rabbits. pipers. photos.
don't forget to "rabbit, rabbit" first thing in the morning!!!
so, no piper heiney to be found on the parade photos from yesterday - but if y'all wanna check them out -- click here now!
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don't forget to "rabbit, rabbit" first thing in the morning!!!
so, no piper heiney to be found on the parade photos from yesterday - but if y'all wanna check them out -- click here now!
yeah of course I forgot to "rabbit rabbit"... dreamt that something was wrong with the parade site and I woke up mumbling something... and it wasn't rabbit rabbit.
whatever. I didn't fall asleep til half 2 last night... I was fiddling with the main gigglechick.com entry page (i forgot that I had the mish-mosh green spring cartoon from last year up there...)
I was up watching letterman, too. I must say that he is class. sheer class. he had the former tonight show producer on as well as Doc and members of the former band (who sounded great) as well as nice carson clips.... not to mention, letterman's monologue consisted entirely of jokes that johnny'd written and sent into the show. the graphics they used bookending the commercials were the "more to come" images from the tonight show. What got me a little misty was when Dave said how great it was that the country was collectively "tucked into bed by Johnny Carson"
I am in Dave's camp. Leno's schtick last monday seemed entirely forced and fake and in my opinion, Leno's a hack.
Letterman's right... we will never see someone the likes of Johnny Carson again, but in my opinion, Dave comes damned close.
I'm glad that I can say that I've been tucked into bed by Johnny and for over the past decade, Dave.
::: plunked in on my treO:::

yep. i've posted this photo for a good 3 years now. maybe one day it'll come true :)
and maybe later this morning Phil will grow a spine and not see his shadow...
I had ALL 9 stoplights switch to red as I neared them today... EVERY single one. it was like a conspiracy... as I grew nearer to manasquan, the cars in front of me became lethargic... the slower they became, the higher my blood pressure rose...
from a block away I saw the 7:20 pull into squan station.... "craaaap!", said I as I was stuck at a stop sign with traffic rushing in front of me in both directions...
that's it, I was gonna go for it... and I stepped on the gas in evel knevil-like fashion and zipped through the small opening between cars... rushing down the sidestreet and beep-beeping my horn (small beeps... not long, loud blaring ones... I didn't want to be a total jackass.)
I skidded into the station as the train sat there allowing a few passengers on...
the parking spot was half-filled with snow, and the front of Mr. T (my auto) is now smashed into said heap...
I know that he's also parked a little "askew" - if you will - okay, he's more on a rush to the station and park fast diagonal. (ah the other spots have tons of snow in 'em)
I think I pulled up my parking brake... I hope.
in any event, they held the doors for me and I am NOT on ye ol Riff-Raff Express (RRE) today... I am sitting comfortably on the 7:20 (of course, this means I have to change in newark....)
time to pass out now... I suspect they're pulling phil out of his stump as I write this.... (i will post phil predictions and staten island chuck prognostications later)
::: plunked in on my treO:::
okay. yeah. this was sent to me by peewee... it's pretty accurate.

okay - so about a month or so ago i stubbed the hell out of my big ol' right toe. it's been hurting ever since... mainly where the arrow's pointing to, not so much the toe, but like, on the foot. and it's been hurting more and more, not like i can't walk, but i must tell you that part of me is thinking that i may have a hairline fracture near the bunion.
my poor foot. when i am walking through penn station and up & down the stairs my foot's like "eh, ever hear of an escalator?"
oh well... there's probably nothing they can do for me if there's a hairline fracture (or whathaveyou) right there... i sure as hell cannot traipse around the city with a cast or soft shoe cast thing.
so I decided that trekking to squan this morning would mean I would wind up on the RRE... so I hightailed it to long branch in an attempt to catch the 7:41.... the parkway was sluggish for some reason today so when I heard Todd on WPLJ's Big Show say "it's 7:43", I figured i'd catch the 7:50 (which is the 7:20 out of squan)
as I was trying to speed toward the station (which the fastest I could go was 28mph because of the slow-pokes in front of me) the railroad x-ing I usually have to cross had the gates come down and I saw - what would've been - my train barrel past.
shite.
I had a couple of minutes in which to get to the station, find a parking spot, shove my $2 in the numbered slot, run down then up the stairs, then jump on the train...
did this happen? no. I made it as far as shoving the money into the box when the train pulled away.
that's when I said "eff" and walked across the street to drunkin' donuts and got my coffee... only to walk back at a leisurely pace to allow my BP to lower and sat down in the vestibule-thing and read my book amongst the beeping of nextel phones, crunching of some chick eating snackwells, some woman having a sneezing fit and some guy on a gameboy... and I waited for the 8:24... which is - you guessed it - The Riff-Raff Express.
apparently the RRE goes hand in hand with the RRV (Riff-Raff Vestibule)
at least - looking at silver lining - I have more options for the train home tonight.
::: plunked in on my treO:::
so, the nj blogger ring just sent out an email from some reporter with the trenton times...
I'm a reporter with The Times of Trenton newspaper in Trenton, N.J. I'm working on an article about Friday cat blogging, and am looking for bloggers based in New Jersey or Pennsylvania who are part of that trend.Would you be able to help me find some? I'd much appreciate it, as I'm having trouble finding any.
goodness. blog ho that i am, i would love to be the subject of an article... but for Friday Cat Blogging? whatever the heck it is, it doesn't sound like it'll get me a date with any guys reading the article.
i could start "Friday Beer Blogging", "Friday Piper Kilt Lift Blogging", "Friday Train Blogging" (eh, but i do that daily...) "Friday Redhead Stalker Blogging", "Friday TGIFridays Appetizer Blogging", "Friday Eh, I Got Nothing To Say Blogging"
no?
so this morning because I was running late, I slapped my locks into a ponytail coif.
this serves a couple of purposes - one, it saves me 45 min of "doing" my hair (shower, dry, brush, mousse, gel, defrizz)
two, it cuts down on me eating my hair when the wind whips around and blows previous "do" into my mouth.
tonight I experienced pain after having been seated on the train for a few minutes. how? some jackass sat in the seat behind me but GRABBED ONTO the back of my seat and in the same kung fu grip swooped in and snagged my ponytail and pulled my head back, slamming it into the seat.
the fuckwit (excuse me)
oh did I say "excuse me"? yes. did he? NO. an apology? NO.
frigging hair is all mangled and half out of the p-tail and I am sure there's a chunk of my hair embedded under his effing fingernails.
bastard.
I am going to sleep... of course, this means I have to lean my head back and risk being scalped again.
*grumble*
::: plunked in on my treO:::
HEY... I STARTED WRITING THE FOLLOWING THIS MORNING:
over the loudspeaker on the 7:20am out of squan I heard a wiseass conductor comment "THIS TRAIN HAS A SCHEDULE"
granted... he was "joking"... but ya' know what? bite me.
it's effing snowing and sleeting - and while I can drive fine and dandy in it, there seem to be others who are freaking out because of the piddly snowflakes... and go SLOWER than the norm...
NOW I AM SITTING ON THE 8:05PM TRAIN OUT OF PENN STATION:
the reason I didn't post that bit early this morning was because my friend Joe wound up getting on at spring lake and we became "those people" who were talking the entire way up.
I really needed to sleep, too. I was up coding a site til 2:30am and pretty damned tired when I woke up.
I was supposed to -- whoa hold the phone! just saw a guy with a shock of red hair out of the corner of my eye... he's now 5 rows up...-- where was I? oh, right... tonight I was supposed to go to the Friendly Sons of the Shillelagh in Old Bridge - they were having a big party for Jimmy Byrne, our parade's grand marshal.... and The Bantry Boys were playing there... seeing as it started at 7:30 and I am JUST getting on the 8:05 which won't be to squan til 9:56 (knock on wood) and then it's a half hour drive to the FSOS, needless to say, I am not making it... ah, will see everyone tomorrow at parade meeting... but I never saw the Bantry Boys play live.
oh well.
so my friday night will NOT consist of cat blogging... nor will it be filled with live irish music... I will, however, be posting more photos on the parade site and also coding/uploading more pages for joe finn (which, if I can't see live irish music, I may as well do a website for an irish singer :)
and at 9am, I have an appt with H&R Block... yeah I know I had troubles with them initially last year and walked out when the jerk at one branch said that I wasn't worth anything because I wasn't married and didn't own a home... but the woman at the other branch actually kicked some ass and got me a decent refund... so I am going back to her....
I have NJ tax, NY tax, Unemployment stuff (yes I had them take as much out as possible), also, I did freelance work last summer - had taxes taken out there as well - and when I was dooced, I cashed in my 401k (taxes taken out the arse with that)-- yeah yeah, don't bother telling me that I shouldn't've cashed in my retirement fund... it's easy to tell someone that when you aren't having to pay a mortgage when unemployed.
so H&R Block at 9. parade meeting at 12:30 (going, shorechick?)
for now, I shall publish this post since I began it over 12 hours ago....
::: plunked in on my treO:::
the horror that is the NJ Transit toilet - yeah... i had to use it. i pretty much slathered myself in Purell Sanitizing Gel after i got the hell out of there... never ever drink a GIANT cup of coffee before you board a train

ran into one of my piper boys on the train tonight... no fundraiser this week... this was the closest i got to hearing irish music tonight (no he didn't play anything on the train... there woulda been bloodshed most likely)

i just got home half an hour ago. i am beat.
trying to upload more photos to the parade site from last sunday... about 200 of them. yikes.
got up early. got the taxes done, my refund is not stellar (heck, i was unemployed for 3.5 months last year and cashed in my 401k -- not to mention it seems as if they put down that i claimed 1 when i know that i claimed 0... remind me to call hr and have them change that on monday. arrrrgh. at least i don't owe anything (and i will be getting a check, but... let's just say i am rooting harder for my numbers in tomorrow's super bowl grid)
that's about it. parade meeting was today. always like going there.
anyway, just wanted to just something down here as i wait for photos to upload.
wow! i've moved up on the yahoo "most popular/humor & satire" page and slid ahead of scrappleface (yeah, i have no idea how that happened either...) but thank you folks coming here from yahoo... and for coming back... very keen!

watch out The Onion... for some ungodly reason people want to read about my goofy little whiny commuting/redhead stalking/mashed potato making/parade organizing (with others)/golfing/sporadic-at best-stand-up comedy/ beer swigging life...
and to think i'd been happy when i learned i was in fourth place
oh Family Circus, you'd better watch your ass on the #1 comics site up there!!!
(and that's my actual kazoo making an appearance on the site - i've had that thing for about 23 years)
okay. so i am jealous of gleny (of gleny.com fame)... he dressed up on a groundhog pelt and trekked out to see Phil on wednesday in his mini cooper...
got my big ol' platter of grub ready from Famous Dave's.... and i have my numbers ready...
AFC = 1
NFC = 5
woo....
i will be fine if the score is:
afc = 21
nfc = 35
or
afc = 21
nfc = 15
see, i've been a pats fan since 1991 when they sucked. i haven't been all that gung-ho about them since bledsoe got married and had a kid [my dream was over then] and then he left... yeah tom brady's cute, but he's 12.
i lived in philly for 5 years, so part of me is rooting for them to win (especially since they are closer to NJ... and i think that boston already partied enough with the *gulp* sox win this year.)
so, who am i rooting for? i am rooting for me.
pats = ending in a 1
eagles = ending in a 5
(then i will have a nice down payment for a mini cooper convertible :)
okay. so the first quarter/and half have not been lucrative for me. no mini cooper in my future... but if philly gets 4 more touchdowns and pats get 2 more, then i will be happy...
in the meantime... the commercials. (check them out here at ifilm)
(not for nothing, but in the few that i "rated", i was overly generous with said rating. seriously, this was a pitiful crop of ads this year. what the hell happened? every company donated to the tsunami and crapped out on the money to buy a decent ad spot?)... weigh in and let me know what your favourite ads were!!
it's a little different from the long hangy locks that i've been sporting (98% of the time in a crappy ponytail)
am so sick... yes. go ahead. start painting "save gigglechick" on water towers...
am not going into work (fever, chills, all the symptoms on a nyquil bottle and then some)
needless to say, not going to the psychic tonight or staying over peewee's
dangit.
is anyone else being bombarded by spam in their trackbacks?? i am being spampinged.
how the heck can i stop this (barring the idea of turning trackback pinging off.)
see where i posted the "spamping" thing at 11:11am this morning? well, i then scuttled back to my bed and proceeded to sleep....
i woke up at 6:45pm...
drenched with sweat...erm... i mean perspiration because i am a lady.
*whine* my eyesockets hurt.
i was miserable the entire day yesterday at the fundraiser, i so wanted to go home, but since "joe's girls" were the ones "running" the thing, i couldn't... you know, promises and stuff and having to sell the shirts.
we did well yesterday. decent crowd. worked our asses off and had a decent 50/50 as well...
got hit on by a redheaded busboy who was most likely shy of 21...
i have to take a shower - blargh.
am home again... sick. i am totally dizzy and nauseous. drinking warm ginger ale. wrote into work. was told i will have to put in extra hours to catch up. fine. hoping peewee will let me crash there tomorrow night... because i plan on working til hell freezes over on wednesday (which should be delightful for the health.)
anyway... really dizzy right now, gotta go back to the horizontal position and sleep... which is not exactly an easy thing because the condo next door is re-doing everything and it's nothing but hammers, saws and i swear i heard a jackhammer right next to my head.
just woke up (yes. i went back to bed after my last post) yes. my eyesockets still hurt. no, i'm not hungry. yes. i've lost weight (thank gawd) yes i am going into work tomorrow come hell or high water... even though i just got sick and swear i saw blood (sorry, i know that it's the dinner hour that i am writing this and a few of you may be reading this.)
how are the water towers coming along???
woo. i was able to force (and keep) down a small toasted roll, a small cup of wawa chicken noodle soup and about 4 spoonfuls of cherry garcia ice cream... and tea... and ginger ale.
eyesockets still on verge of exploding. i think that this may be the sickest i've felt in 12 years. seriously.
that said. g'night.
in the meantime, whilst i am snoozing, this should tickle your fancy... behold the valentine's day short from ze frank... *yeah, i missed valentine's day. whatever. not a big deal.
well on the plus side, i've lost 7 pounds since sunday. on the negative side I barely remember driving to the train station about 10 minutes ago. I am dizzy and miss perspiration. yum.
i'll see how I am feeling whether I can make it thru the entire day much less work late into the evening as planned.
::: plunked in on my treO:::
so I slept on the train (caught the 7:20 out of squan which meant I had to switch in newark)
as I was waiting for the train to pull into newark I was standing in the vestibule and some cute guy starts asking me about what track the connection pulls into... I start chatting... then I feel my cheek...
I HAD SLEEP DROOL HALF DRYING ON MY CHEEK...
the vestibule was dark. don't think he noticed except then he followed me to track one... where i'd just run up 46 steps (with the flu) and was ready to pass out. breathing heavily. mouth went dry as paste (dried paste) and the slobber was still half on my face.
the sad thing is, he looked like a young tom hanks... he's about 5 rows back, i've de-drooled myself... know that he works at 46 & madison... so if you see an ad on the teevee about a slobberchop chick... guess who the inspiration was....
::: plunked in on my treO:::
on closer inspection he's got a ring on the left hand.
::: plunked in on my treO:::
was supposed to stay at peewee's last night - i called an audible and took the train home last night so i could sleep in my own bed --- as much as i dig the aerobed at chez peewee, when you're sick, nothing beats your own bed.
of course this means i have to catch the 6:55am train - a feat not accomplished by me since my first week on the job... so why i am sitting on here typing, well, no idea.
have to pop into the shower then skidaddle.
still queasy and dizzy. yay.
somehow I was half an hour early for the 6:55am train
::: plunked in on my treO:::
I have a large russian man's frigging stomach jutting into the side of my head right now and I feel sick because his "cologne" smells like something died... his wife is sitting next to me in the middle of a 3 seater. no. I am not getting up. they were late to the train. now I have to smell the borscht belt to my right and listen to svetlana on my left yapping at him...

you betcha, I got some photos of his belly peeking out of his shirt while his big pants "area" loomed over my shoulder.
luckily they moved after secaucus otherwise they would've had a little more to worry about than the kgb
(yeah I know the kgb is a memory now but I wanted to sound threatening)
::: plunked in on my treO:::
A blonde calls her boyfriend and says, "Please come over here and help me. I have a killer jigsaw puzzle, and I can't figure out how to get it started." He asks,"What is it supposed to be when it's finished?"
The blonde says, "According to the picture on the box, it's a tiger."
Her boyfriend decides to go over and help with the puzzle. She lets him in and shows him where she has the puzzle spread all over the table.
He studies the pieces for a moment, then looks at the box, then turns to her and says, "First of all, no matter what we do, we're not going to be able to assemble these pieces into anything resembling a tiger."
He takes her hand and says, "Second, I want you to relax. Let's have a nice cup of tea, and then..." he sighed,"...Let's put all these Frosted Flakes back in the box."
totally forgot to line up someone to take photos at the beauty pageant tonight. the webhost for the parade asked me if i was going (and i hadn't planned on it) and i said to myself... crap. see, the photo that's up from last year was taken the following sunday at the fundraiser... would rather have an image that was taken at the shindig while the girls are all dolled up than at the bar.
anyway... right now, i am sitting here in the office (trying to choke down some pizza) and they are laying down carpet ---- meaning i have to try not to pass out from the fumes that are floating around from the glue they are using... seriously, i am dizzy from flu AND from glue (yes. that rhymes.)
well, i am off to my Mid-Winter 2 Mile Beach Run... jude and i are most likely going to walk fast :)
i have my broken toe taped up... and the alka seltzer flu meds coursing thru my veins...
i am doing this for the beer and the sweatshirt
of course, on the train yesterday, Trip made a good point about not having to walk 2 miles if he wanted beer...
wish me luck - that i don't pass out and get washed away by the tide.