker and an insomniac. he suffers from a number of acute mental health issues, which are too lengthy to mention here. he promptly confuses julie for me.

1:33 pm
we smuggle mercy into the room. god forbid we have to pay $5 extra to have a pet in the room with us. obviously sleuth-style is the only way to go.

1:34 pm
coma.

barfy bunny

would write a long, amusing update on the weekend/family reunion, but i can't keep my head/ass out of the toilet bowl for long enough to say much. food poisoning? stomach bug? deadly illness? too soon to tell.

i'm on a steady diet of saltines and room temperature gatorade. i keep trying to get julie to dress up in a nurse outfit but she has refused (stubborn little shit). she won't dress mercy up either.

i'm going to go take to my sick bed.

and it was dolly parton's character -- truvy? -- in steel magnolias. thanks for playing.

hint

here is another line from the same movie, in case you are stumped.

"the older you get, the sillier you get."

"yeah well, the older you get, the uglier you get."

movie trivia

newest line from a movie that i plan on hijacking:

"now you know i would rather walk on my lips than criticize anyone, but..."

one point if you know which movie the line is from...

two points if you know who said it.

in need of new music

i am in a big time music slump and i need some new stuff to listen to. my most recent purchases were maria taylor (really good), and jenny lewis and the watson twins (also really good). i have played these to death, as per my usual habits, and desperately need to broaden my horizons. julie and i are driving to kansas city this weekend for a **family reunion** (i'll come back to that later) and we need some fresh material, because we can only entertain each other with your mom jokes for so long. not more than, say, 6 hours at a time.

and now for something you might not know about me.

artist whose voice i want to have sex with (don't make fun of me): kd lang.

domestication

it is fun, getting acquainted with the new neighborhood...settling into our new house...spending a lot of time and money at lowe's...

pretty much all we do on the weekends is nest. and go to lowe's.

we have really smashing next door neighbors who are becoming fast friends. they have a dog named otis, and mercy is the love of his life. we chat across the fence (with the neighbors mostly, but also with otis). ms. neighbor brought us a **vegan** chocolate pie last week that was stupidly good. and they aren't even vegans. we ran into the neighbors this weekend at lowe's, they were shopping for a toilet.

another member of the neighborhood of whom i am becoming quite fond is hungry the cat. hungry has apparently been the neighborhood stray for quite some time. hungry used to have a companion cat, who was named thirsty, but one day thirsty stopped coming around. we can only surmise his/her whereabouts.

oh YAY!

it is always good to visit tom's blog to find things like this. my little lezzie car!

one other thing, not related...i just figured out that i can change the settings so that anyone can comment, instead of just blogger users...so comment, goddammit!

six feet under finale

i don't have cable, because i have netflix, which is even better. and because i have netflix, i don't watch tv shows when they are on tv, i watch them when they come out on dvd.

which is why i am just now watching the last ***the last*** season of six feet under. and why i had to hide under a rock and not talk to any of my friends when the last season of six feet under was on tv, because god forbid i find out about any of the story lines prematurely.

and last night i watched the season finale. i think my eyes are still puffy today from how much i cried. the moment between claire and ruth, where claire says she isn't going to new york so she can stay with ruth, and then ruth tells her to go to new york and they both cry............there just aren't words. and then watching ruth's transformation/liberation/exhiliration...i'm just so proud of her. so if you are one of those friends that i haven't talked to because you had seen the last season of six feet under and i hadn't, well we can commence communication now. and maybe start a support group.

a little mercy timeline

first, she was just a little nubbin.

then, she opened her eyesies.

she was cuddly.

and small.

then her ears stood up and her legs grew real long.

and now she is such a big girl. she weighs 4.6 pounds. her favorite things to eat are cat food and panties. her favorite place to poop is in the living room. her favorite place to have diarrhea is on the guest bed. her hobbies are shredding toilet paper (which she learned from bean) and napping under the covers (which she learned from julie), and running away from us when we call her (which might get her killed).

but she'll always have her looks.

mister

i keep getting junk mail addressed to "mr. morgan watts." this does not compel me to open it.

to be fair, though, today i do sound like a man. a man who is hoarse. went to the doctor, who (reassuringly) told me that she wasn't sure what i had, and then prescribed antibiotics. the most interesting sighting today was the crinkled up old nun in a wheelchair, waiting at the doctor's office. her habit kind of looked like a cream colored sweat shirt. and speaking of nuns, here is another vignette from my european vacation. let me set the stage.

julie and i are walking down the street on a sunny afternoon in camden, and a woman is walking towards us, pushing a baby stroller.

julie: morgan, look, its a nun!
me: that isn't a nun. that is a muslim woman.
julie: ...

god love her.

home again home again

...and with a european sinus infection as a souvenir! i think my body is punishing me for the cheese that i ate....

so much to tell about the trip, but that pseudophedrine does a number on me. that, and the jet lag.

i only lost julie one time on the whole trip. we had just gotten on the metro (subway) en paris, when i realized -- ahoy! -- we were headed the wrong direction. i exclaimed to julie: "this train is going the wrong direction!" and then i hopped off, just in time for the doors to SLAM SHUT behind me. a trainful of parisians observed with amusement as my mouth dropped open in horror while julie hurtled away from me into the big black subway hole. it was our first night in france, julie had no money on her, and doesn't speak a word of french (except i taught her how to say "bonjour" on the way there, and i didn't feel confident that she could approach somebody and say "bonjour" in just the right manner so that they would know to direct her back to our metro stop, place monge). so i did what any reasonable person would do: i sat down on a bench and cried. luckily, julie came sailing back into the station shortly thereafter, and we ran into each other's arms like in a kleenex commercial.

more highlights to come.