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I caught up on my sleep last night. Danny took me out to our new favorite Italian place for supper. The bread there is so good that we usually fill up on it and our salads before our meal even arrives.

Despite the delicious bread, I was NOT in a good mood. A combination of pms and general tiredness put a damper on the evening. Danny was sweet though and kept asking if there was anything he could do to make me feel better.

We went home and I changed out of my work clothes and belly-flopped onto the bed. The next thing I knew, I was curled up on my side of the bed with the lights off. I had passed out a little before 8pm. I woke up at one, removed my contacts, brushed my teeth and went to sleep. Even though I hit snooze a few times this morning I’m feeling SO much better today. I think I’m going to hit the gym after work. I’ll lift weights and maybe even work off some of the bread basket I consumed last night.

For loving sleep as much as I do, I wonder why it is so hard to make myself go to bed on time. Hmmm…

1. You keep a wool, electric blanket at your desk to stay “cozy.”

2. When you start to nod off, you bite your lip to wake up.

3. You see pictures of cats and instantly become jealous knowing that they get to sleep all day.

4. Even filing cabinets look comfy enough for you to use to catch a quick nap.

5. You get up often to walk around your floor. This wakes you up a bit.

6. You set the alarm on your cell phone before your train home leaves the station. That way, you’ll wake up in time and not miss your stop.

Today, Danny and I received copies of our wedding video. My uncle taped it and then had it transferred to DVD. It’s good. It’s also really funny.

First of all, it’s weird to see yourself on film, much less watch yourself get married. It’s also funny watching other people walk into view and then instantly freeze and smile when they see the camera.

We have the ceremony, the reception, the cake-cutting, and the rehearsal on film. The most interesting part occurs when someone sets the camera on the table without turning it off. We then get 30 minutes of random conversation and constant crotch and butt shots as people walk up to the table to chat, eat, or pick something up. After a while, you learn to instantly identify crotches and associate them with their owner’s voice. It is amusing but it gets old fast. I don’t know why it was included in the DVD, but someday, maybe I’ll look back and sigh at how much smaller my butt was on my wedding day.

This weekend was pretty good. The weather cooled off a bit which made being indoors tolerable. Yesterday, we watched the Mexico/Argentina World Cup match. I think it’s the first full match I’ve seen since the WC began. It went into overtime. In other words: long.

Today, I caught the second half of the Netherlands/Portugal game. I have to say that that was the dirtiest, roughest match I’ve ever watched. Granted, I haven’t seen that many, but the ref handed out 16 yellow cards and 4 red cards. Bizarre.

In other less-exciting news, we bought a travel crate for our kitties. Since we’re driving when we move, we’re taking the cats in the car with us. We wanted something large enough for them to stay together and not be too cramped. The vet told us that we might not need sedatives for the cats, but that we might want to take them on the road for a “test drive” in advance.

We loaded up the cats, put a sheet over the box (the vet said to do this), and took off. We drove for about an hour. The cats cried some but were quiet in general. I felt bad though. When we opened the box to let them out, they were huddled in the far corner. One of them was really terrified. They were fine once they got back inside our apartment. I guess the trauma was minimal.

Calculate the depth of your southern accent with this short, handy-dandy quiz.

I’m starting to lose my accent. I scored only 58% Dixie: Barely in Dixie.

After reading CrazyMomCat’s post about her kid liking the term “private punchout,” I was reminded of the things I believed to be true when I was a dumb little kid*.

*This phrase only applies to Danny and I, not to CMC’s kids who I’m sure are adorable and brilliant.

1. For years, I thought duct tape was made out of ducks. When I was about 8, I watched my Dad tape up our inflatable wading pool with duct tape. I asked him why it was called that and he said, “Because it’s made out of ducks.” I was simultaneously horrified and fascinated. Only years later when I went to the store to purchase duct tape did I realize the cruel cruel joke my father had played on me.

2. I read a comic strip when I was 10 that had some reference to “horrible, dirty lesbians” in it. For years, I did not understand why people from Lebanon were so hated.

3. From Danny: When he was little, his mother would ask him and his brother if they needed to tee tee or have a “BM”. Not knowing what BM stood for, Danny assumed that it meant butt mud.

4. Like most little kids, I was content to get naked and run around in the sprinkler or swim in the creek whenever I pleased. One time, my parents, a bunch of their friends and their kids went to our local creek to hang out. A few adults jumped in and the little kids, including myself, proceeded to strip and hop in the water. I asked my mom why she didn’t want to get naked and swim. Her reply: the water is just too cold. Years later, I realized that the water was not “too cold.”

5. One Christmas Eve, I was setting out the cookies for Santa before going to bed. I nonchalantly asked my dad what Santa would want besides cookies and milk. My dad said that Santa wanted a beer. To appease Santa, I went straight to the fridge, got a can of beer, and lovingly placed it by the cookies. The next morning, the beer can was empty and I got everything I had asked for.

6. Growing up, the rule was that we couldn’t eat food that we had dropped on the floor UNLESS we rinsed it off immediately. The purpose of this rule was to get us to rinse off the grape before eating it as little kids will stick anything in their mouths. I believed that this rule applied to all foods including potato chips. Needless to say, I figured out that wet potato chips were not too tasty.

7. My brother and I loved to play in our sandbox. We would dig around in there and toss out leaves, sticks, acorns and other non-sandy material that landed in the box. This included cat turds. Whenever I found one, I would scoop it with my plastic shovel and toss it as far across the yard as possible. Yep, launching cat turds was a game. Now I think of how disgusting it was that I played in a giant litterbox. I also wonder how many grapes I dropped in there that were immediately rinsed off and devoured.

8. When I was about 9, my parents got me a rock polisher for Christmas. I had a growing rock collection stashed in various grocery bags in my room and I really wanted to make them into jewerly or handy paperweights or whatever else 9-year-olds think you can do with rocks. My polisher came with one set of rock polishing mixes, one for each day of the polishing process. I was so excited. My parents helped me put it together and we set it up in our utility room. We plugged it in, added the rocks, the mixes, and the water and let it work it’s magic for three days. Each day, we would go out to the polisher, turn it off, add a new mix and more water, and set it grinding for another 24 hours.

On the last day, I removed the shiny polished rocks and turned them over and over in my hands. What kind of beautiful rocks did I have? I had gravel. I had two handfuls of gravel from our driveway. That is what I chose to polish.

Not much later, I decided that I was tired of collecting rocks and I went to deposit my collection in the pasture behind our house. Where did my gravel end up? You guessed it: back in the driveway. The rock polisher was never used again.

I ran across these a few weeks ago. Miles and Nick explain why a kitty’s life is so hard.

It is hot here. I know that it’s not 100 degrees with 99 percent humidity like it can be in Texas, but it is remarkably warm here. It usually gets down into the fifties at night. Guess what? It is 67 now at 1am. WTF? I moved to CA so I wouldn’t have to deal with the heat and humidity. I know, I know, tiny violin. Seriously though, we don’t have AC. It’s fine now, but this afternoon it sucked. How did our ancestors do it? That is, survive the elements without roasting to death. I would have given up, laid down, and waited for coyotes to come devour my carcass. One of my tens of brothers or sisters who didn’t die at childbirth would have had to carry on the family legacy for me.

Tomorrow, I’m wearing shorts to work. Ooohhh, rebellion! What can I say? I’m just a tax-paying, speed-limit-driving, decaf-coffee-drinking wild child.

Here is my new routine: go to work, have lots of coffee, work until 1pm, go out to lunch at a restaurant that has at least one TV showing a world cup game (starts at noon PST), enjoy lunch, watch soccer, cheer and gasp with the rest of the lunch crowd.

I don’t know why, but this is a lot of fun for me. I guess I shouldn’t overanalyze it, but it’s just unusual for me to like sports. Maybe it’s just the camaraderie.

Not much else is going on. It has been ridiculously warm here this week. I know it’s nothing compared to Texas in June, but it is noticable. Ridiculously warm here translates to upper 80’s in my neighborhood and upper 60’s to mid-70’s in SF. BTW, 70 in SF is considered “a scorcher.” The heat has made me feel fat and slow. Just FYI.

Okay, I’m not literally an old man, but I am a bit crochety. Today, I went into the breakroom and the newspaper that is usually spread out across two tables was missing. I had gone and picked up lunch with the intention of eating out on the patio while thumbing through the business and lifestyle sections of the newspaper. Now what was I going to do? I couldn’t sit outside and eat my sandwich alone, like a loser. I had to at least look like I was doing something. Plus, I LIKE to read when I’m eating lunch, preferring articles in ten paragraphs or less.

Not being able to get over my “news needs,” I went back inside and pulled up a few articles on the online paper. And printed them. I am a nerd and an old man who just wants his daily news and his turkey sandwich with NO pickles Goddamnit!