Everything's coming up hummus

I don't think I've ever been so excited about a grocery store before. A Jewel just opened about a block from my office, and I went there for lunch today. Holy. Crap. It's like the happiest place on Earth.

For starters, they have a salad bar. With all kinds of delicious ingredients. Then, there's the olive/hummus bar. Not kidding, there were like 8 different kinds of hummus available.

THEN, they have the deli/home-style goodness section, featuring things like lasagna, spinach pasta, green bean casserole and au gratin potatoes. I wanted to eat EVERYTHING. And then, they have tables and chairs outside. And it's all right across the street from a new park that opened a few weeks ago. Like, a great big park with a playground and dog run and tons of soft, green grass. All in the middle of the city. Heaven.

Anyway, other exciting things going on right now include moving into our house. (Like how this got second billing to the grocery store?) Currently, there are some painters painting, and some floors guys doing whatever floors guys do, all working to make the fun house livable and cat-pee-smell free.

We're moving in on Tuesday. In the meantime, I still have tons of packing to do. Apparently, having a whole month to pack and move just meant that I could procrastinate that much longer. Although I do have some good excuses.

For starters, Chris and I have been at the fun house almost every night for the past month trying to clean and rip out old flooring and pour every concoction available on the floors trying to get rid of the cat-pee smell. Seriously, we tried everything. We finally did get rid of the smell (I think) but it required ripping out the hardwoods in the dining room. They were pretty bad and rotted from the cat nastiness. Interestingly, under those hardwoods we found..... more hardwoods. The house was built in the 1890s, and I assumed that the hardwoods we found under the carpeting were the originals. But now that I've seen this new, super old layer of hardwoods, I can say that I'm pretty sure we finally found the original originals. In fact, my dad found one of those old school nails that's more square than round. So, yeah, that's some old wood.

In other hardwood news, we also found some underneath this weird fake-wood linoleum on the second floor. I cannot fathom what the previous owners were thinking, like, "Hmmm... you know what would look great on top of these hardwood floors? Fake wood-grained linoleum. And then, let's throw some green carpeting on top and let our cats pee all over it! Oooh, ooh! I have an even better idea! Let's turn some birds loose upstairs and let them poop all over the walls!! Awesome!"

But I digress. In addition to de-pooping and de-peeing the fun house, I also went to Arizona for a few days for work. It was fabulous. The weather was super hot, (which I love), the sky was blue, the resort was amazing, and all my food and drinks were paid for. I most definitely took advantage of the latter.

Now that I've been away for a few days, I'm itching for a real vacation. Chris and I are taking a few days off next week to move, but that's no vaca. I realize I shouldn't complain, considering we went to Aruba this year, and we're probably going to North Carolina in November. But what I really want is a vacation where we don't have to do anything. I don't want to visit anyone. I don't want to go to a wedding (we've been to three this year). I don't want to go sightseeing. I just want to relax for a few days with my husband, sit by the pool, go to the spa and eat my weight in fancy dinners.

I managed to talk Chris into this idea. (by "talk into," I mean it went down like this. Me: Hey we should go on vacation. Him: OK!). So, such a trip might happen in the next month. We're considering Nashville, which isn't a likely spot, but it's close, relatively cheap, has a great music scene and features slightly warmer weather. So, if you have any suggestions for our trip, lemme have 'em!

Brilliant

The anti-theft lunch bag.

Little treasures

In the Pandora's box known as our new house, we keep finding little hidden surprises. Some great. Some less-than-stellar.

For example, last night we found hardwoods under our kitchen floor. Finding these hardwoods involved a little elbow grease. First, we pulled up some linoleum. Under that, we found some plywood. We pulled some of that up to find another layer of linoleum. So we pulled that stuff off and found a layer of particle board. Under that, we found yet another layer of linoleum. And finally, under all that crap, we found hardwoods. (For those of you mathematically challenged, that's 3 layers of linoleum, 1 layer of plywood, and 1 layer of particle board). The people who previously owned this place either really hated hardwood, or were incredibly lazy. Or maybe they knew something we'll find out soon, like that half the floor's missing. Or there's bunch of water damage. Or a dead body.

On the plus side, when we finally remove those 5 layers of flooring, we'll have some nicely preserved hardwoods, and our floor-to-ceiling height will grow by at least an inch.

On the less-than-stellar side, up the bird poop room, Chris pulled out a giant A/C unit that was glued into the window sill. And between the A/C and the sill, he found a bird's nest. Sooooo, I'm starting to think the crazy lady who lived there before us didn't actually own a bird, but rather tried to domesticate some wild ones. Lovely.

So, did I mention the hardwoods? We have hardwoods.

The Funhouse

So, it finally happened. We finally got through all the negotiations, legal madness, mortgage crapola, and last Friday, we bought a brand new, fancy house.

Except by "brand new" I mean, it was built in the 1890s, and by "fancy" I mean, if you were homeless and lost your sense of smell, you might think it was pretty nice.

So yeah, we bought a fixer-upper, formerly owned by a not-quite-right older lady with lots of cats, who peed in lots of places other than their litter boxes. (The cats, I mean. Not the old lady... well, I'm not sure about that actually). In addition to the extreme cat-pee odor, the house also features an addition on the back that's slowly sinking, which has led to a wonky staircase that would fit in quite well in a funhouse. Or perhaps Willy Wonka's factory. Or maybe an Escher painting. Or quite possibly a Dumpster.

But I don't care. Because it's mine. That beautiful two-car garage? I own you. That rose bush? I own you, too. Cat-urine-soaked hardwoods? All MINE!

And in case you missed it, we have stairs. Not like, "I live on a third-floor walk-up" stairs, but rather "Oh, do you need to use the computer? That's in our office, UPSTAIRS." Or "Someone's using the bathroom down here, so you can use the other one UPSTAIRS."

Which brings me to the next bit of excitement: We have TWO bathrooms. Well, actually, we sort of have three, but the third one is of the super-creepy variety in the basement and only features 3 walls. So, yeah, we don't plan on using that one too much.

Other fabulous features include three bedrooms, a backyard and awesome neighbors, who even brought us champagne in the pouring rain Monday night while we worked on the floors.

We don't have to be out of our current apartment until the end of the month, so we're not moving until then. For the next few weeks, it's gonna be all remodeling, all the time. In preparation, I've watched nothing but HGTV and Flip This House for the past two months. (By the way, New Haven, CT team—so freaking hot. San Antonio guy—total freaking douchebag).

I plan on blogging about the process along the way. In fact, if you'd like a tour of the new place, check out the video below. Just don't get too close to the screen, because you might be able to smell the cat pee. Seriously.


Funhouse from Sarah Wunder on Vimeo.

Remember when we lived in America, not China?

Journalists were arrested at the RNC. This is both sad and extremely frightening.



See the full story here.

Palinguage

I like this post, so I stole it (with proper citation - a word that probably isn't known in Palinguage.)

By John Ridley

Up in the Twin Cities area folks are speaking a new language. Or, should I say Palinguage. It sounds sorta familiar because it's Latin based. But different from the plain English we're used to speaking, in Palinguage recognizable words take on new meanings. Won't you take a moment to learn some Palinguage so you can talk like a hypocritical conservative?

REPEAT THE FOLLOWING:

If you're a minority and you're selected for a job over more qualified candidates you're a "token hire." If you're a conservative and you're selected for a job over more qualified candidates you're a "game changer."

If you live in an Urban area and you get a girl pregnant you're a "baby daddy." If you're the same in Alaska you're a "teen father." (Actually, according to your own MySpace page you're an F'n redneck that don't want any kids, but that's too long a phrase for the evil liberal media to take out of context and flog morning noon and night).

Black teen pregnancies? A "crisis" in black America. White teen pregnancies? A "blessed event."

If you grow up in Hawaii you're "exotic." Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, you're the quintessential "American story."

Similarly, if you name you kid Barack you're "unpatriotic." Name your kid Track, you're "colorful."

If you're a Democrat and you make a VP pick without fully vetting the individual you're "reckless." A Republican who doesn't fully vet is a "maverick."

If you say that for the "first time in my adult lifetime I'm really proud of my country" it makes you "unfit" to be First Lady. If you are a registered member of a fringe political group that advocates secession that makes you "First Dude."

A DUI from twenty years ago is "old news." A speech given without proper citation from twenty years ago is "relevant information."

And, finally, if you're a man and you decide to run for office despite your wife's recurrence of cancer you're a "questionable spouse." If you're a woman and you decide to run for office despite having five kids including a newborn... Well, we don't know what that is 'cause THAT'S NOT A FAIR QUESTION TO ASK.

Linktastic

I've never seen an episode of 90210. Or Party of Five. Or Melrose Place. Or Felicity. Or that one show with Claire Danes I can't remember the name of. I'm not really sure what I was doing during the '90s, but apparently I wasn't watching TV.

If I had been, I would probably find this post from "Anything Said" incredibly hilarious. In fact, it's pretty funny even though I never saw 90210, so for those of you that did, go here.

Then, you should go to New York, steal this puppy, and give it to me.

Then, do me a favor and buy me this refrigerator, this stove, and this dishwasher. And while you're at it, buy me central air and a new furnace, too.

Thanks.

A three-game losing streak

That's what I get for getting all cocky about baseball.