Um, we went to the same place for lunch today… and had the same thing. Does that make us weird? LOL

We discussed—over the Mozambique, steak, Borba and liquored espresso—how we would have to blog about it when we got back… except the coworker is now sleeping on the desk, so it is left up to me.

And here’s something really fun. While we were imbibing, a rap song came on overhead. Now normally this is no big deal. The coworker will groove and I will ignore, as rap is the one genre that we do not agree on. HOWEVER, today we were treated to an extra special, not-edited-for-radio version of a Snoop Dogg song… and it was graphic, lemme tell ya. The coworker had to sing it to me (I can’t understand that stuff to save my life), and wow, was it a doozy. For your viewing pleasure, this is what we listened to over lunch.

Wow. Yes, over lunch. While we were partaking of food in a public place. Hysterical.

So normally I do not send people to other blogs, except via the links on the right. However, I found a link to this, laughed till my side hurt and thought I should share… You’ll laugh, I promise.

In other news… nothing that interesting is going on. I mean, our boss thinks we are running a “loose ship,” the guest is no longer here and the weather is on the fritz, but we found a fabulous new restaurant one minute from work! (And yes, that was one of the only positive things about the day.)

Shrimp Mozambique, a steak sandwich, a bottle of Borba and two espressos with Bailey’s later we were feeling much better about the day. I wish I had my camera to share pics of the food (Yes, it was that good and yes, we did talk about taking a picture. Deal with it.), but suffice to say it was phenomenal.. even at 3 PM, because that was when we took our lunch break.

See, the crappy part of our job is that there is so much to do that we tend to work through the normal lunch hour… it’s sad, we know. Eventually, as 1 becomes 2, the coworker starts to make noises and send IMs, asking what we are doing for lunch. Slowly, those noises become yells and get louder and more insistent, and the IMs begin to read, “Now, I want food NOW. RIGHT NOW!!!!” It’s truly an entertaining experience, and one we live out every. single. day. That is our joy.

Lunch time, friends. That is the joy of our day. The measly hour (sometimes far less) we spend eating something yummy. Half the time we eat at the office, where I peruse the blogs and read the funniest posts aloud, and she responds to emails. The other half? Ah, well, that is the good time we spent at the lovely place on the water (with bad food, but good liquor).. or now, at the delicious little place up the street, with the good food and liquor.

Choices, choices…

So sad, the guest has left… and he also missed his flight, lol, but he got on another one about 45 minutes later. Poor guest. 🙁 LOL

Sadly, I must work now, but I promise the pics will be up soon. There are some doozies….

More to come, I promise… but right now it’s the guest’s last night and we are going to start the drinking fest. After a full day at the beach—where all of us got a little too much sun, lol—we have now reconvened at the insider apartment for drinking and games.

Off to make a martini! Ta ta..

Here’s the thing about weekends. As children, we learn that weekends equal freedom from school, i.e., weekends are gold. No alarm clocks, no rules and no bedtimes—as we age, that also includes no rules about liquor consumption.

What am I babbling about, you ask? There was mad drinking last night people, mad drinking. I have a giant martini glass a friend of mine gave me as a gift, and it was put to good use last night. Parrot Bay Coconut Rum and Coke—a lovely drink.

Of course, that was prefaced by numerous martinis, double vodkas and rum and cokes… lol.

This is the first weekend get-together for the Insider’s View of Life blogging team—the friend who came in last night is the guest, here from Minnesota, visiting the outsider and I.

The pictures are going to be a riot, as we three went camera-happy with two cameras… and did I mention the massive quantity of alcohol consumed?

There was a Starbucks run this morning.. and the guest made omelets. (Excellent ones I might add!)

Shall we auction him off? Highest bidder wins a weekend with the guest…. 😉

Do you know how much stuff people accumulate? Stupid stuff—knicknacks, trinkets and an abnormal amount of kitchen accoutrement—anyone need a fondue pot or a set of martini glasses (I have three… they were gifts. So what does that say about me…?)?

This morning I realized that I needed to contact my landlord… but I surprisingly did not have her number. No matter, that’s what whitepages.com is for—although my mother informed me that getting cable and internet access the hour I moved in, and not getting my landlord’s number, was quite telling about my priorities… hehehe. 😉

As it turns out, I should’ve checked to see if my stove was working… why, you ask? Because the hot water heater is neither broken or turned off. No, it’s the gas. So I have to call the gas company tomorrow to turn it back on.. until then, cold showers. Argh.

Other than that, the only other obnoxiousness is that the air conditioner is not installed yet. Sigh. Oh well.. at least I haven’t broken anything this morning, unlike the guest who emailed me this picture…

With this subject line: “My life sucks today because..” And this picture caption: “She’s gonna be pissed”

Subsequent emails have uncovered… the guest hates soap scum. LOL

“There was some soap scum I couldn’t get to, so I lifted the glass out to clean it. It just shattered in my hands.”

Ah, good times…

This weekend a friend of mine invited me to his cabin up in Northern Minnesota. I didn’t really know what to expect however the sound of getting away for the weekend was too good to pass up regardless of what was in store.

So last Friday I got home from work a little early, threw a few clothes in a bag and waited for my friend Ken to pick me up. Of course, I had to grab my camera too.

Here’s a recap of the weekend:

Ken pulls up a little late. No worries, we still have plenty of time to make the three and a half hour drive. I put my bags in Ken’s truck and he explains that his air conditioning isn’t working. No problem, I was thinking. Usually I don’t mind the heat. I climb into Ken’s sweltering truck. Wow, it smells kind of funky in here I think to myself.

We drive to Ken’s house to pick up his dog Jasper. Jasper is a very sweet Samoyed who lost one eye due to pressure problems and whose hips are completely degenerative. Ken lifts Jasper into the truck. That explains the smell – it’s the dog. I think Ken sees my nose wrinkle up. My eyes are watering.

Ken explains, “Sorry, my dog has serious problems with his anal glands.”

This is Jasper

Even with both our windows down (recall there’s no air conditioning) Jasper’s ass permeates the truck.

Three and a half hours later we pull up to Ken’s cabin. He’s got a beautiful spot right on the lake. It’s dark out now and we walk up to the front door where there’s a cloud of mosquitoes and other bugs waiting to carry us away.

We walk in and Ken introduces me to his brother-in-law, Mike and his nephew, Shane. I should probably mention that the only air conditioning Ken’s cabin has is an in-window unit in his bedroom. It’s probably about 90 degrees out still even though the sun has gone down.

I head off to bed and try to get settled in. It’s way too hot for any sheets so I lay awake on my bed trying to get comfortable. I figure if I lay still enough I can cool down.

I can hear the whine of the mosquitoes. I feel a bite on my leg and a split second later I smack it. OK maybe the sheets aren’t such a bad idea.

I pull the sheet up over my body and start to dose off. I wake up to the sound of a mosquito in my ear. It wakes me up halfway and I smack myself hard in the head. OW!

I’m awake now. I turn the light on and grab a shirt. I turn the shirt into a mosquito-killing weapon and go on a rampage.

After I cleared out all the mosquitoes I go back to bed and drift off to sleep.
Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz – thwap! I smack my head again.

OK. Now I’m hot and sweaty, covered in mosquito bites and I’ve been hitting my head and despite my best efforts to kill all the mosquitoes in the room I’m SOL. Finally I’m so tired that I fall asleep and wake up eight hours later covered in red dots.

The next morning after a nutritious breakfast of cinnamon rolls, we head out fishing. Mike tells me that they’re biting and that he’s already caught five. Ken, Shane and I go out on the lake to check things out.

None of us catch any fish – just lots of seaweed. But no worries, it’s not always about catching fish. And besides, the mosquitoes don’t come out on the lake.

After a great morning out on the lake we grill up some burgers and relax. I love food. Shane and I finish off the last of the burgers and decide that tubing would be an appropriate after-lunch activity. I also love swimming after I eat… just because you’re not supposed to.

This is Shane tubing.

Ken decides that we’ll catch more fish if Shane and I snorkel to find them. Shane and I quickly discovered that the reason we weren’t catching fish is because there weren’t any—however the visibility in the lake was decent for freshwater. About 20 feet down there is a thermocline, which is a sudden change in water temperature. The temperature will change from about 75 or so down to about 50. The warm water sits on the cold water like a layer.

Having a wetsuit on, I decided to see how far down I could actually get. The deepest part of this lake was just over 41 feet. Armed with my wetsuit, mask and flippers I jump in and start breathing to prepare for my dive.

I take in a deep breath several times. One last breath and I start diving down. Kicking hard I push deeper and deeper until I hit the thermocline and I can feel the freezing water around me. Diving without weights in a wetsuit is hard because (unlike me) wetsuits are buoyant. About 10 feet after the thermocline the urge to breath is unbearable from kicking so hard.

I start to ascend and the warm water above felt like a hot bath. I start to see stars. I picked a good time to resurface. I was thinking about making another attempt without the wetsuit, but 50-degree water without a wetsuit? Maybe next time.

Later that afternoon, Ken introduces me to his brother Robert and Robert’s wife Anne.

Robert and Anne live across the cul-de-sac from Ken. We walk over to their home and it is beautiful. Robert and Anne bought this cabin a few years ago in really rough shape. It only had a couple of windows, no flooring and no ceiling—in other words, pretty much just logs with a roof.

Now their cabin is fully finished with a beautiful open floor plan, tile flooring, tongue-in -groove woodwork, marble bathrooms, granite counter-tops and beautiful huge windows to show the amazing lake view.

The incredible thing is that Robert and Anne have done all this work themselves. They haven’t hired a single contractor or company to do any work on their house. Robert and Anne have done it all, from sawing holes in the logs (to make room for the new windows) to hand-finishing every board of woodwork in their home. Anne even purchased custom glass bowls and with Robert’s help, made their own custom pedestal sinks.

This is Robert and Anne’s cabin.

My favorite feature was the kitchen. Did I mention I love food? Really love food.

Now Ken brought 4 lobsters with him, one of which was 4 ½ pounds. And Shane explains that he doesn’t like lobster and that he’d rather eat hotdogs. It’s really amazing to me that anyone can eat a hotdog. It’s even more amazing when you get to eat more lobster because a 14-year-old kid opts to eat hotdogs instead. I’m not complaining.

This is Robert holding dinner.

Robert also grilled shrimp with some special blend of spices and they were phenomenal. Can you tell I was in heaven?

Our evening ended with an attempt at a bonfire. The reason I say attempt is because the mosquitoes came out. Numerous bites later we decided that the searing heat from the fire combined with the smoke wasn’t enough to keep the mosquitoes away.

Actually, it’s a combination of heat and the fact that we had a really late lunch… out on the deck of our favorite restaurant. But in all honesty, it’s unbelievably hot and muggy here today and that makes us very grumpy.

In other news, the guest is driving back from the lake and decided to try and text my email from his phone, which worked wonderfully… 20 times (so far). Apparently he’s roaming and his provider just won’t stop the texting. Here’s the question I have… does this mean he’s going to get charged for every single one of those? If so, we’re going to have to start a collection or something…

Update… 41 to the outsider and 23 to me… yikes!

Update… 10 PM: Just so everyone knows I’m not kidding about the damn heat.. it’s 83 damn degrees outside! At 10 PM! I am in hell.

And I thought, “Hey, I love coffee, let’s see what I am.” However, being as pedantic as I am, I had to see how many coffee quizzes were available (stop laughing, and yes, I really am this weird). So anyway, I Googled and took three different “What kind of coffee are you?” quizzes and guess what.. I’m three different kinds of coffee. lol

On this site, I’m an Irish Coffee.

At your best, you are: wild, spontaneous, and outgoing. (OK, very true.) At your worst, you are: too extreme and reckless. (Um, not sure about that, but OK.) You drink coffee when: you want to keep drinking booze. (Actually, I drink coffee all the time, but I love it with liquor.) Your caffeine addiction level: low (What, are you kidding me? Coffee runs in my veins.. I bleed caffeine people.)

On this site, I’m a cappuccino (which, btw, they can’t spell… sigh).

You’re in perfect balance. Not too bitter and not too sweet… you’re delicious and a treat for all. (I know many who would disagree, but lol). Floating like the foam on top, you rock with good vibrations all over. (So, yeah, this test was created by a juvenile male… lol.)

On this site, I’m a double espresso.

Hey Energizer Bunny Girl! Do you ever slow down? (Nope!) You’re a mix of high energy and ambition, perfectly matched with strong espresso. (So very, very true.) When you want something you get it – by any means possible. (Well, not entirely.) You’re driven, determined, and no nonsense. Which is just how you like your java. (Exactly… now that’s what I’m talking about.)

Result? Well, I drink iced doppios, extra ice with a tiny splash of soy—when I’m having a bad day, I get a quad. Liquor? I drink vodka on the rocks, twist of lime. However, when it’s cold (or when I’m in Ireland), I will drink an Irish Coffee… every. single. day.

Conclusion? Taking weird online quizzes at two in the morning provides nothing but a less-than-entertaining post on your blog. So sorry people… 🙂

and avoiding packing… surf the Web and find funny things.