A day (or two or three) in the life of...

My trusty digital camera has passed onto an electronic heavan. It seems that I'm quite electronically/technologically doomed. Between the TIVO incident, random keys on my keyboard being on strike here and there just long enough to rattle a nerve or two, many of my bulbs randomly burning out in my house and now my digital camera pooping out (actually, I think a drink may have been spilt on it last night but still...), I think this is a sign that I'm doomed. I should be living on a commune with a bunch of hippies or with the Amish . Either way, things aren't looking good in Clussy's electronic world. Please join me in a moment of silence for my beloved and formally trusty digital Sony DSC-T1 which is now in a better place... It was but a year old. ((shaking head)) Hadn't even seen it's best days... Such a shame. (I can still take this memory card somewhere to get the last pics taken salvaged, right?)

I'm gonna make this short and sweet. Appreciate this if/whilst you can before Jems comes back to blog on Monday and makes me take them down... Ok, so, last night we went to Wolftrap for an Abba coverband show which was great. Much wine was consumed, many laughs were had and much off-key singing along to Fernando, Chiquitita, Dancing Queen, Knowing Me Knowing You, The Winner Takes It All and Take a Chance On Me... A new yearly ritual was established and quite a bit of stress shaken off with some good friends. All in all, a wonderful evening, started out by waiting at the gates for them to let us in, running of the bulls (very similar, believe me) to get good lawn seats and sweating our asses off in that humidity but it was all worth it. What a great time and what perfect timing really. My week had been sucking, my mood was in the pits and my optimism about life in general had been hit w/a weed whacker so when Thursday night came around and I got to hear familiar giggles in my ear th...

This here is my Mas w/her cat eyes. Ah Mama... Ken te kele? (code between Mas and I for 'who loves you?') Last night, my angel of Mom came w/a mission of making me smile. She'd felt that I was out of sorts since last week and had had enough of it and made it her business to keep me happy for a whole evening. She usually is good at soothing me (aren't all Moms?) w/her animated stories and the way her eyes say everything for her. She has this way of just pulling you in and really making you feel like you're the most important person at that very moment. I've been told that we're a lot a like and have many similar features/characteristics. One can only hope... We both have a knack for mischief though... :-D So she met up w/me at Lowes (fun fun fun ) and we looked around at some plants, I got some more light bulbs (I told you I was dangerously close to relying on candles, right?) and some air filters. Who knew you were supposed to change your home AC filters? ...

Dear _____, Please stop burping in your mouth (as opposed to in his...? No but really, you know what I mean, right?) during our meetings. I always have the luck of sitting right next to you during these meetings and you insist on making these severely disturbing bodily function noises and... it's consistent. Ack. It grosses me out. Please, for the love of god, stop. We all have bodily functions, yes. There are times when it has to be, er, let out, ok but come on, every freaking day at the same freaking time? Actually, I think this is a natural instinct of his and he doesn't realize how very disturbing it is. It really gives me the eebie geebies though. It's rude. I'm sorry but, it just is. Don't get me wrong, I burp (Harms no need to paint the picture for everyone here :-)) but it's usually around close friends in private settings and I usually follow it up w/ "tee hee, eh 'cuse me!". When I date someone, I like to leave a lot of the ...

Am I the only one who thinks that whole Shrug Movement of saying "Meh, it is what it is" is the biggest verbal cop out there is? Really? I hear that out of someone and I think "Come on, seriously? that means you just gave up on thinking and explaining where you're coming from?" It is what it is. I find it to be such a defeatist saying. I've been hearing this almost non-stop for the last year or so and I guess maybe I've been more conscious of it and I've noted my distaste for this ignorant saying to a few people but then today, I was emailing w/a friend in Spanish and he says "Es lo que es, Clussy". I couldn't believe it. Maybe this staying has been around forever and I've really just taken note of it? Apparently it's infectious throughout the languages: c'est ce que c'est Es ist, was es ist è che è é o que ele é это-, каково это 是什么它是 是什麼是 It's funny because this first started really striking a chord w/me when Gra...

Mikey: so, how is it a model gets anger management classes for being drunk and hostile on a plane, while anyone else would be locked up in jail? Cluss: Pretty people obviously get all the easy ways out Cluss: ((scowl)) Mikey: yeah! we need a revolution! Mikey: models are getting away with everything! Cluss: they must die! They're all genetically mutated and inbred anyways Cluss: everyone knows that it's not normal to wear a size 0 and have legs that reach the cieling. Everyone! Mikey: naomi campbell beats her help like a plantation owner and all they do to her is give her a verbal slap on the wrist: "Come on now, Naomi... you know better. Shame on you. Now scoot." Cluss: It's a travesty though, really Cluss: I mean, it's not like she's even THAT cute enough to get away with this! Now, if it were Adriana Lima , then maybe, "Oh Adriana... pretty, pretty Adriana , beating other people (when they don't ask) is just not very nice. Mikey...

My girlfriend had her bebe early so I went and visited w/her (she's no longer fat so she wasn't as depressed this time) and bebe girl yesterday at lunch. Cassidy (bebe) took to me right away and even asked if she could come home w/me. This of course hurt the new Mama's feelings so I declined but I did get a pic taken w/her. Yo quiero, Yo quiero. Ok, not for another couple years but still... Yo Quiero!

So, regarding my first salsa class last night... It went well but I am a bit intimidated to be honest. I figured I needed to catch up w/some moves but, uh, yeah, dem dancers ain't playing around. There were dance offs going on in front of us and the guys would almost 'tag in' w/this one chick who was a willing partner (just leave that one alone this one time) and show eachother up w/their tricky moves and kinda put on their 'OHHH, TAKE THAT' faces on and gloat. Wild. So, it didn't help that I didn't get to the place till 8:30 and I was supposed to be there by 7 for the beginner's class (beginners 7-8, intermediate/advanced 8-9) but my sushi dinner w/another friend ran late and my lil ego was all "oh, I'm ok skipping beginner's class, I'll just hop into the int/adv one. Yeah, uh, NO. Just... no. Color me an amateur. What would that be? Green, right? Yeah, so, basics it is for me till I master even letting someone do the leading (I have co...

Well, looks like tonight's my first salsa lesson , at least first recent one. It's been ages since I've taken one (hmm, think it was back in '01 that I last went to a place for a lesson) so this will be good for me to polish up in preparation for Paper Moon this Saturday. Yee haw! (That wasn't very Spanish of me, was it... AY YAY YAY !) Color me excited and completely tickled. My friend said he was thinking of going tonight and when I mentioned that I was all dressed up (I um, mistakenly thought the Fiona Apple concert w/ lady and lady and their friend was tonight but alas, it is not till next Monday) and had nowhere really to go, he convinced me to drive out to Arlington to polish up. He's actually meeting us out Saturday night too so I told him that we must get all professional in our form tonight so that we can get the circle formed around us (not out of fear for their rib cages and eye sockets though as happens when Mikey and I dance out in public) as we ...

So, this weekend was pretty quiet and therapeutic for me. I had some family time, a little bit of friend time but mostly 'me time' which always leaves me in such disbelief when I get it that I don't know what to do w/myself and it takes everything I have to not call up friends to go out but, as my house needed a lot of cleaning and my bank account is in severe trouble, I knew the best thing for me would be to stay home. I woke up yesterday and didn't even have a cup of coffee before I headed out to Costco for a big crate of Deer Park water (it's my absolute favorite kind of water), boxes of PowerAde and Crystal Light, huge pack of kitty litter (remember, I'm 'Old Lady Torres' w/the cats and if someone doesn't stop me, I'm likely to adopt another kitten... kidding... kinda), 2 dozen pink roses (for girlfriend who just had her baby girl, so hopefully she'll stop complaining now about being fat but we'll see at lunch time.) and of course a b...

I've taken to dressing up on Fridays and well, dressing down every other day of the week (for the most part, unless there's a meeting or something where the requirement would be to doll up) because, let's face it, who dresses up on Fridays? Me... It's so predictable to dress down on Fridays so my dresses and skirts come out, hair gets special attention, lashes are curled and plumped and heels are donned. Well, this morning I decided to slip on one of my lil black dresses (women need a few of them as a wardrobe requirement: work hot black dress, going out saucy black dress, elegant cocktail party black dress, not too dressy out to dinner black dress, etc...) and heels because I'd worn my other dresses already and I'm funny about repeat offending memorable dresses (which is why I will never be good at saving money and I am in the predicament I am now... broke'ish). Well, I set up my laptop here at the office, saunter over to the kitchen for my first cup of jav...

You think that'll work as a classified posting? How else should I put it? At least I do have a couple of guy friends who I think wouldn't expect a lil sumpin sumpin at the end of the night. I want to be taken out, to dress up and go on faux dates, which are fun, and get some dancing in after dinner and at the end of the night, a kiss on the cheek (because I kiss everyone on the cheek, not because of romantic vibes). It's not to say that I want for someone to pay for my dinners and stuff (that's cool and all but no, that's not what this is all about) but rather I like the feeling of walking down the streets of DC (heck, or even FX) and have that date vibe w/out it really being a date. Am I rambling? Probably but it's going through my head like this. As much as I love hanging out w/my ladies, I like the energy of interacting w/a man and flirting but leaving it at that because neither one of us wants to go there. It's the vibe I suppose. Can you tell that ...

So, I went to go visit a girlfriend of mine tonight. The one that got married late last year and made me buy her burgundy bridesmaid dress that she forced 6 of us to buy. Yes, her. She got preggers right after the wedding and I hadn't seen her since the wedding. A bunch has gone down in my own life so I didn't really feel like rehashing all that w/her and I guess I just decided that avoidance was the best tactic in that instance. Well, the point is, I finally went and visited her tonight (she's 8 months ' full ' now and ready to share this offspring w/the world, no doubt) and as much as she already has this weight complex, the first thing that occured to say to me once she saw me in her doorway was " Great , you get to see how fat I am!". She exclaimed how much weight I've lost and how happy I must be to see her so "fat". Ay vey. She's preggies, she has a living being inside her who's growing and, well, taking up space. In my book, ...

I've always known that most (if not every) men love long hair and find a woman more appealing when their hair is a bit tousled and all that jazz. We women sometimes get frustrated w/long hair though. I mean, it requires 100 brush strokes each evening for that perfect sheen, detangling, hair products to make it look like no effort went into styling it and it just feels like it gets in the way a lot. Anyways, the point is, this morning, I was getting my coffee and bending down to get my mug out of the washing machine (in our office kitchen) and when I popped back up, the owner of our partner company was smiling pleasantly (no, not in a lecherous way at all so it wasn't disturbing) at me and exclaimed "Boy I like your hair! It's nice and long and dark. I like women with long hair". I was kinda stunned and smiled and said "Well, thank you, it's so much cheaper for me to just grow it because that way I don't have to pay out so much for someone to just chop...