Creepy.

You know how the internet is creepy sometimes? How gmail always posts an ad for something you are emailing someone about, or how your name pops into spam emails?

Well ... this ad series popped up on the side of my screen when I checked the weather the other day.

I don't know what's more creepy ... the fact that they know I live in Bloomington, or the fact that they think I'm a mom.

Small Town Headlines

Most of you know by now that we live in a pretty small town. It isn't considered a "traditional" small town because it's a COLLEGE town. But to be honest ... there's a lot of very small town-y stuff about Bloomington. Perhaps the biggest small town-y thing about Bloomington is our local newspaper. I have gotten in the habit of scanning the newspaper online each day for local headlines, and wow. There have been several gems lately. Here are a few of my favorites - often amusing, misleading, and just generally ridiculous.

Authorities believe that thousands of gallons of vegetable oil in garage fueled fire.

Man arrested for having sex with girl.

Wrong number text offering drugs accidentally goes to prosecutor.

And, drumroll please, my new favorite:

Man jailed in Daviess County tells police he didn't know woman was dead during sex.

Just lovely! Any fun small town headlines from your neck of the woods?

Grrrr. Howl.

TERRIBLE night of sleep last night. I blame ... my broken bed, and my dog.

Last night was the third night I've had to sleep in the guest room because my bed is a piece of crap from Ikea, and it's broken. And I can't fix it. I believe I briefly discussed this in my last post. Basically, Ikea beds (or at least, the one we have) do not use box springs - instead, the frame has these wooden slats, like so:

*photo found here*

And, in fact, this is the exact bed that we have (but wow, that's a small bedroom, eh?). But anywhoo. Those damn wooden slats!!! There are two, um, slat thingies (sets?) - one for the left side and one for the right side. Oh, and they don't actually secure or attach to anything because THEN you wouldn't be able to easily take the bed apart and put it together somewhere else, apparently. However, the slats themselves are all stapled (yes, stapled) together to a flimsy piece of fabric so that, when one falls, half the rest come with.

SO. The slats constantly move around and are generally crappy in every way. And when they move around, they come dislodged from their happy place and fall into the floor. Because there is basically only one millimeter of overlap.

The slats on the left side of the bed (Matt's side) are notoriously easy to dislodge. Like, if you sit on the bed, the mattress will plummet into the ground. Not fun. I noticed a dip (seriously, there is a visible dip) in the mattress a few days ago and decided to attempt and fix it. Basically, half of the slats on that side of the bed had fallen into the floor. I spent what seemed like hours fixing it, thus somehow causing a bunch of slats from the RIGHT side of the bed to fall into the floor. So, I put the mattress down, went over to the right side of the bed, and spent another 4 hours fixing that side. Thus causing the slats from the LEFT side of the bed to fall. And repeat. Repeat. Repeat until I was thisclose to bursting into tears in a feeble Iwantmyhusbandtocomehomerightnowsothathecanfixthisgoddamnbed type of way.

But instead of having a breakdown, I angrily made up the guest bed and slept there for the night. The next morning, I woke up to discover I had somehow pulled something pretty painful in my back/neck region - likely from constantly propping up the mattress with my right arm. Boo. So the next day, I didn't try to fix the bed because my back/neck hurt.

And then yesterday, I just didn't want to deal with it, so I went right back to the guest room. But here's the thing - for some reason, Oscar doesn't like to sleep in the guest room with me. So, I've been a little lonely. And yes, I know that's absurd, he's just a dog, and I'm asleep. But somehow, it matters. Last night, he spent a few minutes curled up on the bed with me before hearing something suspicious outside. He sprinted into the living room and started howling. "NO!!!" I shouted, to no avail.

He never returned from the living room and I fell into a very fitful sleep. The guest room and bed are insanely comfortable, but for some reason I just have not slept well there. Something about it just not being MY bed. So, when he woke me up by howling, it seemed like several uncomfortable hours of sleep had gone by. Surely, it was morning, right? I ran into the living room and said "Oscar, NO NO NO!!!! SHHHHHH!!!!" He responded with a growl of unhappiness. I returned to the guest room and looked at my phone ... it was only 1am. Argh.

Back to sleep, kind of. Tossed and turned and had crazy dreams. Then, the howling. AGAIN. Please note that Oscar hardly ever barks/howls/whatever, and especially never at night, so this was really weird. I yell NO NO NO again ... look at my phone. Only 3am. The last time it happened was at 5am and at that point, I just got up.

The plan for this evening is DEFINITELY attempting, yet again, to fix the stupid bed. I don't want to sleep in the guest room anymore ... apparently both Oscar and I sleep much better in my bedroom!

Dear Army

Dear Army,

I wanted to take a few minutes to thank you for taking care of my husband the last almost-5 weeks that he has been away from home. He has had the privilege of spending time in the lovely and scenic Fort Benning, GA.

Since he left home he has had:

• No heat
• No hot water
• No internet
• Nothing to do

He arrived at Benning to spend two weeks doing paperwork and having the usual in-processing-related appointments. He has remained for three extra weeks to do ... absolutely nothing. He is so mind-numbingly bored that there is a good chance he's losing brain cells. He spends all day, every day, watching movies and tv shows that his friend burned onto a hard drive for him to take with him. He watches said movies and tv shows on his computer in his barracks room. His computer that cannot connect to the internet.

I certainly would much rather have him spending 5 weeks doing absolutely nothing away from home, than spending 5 weeks doing nothing right here with me. So thanks for that.

Thanks for making sure his day of staring at the computer is broken up by useless formations every 3ish hours. And thanks for sending pretty much every other guy off to where they're supposed to be ... except for my husband. He loves slipping through the cracks...he loves it so much that he's been forced to contact his old commander, and his old first sergeant (who is currently in Korea) for help in speeding up his orders.

Thank you for letting him sit for so long that Redstone Arsenal, his next destination, had to call Benning to inquire as to where in the hell he is.

Thank you for treating him worse on American soil than he will be treated once he actually deploys. Thank you for making him so crazy that all he does is wish for the day he gets on that plane to Kuwait.

In conclusion ... thank you. Thank you for your fine treatment of our country's soldiers. I know that I am personally thankful that I don't have to spend any time worrying about him as long as he's on American soil.

On Apartment Living: Part Deux

After I blogged last night about my neighbor issues, things got kicked up a notch. I took Oscar out before bed, and he made a bee-line straight to this weird wet spot on my patio. And then to another one. And another spot. I thought ... what on earth?! He was excited like he gets when he smells other dogs. Then I remembered earlier in the day, when I ran home to let Oscar out at lunch. The upstairs neighbors had shut their puppy out on their balcony.

Suddenly, ding ding ding! I realized that their puppy is peeing out on the balcony. Their balcony has wooden slats. Wooden slats that are open ... to my patio. See the issue here?

I was (and still am) appalled. Despite the fact that our neighbors moved into the apartment in August, I have never actually seen them. I have no idea who they are or what they look like. I've never heard a dog up there until last week ... and yesterday was the first time I saw the dog. It appears to be a golden retriever puppy. Another weird thing ... I'm outside with Oscar a lot. I also live on the first floor and our apartment faces the parking lot. The long and short of it is ... I end up seeing most everyone walk in and out. I've never seen this dog outside before! Weird, right?

Anyway. I ended up going to the management office today and making a complaint about the neighbor. The noise isn't the main issue anymore ... it's obviously the pee on the patio. Thankfully, they were just as appalled as I am ... and added that the upstairs neighbors shouldn't even HAVE a dog in that apartment.

I hated to complain ... I have never complained about a neighbor, EVER. But I mean ... this is too much, right?! What if it were summer? I have patio furniture out there, you know? Anyway. I came home and inspected the patio in daylight...and found a huge puddle of pee on my table. When I looked up, I could see what appeared to be a puppy pad through the slats. NOT COOL, NEIGHBORS. Not cool.

To be continued ... :)

Things I don't understand

High School Musical.

Can anyone enlighten me?

Things I don't understand

Pickup trucks with spoilers. What's the point? I saw a real ghetto one today...sadly, it was not a good time to whip out the Blackberry to take a photo. Seriously. If you understand this, please comment and let me know what the deal is.