gigglechick.com

don't forget to Rabbit Rabbit...

(i did. now i've gotta "Tibbar, Tibbar" - although, i forgot to do either last month and it's been a pretty damned good month.)

so, after taking my vitamin C and looking both ways as I cross the street and also crossing my fingers... and cooking up vats of precautionary chicken dumpling soup, I bit the bullet and just shelled out $297.97 for my first month of health insurance.

so, $3575.64 a year.

it's not like i want to get sick or anything, but, i kind of want to become more of a hypochondriac just so i get my money's worth now.

here's the EPO Plus plan description (PDF)

so, for the past two years without health insurance, i've been looking around and most of what i've seen was around $600+ a month - which is insane. I mean, $300 a month is a little nutty as well, but, screw it, I need insurance.

Of course, I did this prior to me going to the Lady Business Doctor next week - which, without insurance would be $150. So I shelled out the $300 thinking that I would have an insurance card in hand by Tuesday. Nope. So, on top of the $300, I've gotta shell out the $150 and then file a claim afterward.

Good thing about the EPO Plus, i will have an Rx plan.

We'll see how good this whole health insurance plan is --- then again, it's better than the NO PLAN i've had.

Sadly, I don't have dental... and I miss going to my dentist. (Don't worry. I brush and floss. But still, I miss my dentist.)

finally watched that "Definitely, Maybe" movie. Very cute. fluff, but, cute and i liked it a lot. Chick flicky love story stuff. perfect for a cloudy-about-to-rain lazy saturday.

it's supposed to storm out - in fact, right now it's thundering out... and there's a "hail warning".

hail.

that doesn't mix well with Phooka.

he's never had to deal with a hailstorm in the 3 years that i've had him. i really don't want him to deal with one now.

since i live in the condo complex, we only have parking spots, not garages.

this isn't good during hailstorms.

part of me thought "well, you could drive down the street to the old bank that's closed and just hang out under their drive-thru overhang until the hail passes". but, i'm not going to prematurely go do that nor am i going to drive there IN a hailstorm.

soooooooo... what am i doing?

i've got my eyes peeled for any sort of ice chunks that may fly through the air and the minute one touches down, i'm grabbing the comforter/bed spread that i have next to the front door and i am running out to Phooka and going to cover him with it ---- and since it will probably blow off, i think (in the event of hail) i will take one for the team and sprawl out on top of the comforter and on the bonnet of my car to make sure he's okay.

(of course, i am praying there's no hail... because, personally, i don't want my back and legs and arms to be bruised. nor do i want a softball sized hail chunk to crash through my skull.)

** then again, i COULD grab the giant umbrella from the patio table and hold it over both Phooka and myself... no, wait, i'd probably get hit by lightning by holding a 9 foot rod of metal. (yeah, i know. laying on TOP of a metal car isn't smart either.)

*** Phooka is too wide to fit through my doorway, dammit.

**** maybe if i lay UNDER the comforter while on Phooka's bonnet (that means hood in MINI speak) I would save him AND myself from hail bruises.

***** it's times like these that i kinda miss having my old $500 post office JEEP that was pretty much made of iron and didn't dent.

****UPDATE 6:14pm**** so far, no hail.

well, i HAD planned on getting up early to do some stuff around the house and also a little work... have the alarm set for 8:30am (we'll see if i get the gumption to arise at that hour.)

can't really sleep.

saw a sign as i was driving today - it was at the Church in Brielle.

said "Need a faith lift?" (although, my favourite is the one where it says "Welcome Son Worshippers!" - cracks me up.) but the "faith lift" play on words made me think of Henry Fonda in On Golden Pond where he says his wife's name is "Ethel Thayer, thounds like I'm lisping, don't it?" - I love that movie.

note to self: rent it. watch it.

Besides the lisping pun church sign, I was out with Fran and Jude on Friday night where they were talking about church (they're pretty darned religious. Friends from the parade committee.) and then I had another brief chat about church a little later that night. I'm guessing that, oh, that Fella Upstairs is dropping subtle hints for me to get back to church. It's been a couple of months.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a heathen. I pray every day. Standard "Our Father" and "Hail Mary" followed by a little chat, but, I just haven't headed into an actual church... oh, maybe since March. The Parade weekend - went to St. Rose for the ceremony the day before the parade (The Investiture Mass - which is always an absolutely lovely mass followed by a luncheon at Doolan's. Big doings for the committee and all involved).

I have the alarm set for that ungawdly hour of 08:30 so I can head to St. Martha's for the 10:30am (it's the singing one. i like it. it gets packed, so for the 10:30, you really need to get there at 10 to get a seat.) --- Of course, I'm a pretty sound sleeper, so, if He wants me to get to mass, I'd like a wake-up thunderbolt at 8:45am (and also be able to fall asleep as my head touches the pillow)

ah, i may as well try to pass out again. been laying here restless.
had trouble sleeping last night as well.

but, i did have a Divine-Dog-Jumping-On-My-Head-and-Whining-To-Eat wake me up at 8:45am, so I figure that's the same thing.

i'm awake.

got there about 10 minutes before the 10:30 mass - got a good seat. decent crowd surrounded me for the "Peace Be With You" part.

the Haskell is about to go off in a few minutes. It's held at Monmouth Park - which is about 25 minutes away. I was thinking of going this year, but, the crowds get insane there.

Big Brown is making his first appearance since the Belmont when he came in dead last.

**pleeeeeeeeeeeease let everyone make it through this race safe and sound.

**UPDATE POST RACE!!*** Big Brown is BACK in the winner's circle!!! YAY!! Congrats to Kent Desormeaux! Ran it in 1:48:1

(Joe Bravo on Coal Play gave me a scare. Thought he was gonna take it for a sec.)

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn died.

so, i'm on Loestrin24Fe (for those not in the know it's my ABVs... for those not in the know about ABVs, search it on my site.)

was up pretty late last night. have to go out with Cathy (who rented a house down here for the week) and go get a manicure/pedicure.

first, i've gotta drag clothes to the laundromat and then crank out some work this morning.

that's the boring update for monday that i'm posting as an attempt to get you people out of the woodwork to read all the drivel i wrote over the weekend.

summer + weekends + blogging = no comments

i need coffee to perk up.

okay, most of you know my stance on Obama.
most of you know that I am for Hillary. Still am. You may think I'm delusional. Whatever.

(oh, and because I am still for Hill, I've been called a "stupid racist c*nt who should die" and told that my "vagina should fill with blood and explode" by some followers of Barky. Classy, eh??)

Anyway... this morning, as I watched the news - if you want to call it that - there was a story about how Obama wants to give Florida and Michigan FULL votes now. After that whole rigmarole back in June where the DNC raped Hillary's delegates and then gave FL and MI half a vote per delegate (and took some AWAY from Hillary.)

FULL VOTES? Now? What? Because it's convenient for him now?

I don't think you realize how much this is raising my blood pressure right now.

NoQuarter and Uppity Woman have more to say on this effing "ludacris" farce.

went to bed at a decent hour last night (if you call 1:30am decent. I do. think it's the earliest night this week.)

hung out with Cathy and her sister for most of yesterday afternoon. went to the nail salon with them at around 3pm and didn't get out of there till 5pm (that's the longest I've ever spent in the stinking place. they were busy... on a monday. which is ridiculous.)

whilst there, sitting with the feet in the hot water waiting for 20 minutes for someone to start doing the pedicure, we were looking out the front window and all of a sudden, a car comes speeding into the parking lot...

following the car is 3 Brick cop cars.

they surround said car that just pulled in.

Was I thinking "Oh my God! It's a standoff! Someone's gonna get shot?!!"

No.

Was I thinking "Wow! What the hell did that guy do to have 3 cop cars surround him?!"

No.

Was I thinking "Holy Crap! They're right near my car - if they shoot Phooka, I'm gonna kill all of them!!"

Yes. That was going through my head.

Then after about 10 minutes, the cops slapped the cuffs on the guy and hauled him away. No idea what the hell that was all about. Hey, it's Brick. Stuff like that happening is a dime a dozen (I hate this town... not for nothing.)

Anyway... got the manicure/pedicure and then we went to Circuit City where the verizon store is - Cathy got a new phone. She wanted the LG En-V like I have, but, apparently (according to the guy) they've discontinued my idiotic phone and the one that's similar is the "Voyager"

whyyyyyyyyyy? why couldn't i have waited 6 months to upgrade my phone? I want this phone now. it's got the swanky touch screen but also has the qwerty keyboard that my phone now has... but, the touch screen makes you feel like you've at least got the poor man's iPhone... or a starter iPhone. waaaaaaaaaaaaah.

Gadget Girl is miffed.

I suppose my goofy green phone is still fine, but... there's always something better on the horizon.

I've got the chick doctor at 1pm today.

Then at 11pm, I've got to win $34 million.

Busy day. Busy day.

yep. me. I'm ---- wait, what the eff are you thinking of? not THAT type of thing. you're on crack.

I have been in talks with this one comedian for a few months and since I've been swamped and also have had a billion things going on (gigglemom, cruise, pedicures, whatever) I hadn't really felt like taking on another client.

Silly, eh? yeah i know.

Anyway... the guy wrote a book which is being released (published/ i've gotta figure out the terminology for the book websites :} I know CDs and DVDs are released, TV shows and movies premiere... )

So, I've kinda been pushing him off and stuff (since I DO have a few other projects that I work on - but, I think this should be pretty cut and dry.)

He sent me another email yesterday:

Erin,
I'm giving it another try here - because I really like your work and would love for you to do my book site.

So this time I said "let's do it."

Of course, hopefully he realizes I mean the book site.

In any event, I've gotta send off a proposal later today and then start cranking out this site over the next couple of weeks. (I also have a small one page site to slap together by friday for one of the comedy clubs in the city... i still need to finish attell's site - but, haven't had all of the images sent to me. *sigh*)

anyway... the book site should be pretty cool. looks like a funny novel.

will tell the name at a later date.

went to see The Dark Knight flick tonight with Cathy! AWESOME movie.

Heath Ledger was excellent (and i'm not just throwing him some sort of "ah, the poor guy's dead" sort of praise. he REALLY creeped me the hell out!)

Christian Bale. *sigh* i've dug him (as an actor) since he was in Empire of the Sun (one of my favourites) and now... NOW... mother of pearl, he's a handsome son of a gun.

speaking of handsome... Aaron Eckhart. fantastic!!!

now that i've gotten saliva all over the keyboard...

it was a tremendous movie. the visual effects were stunning!

I want to see it again.

oh... so, B™ (not The Boy™. he's now been downgraded to Boy™) and I are heading into NYC on Tuesday to a benefit at Gotham Comedy Club.

Who's on the bill? Dave Attell, Artie Lange, Greer Barnes and a number of others.

It's a benefit for another comedian who has cancer, yet, no health insurance.

Speaking of health insurance...

went to the Lady Business Doc today. All's well.

Blood pressure is a little low ( 90/70 ) and i'm 70 pounds overweight, but, other than that... tip-top!

Even better, I had the health insurance - well, it kicked in last friday... I don't have a card, but I did have an email from my insurance dude stating I was covered and all that.

So, they didn't charge me... nor did I have to do the co-pay thing. They said they're looking into the coverage and if anything, they'll send me a bill. Awesome! Because I really didn't want to shell out $150 ON TOP of the $300 I just paid for the insurance.

No free samples for the ABVs anymore. That's okay. When it's time for me to head to CVS to drop off the Rx next month, I'll have my prescription card and the $60 pills will be around $30 (i think.)

yes. it's a pretty expensive calendar.

anyway. i'm tired. too much excitement for one day, between The Dark Knight and downgrading the TB™ to B™ (he's still in the picture, but sans T)

i'd rather be a clever genius...

i have to go check my lottery tickets.

• Here's a piece of adorable cuteness for a Wednesday morning.

so, i'm sitting here with a crazy tummyache right now. seriously. ugh.

anyway... yesterday, at the doctor's he let me know that i've gained 25 pounds since my last visit last july.

gee. i hadn't noticed.

so, Jim Gaffigan posted a blog today about the best burgers in the country.

That got me thinking about the photo of the burger I had at The Quay in Marathon Key back in 2004 (unfortunately, The Quay was knocked down in one of the 2005 'canes and never rebuilt.)

I probably won't be having these on a daily basis when on WW.

well, i went to the ww meeting at 12:30pm today.

my friend Cathy is down from the city this week. she and her giant family rented a house in Point this week and tonight they were celebrating her sister's 50th birthday. She wanted to know where to get a really nice dinner.... for EIGHTEEN of them.

Of course, i recommended the restaurant where TB™ a.k.a. B™ is the Exec. Chef.

So, she just texted me a little while ago:

"Everything was absolutely delicious"

Glad to have recommended a restaurant that I've never eaten at, but, trust that the fella in charge of the vittles knows what the hell he's doing.

okay, in honor of it being 08.08.08, and it feeling like a lucky day... and the fact that Trump Marina sent me a thing in the mail saying "hey, we're giving you $150 to play with today." I'm heading to Atlantic City with a few friends for a couple of hours to see if I can do a little damage to The Donald.

Also, they're giving away $888 every 10 minutes. yep. they know how to get to me.

*shaking my fist at Trump's Marketing wizards*

It'd be swell if I hit for the $4000 again like I did in December. (or the progressives :} hell, maybe I'll just play the number 8 on the roulette tables.)

* 08.08.08 is also my former stalker Mike's birthday today.

Well, I took a tiny piece of Trump's billfold home with me on Friday! It doesn't really equal a piece of lint in The Donald's wallet, but, at least it's not a loss!

I WAS sitting next to a guy who hit for $1.3 MILLION... yes. NEXT TO. as in, 3 feet from choosing the right slot machine.

*sigh*

still, we had a great time. went to one of the clubs there (i'm not a dancer, but, i did cut the rug, so to speak.)

Got home quite late Friday night (Saturday morning) and then went over one of my other friend's houses for a BBQ.

Yesterday was spent doing some work and catching up on the olympics that i've recorded (from my couch)

HOW AWESOME WERE THE OPENING CEREMONIES ON FRIDAY!!!???

To be able to practice five things everywhere
under heaven constitutes perfect virtue...
gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness.

-- Confucius (551-479 BC) Chinese Philosopher

whilst watching the men's swimming relay last night, the following texting occurred between my friend (and sometimes commenter on here) PeeWee and me...

PeeWee: I think the men should be required to swim nekkid.

gigglechick: wouldn't the penis cause drag in the water?

PeeWee: use it as a rudder to steer! fishies have fins, why not?

gigglechick: this is true!

PeeWee: Backstroke. Penis up. That works for me.

gigglechick: I prefer a little breaststroke action first.

ohhhhhhhhh Olympic humour! let the games begin!

This is an excellent Hillary piece here:

• Hillary's Surprise....


(sent to me by Hire Heels' kick arse, swellegant editor.)

went to the city (that'd be NYC, kids.) last night - mainly to see Dave Attell (client. thank you.), Artie Lange & Rich Vos at Gotham Comedy Club (there was a benefit for a comedian with cancer)

headed up there with TB™. First we had dinner at OTTO - which was really really good.

we did split a pizza with a fried egg on it... pane frattau. but had "normal" stuff as well. I will tell you this, i am enamoured with the gelato at OTTO. i had the Fig & Ricotta Gelato.

I know! I KNOW! you're sitting there thinking "EFFING FIG AND RICOTTA CHEESE GELATO????!!! THAT SOUNDS DISGUSTING!!!"

au contraire, mon frere!

it was TO DIE FOR.

I'm going to type this off their site...

"Bufala Ricotta Gelato, Warm Roasted Figs, Almond Crumble and Lemon Curd"

Seriously. Gorgeous. Absolutely wonderful.

ANYWAY...

the show at Gotham was a lot of fun - except for when I wanted to haul off and bitch slap the table behind us who were talking during the ENTIRE show... no, wait, i lied, not the entire show. just the part with the comedians. the opener was this chick who sang some sappy song that wasn't very good. and SHE was the one talking - pretty loud - to everyone behind us during everyone's sets. at one point during Artie's set i turned around with a glare and said "hey. everyone else had shut up when YOU were singing on stage. Could you try that as well?"

worked for a little while. not totally effective. but seriously. could you shut the fark up?

said hey to dave after the show and did my dorky "hey, can we get a photo with ya'" thing. so... here you go, folks...

so, earlier tonight i went to the wake of the mother of a friend of mine from high school.

i get so damned nervous at viewings/wakes.

oh Margaret Drabble, you and your positive little quote.

Sitting here working, watching the olympics

swimming. i am addicted to watching the swimmers. seriously.
i keep thinking "it'd be a great workout to swim every day."

yet... have i been in my pool in the past month? nah.

it's sort of like when I watch the marathon on the teevee or the ironman triathlon from my couch. it's inspiring and i have about 5 minutes where i start thinking "i should really train for a marathon or something."

then i snap out of it.

let's see... what's going on right now?

• I'm sitting here with the Olympics PAUSED because gigglemom needed to go out in the thunder & lightning (and rain) storm to have a smoke. Which bothers the hell out of me - not just because of the "hey you're killing yourself" thing, but, Phelps was about to hit the water for one of his finals and i wanted to watch it LIVE... alas, smoking has affected it.

• I will probably be the one electrocuted by the storm while sitting on the couch with my laptop (am also working on 3 different sites) --- I keep feeling little jolts... i think.

• twenty minutes ago i scratched my back and a frigging spider crawled up my arm.... FROM my back. I'm probably infected by a radioactive spider now. great.

• having the radioactive spider bite means that I'm going to have to wear weird spandex outfits from head to toe now... which would be fine in a few months... today I went to my Week One weigh-in at WW and lost 3.6 pounds (I am happy!! not happy enough to wear SpiderSpandex, but, tis a start.)

• got a call from an agent (who represents a few of my clients) and had to send a proposal to them about a really young comedian/musician... cross your fingers that i get this one. kid's gonna be huge. seriously.

• gigglemom is back inside. wow she really must've sucked down that True Menthol 100.

• I feel like I am crawling with spiders right now and I haven't even dropped acid.

final 200m IM

but maybe I should start swimming....

well, i think the venom from the spider bite* has seeped into my brain now.

why? because i had MAJOR nightmares about spiders. in fact, one spider actually was large enough to pick Beri up in my dream nightmare and cart her off into the woods.

there were giant tarantula types and creepy Daddy Long Leg ones....

*shudder*

anyway... it was not the most restful sleepfest i've had in a while

(*i don't think he bit me the other night, really, but, he was still crawling on me and the biting thing makes for a better story)

Way to go Michael Phelps!! Way to go U.S.A.!!!!

truly exhausted from doing the 400m supportive air-swimming relay last night while cheering on Phelps and the USA.

heading out to church in a few (it'd be great if I would get my heinie in the shower in a moment)

then, because the Bob Saget Roast is on Comedy Central tonight, I'll be heading to the lovely Radio Shack to pick up a new coax because I'd had issues upstairs a couple of months ago with my internet hookup and had to unhook my cable... um... cable in order to get it to work --- wonky coax. haven't bought a new one.

since the saget roast is on the teevee, i want to watch it tonight and the gigglemom*** is not exactly down with the roast... or The Saget.

soooooooo, i'll see if the new coax does the trick

(***then again, GM has been sleeping more and more over the past week - the carbon dioxide issue is happening again - like prior to her going into the hospital for the last stint - so, maybe she'll pass out and i can watch the show in peace downstairs.)

mother of eff. so, i bought a new splitter and coax to re-hook the upstairs teevee up along with the internet.

hooked everything up.

got a message on the teevee saying "not authorized to use this box"

and the internet was down.

grand. so i get on the horn to comcast and we get my teevee back in action.

the internet, not so much.

so, they patch me through to the internet wizard over there and he couldn't help me at all.

there i was re-hooking and unhooking the coaxes back and forth with the splitter.

in fact at one point i pulled the one coax (there are 3) so hard the damned thing flung back and hit me in the face on my cheek under my left eye. (i've yet t see if there's a mark... or blood. feels like it.)

after doing all kinds of attempts, i said eff it. and rehooked the cable modem back directly to the wall outlet

it was like Sophie's Choice picking between the teevee and the internet.

Internet trumps teevee upstairs (since if the internet is dead upstairs, it's dead everywhere.)

then as i was about to hang up since the internet was back up and running, the comcast dude says "um.... how many megahertz does your splitter go up to?"

so i went over and checked and both my splitters (the old and the new) said "5 - 1000mHz"

he said "oh. yeah. um. we can set up an appointment and the guy can give you a 10,000mHz splitter that we use here at Comcast"

nope. not going to sit here waiting for some dude to come here and hook up an effing splitter. so, i'll probably head over to the comcast place down the road tomorrow and get one of those fancy 10,000mHz splitter (or go buy one somewhere.)

seriously, though. i was on the phone with comcast for 35 minutes working through all of this rigmarole and only at the end they mentioned the 10000mHz splitter? I had mentioned that i was dealing with a splitter probably about 10,000 times during the conversation.

ugh.

anyway. i won't be watching saget on the upstairs teevee.

i'm hoping that gigglemom passes out soon and then i can watch the thing on the downstairs one. (in any event, i'm recording it at 11:30pm on the dvr... would've recorded the 10pm one, but i'm recording the Olympics and MadMen at 10pm. You can't record more than 2 shows... nor can you record 2 shows and flip to a 3rd show. a bit of a pain in the keester)

sooooooooo, that's my techie/teevee/internet story of the night.

yay.

If you have made mistakes... there is always another chance for you... you may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call "failure" is not the falling down, but the staying down.

-- Mary Pickford (1893-1979) Canadian Actress

just woke up. a little tuckered out (was up late watching the Saget roast... meh. it was okay. Greg Giraldo, Jeffrey Ross, Cloris Leachman and Norm MacDonald were good. The rest were... *yawn* well, at the end Bob Saget did alright razzing them all back)

Yes, for those of you who DID watch the show, I DID say that Norm did well. It may have come across as crap, but, he was intentionally horrible. (I heart Norm, so, back off.) He was using the worst jokes for the roast on purpose.

I did love his retort to Jim Norton when Norton said "Norm, watching you up here was like watching Henry Fonda picking blueberries"...

and then Norm said "Wait a minute... I don't think there is a person in here who would not enjoy watching Henry Fonda pick blueberries"

I've gotta clean the house right now... we've got the Medical Supply place coming here today and they're delivering a new Bi-Pap machine for gigglemom's sleep apnea. GM's been sleeping a billion hours a day again - like before the last few hospital stints - and the new machine is supposed to push more of the Carbon Dioxide out of her system.

I've also got to call her doc for her Provigil Rx - he forgot to give it to us on Friday... of course, we got 5 other prescriptions. On effing Saturday I had to pick up some antibiotics for GM... an Rx for TEN (10) pills. frigging $150. seriously. it pisses me off.

anyway, the provigil is pretty effing expensive too, so i'm a little worried about it. What that stuff does is keep her awake. Yeah, I should just get her a case of Diet Pepsi Max with extra caffeine and ginseng... that might be cheaper.

oh yeah, so, lately i've been having a hankering to get back onstage.

*** apparently this is a "Vitriolic Diatribe" --- sorrrrrrrrrr-rrrrrry neilv

trying to get a grasp on facebook... for personal and for work reasons. it's okay - it's growing on me. but i think i still like myspace moreso. jury is still out. i will say that i've been in contact with a lot more people from The Past (college & high school and former co-workers) on here which is pretty cool. I'm gonna try and keep my friend count low on the facebook, since the myspace is getting a little out of hand with the 3300+ friends (mainly comedians, etc)

good morning! for some reason i am awake of this ungodly hour of... oh... it's 8:15am

well, maybe it's not THAT early, but, i am tired-ish. i've gotta stop staying up till 3:30am

either i woke up at 7:30am from Beri jumping on my head or it' was because the lawnmower guys were zipping around outside the front window and THAT'S when Beri jumped on my head... and then down to the end of the couch (yes. still on the couch.)

eh, i had to get up anyway. gotta do an overhaul on the house. spruce it up a tad.

had fun last night with an old friend of mine that i hadn't seen in a few years. had run into at church on sunday. yeah, i know. church. went again this week. getting there by 10am isn't that bad. it's the waking up on time when up late the night before that's the problem.

really need to get more sleep.

i also need to head to the store and get more oatmeal and milk.... that is, if my car doesn't veer off to the Country Store where an egg & cheese sammich on wheat toast beckons...