~ Stop by Knitch on the way home for a few fresh balls of super chunky cashmarino in Ice Blue and Colonial Blue
~ Arrive home, immediately and turn BlackBerry off, leave it in the kitchen
~ Change into jammies and spa socks
~ Climb in bed with yarn, needles, and craptop
~ Order lunch from Bab’s and dessert from Chocolate Pink Cafe via Zifty
~ Receive lunch with lovely note and special gift from Jen (owner of Zifty, wife of Tyler and complete sweetheart)

~ Eat naughty, greasy appetizer in bed

~ Eat naughty, yummy lunch in bed

~ Attempt to eat naughty, illegal desert in bed (some assembly required), stop two bites in and save for later (so. damn. rich.)

~ Nap

Benign? Only the lab knows for sure…dundunDUN!

I’m sure it’s nothing, and that’ll be confirmed in a week or so. Wheeee.

Because I wasn’t irritable enough – my wee camera is now on her last leg.

I picked her on a whim in New York three years ago on a business trip – we were having a big silly team lunch and I thought I’d like to snap some shots of the gang in their free meal feeding frenzy so I bopped over to the Circuit City near the office at Columbus Circle and grabbed the first one I saw that was 3mpx and around $200.

She’s been riding shotgun ever since.

She’s lived in my handbag the better part of the last 3 years, traveling with me to England, Virginia, Alabama, North Carolina, Alaska, Florida, Texas, Ohio and all over Georgia. She’s captured over 7,000 snippets of time in her lens, recording them for painfully nostalgic moments to come.

Alas I pulled her from her habitat in the bowls of said handbag for a little point and shoot last week to find I couldn’t get her flash to come on. I’d manually turned it off the last time I used her as I’m apt to do and it seems the button to turn her back on had been abused for the last time. No more.

She’s still functional for brightly lit/outdoor shots, but for dinners with friends and hijinks at the office and knitting documentation – I’m afraid she’s done.

So here’s the question: ultimately I’m itching for a phat SLR but that will hardly fit in my doctor bag…so tell me for my money if you have a point and shoot around $200 that you’re in love with and would recommend. Pointers to your flickr proving it’s worthiness earns bonus points.

Thanks in advance and kissy boo, moppets.

I try to be a good person. I try to have patience and to think happy thoughts…but I fail. A lot.

I know my weaknesses and I usually do a fine job of working around them – like living “in town” so I don’t have to commute and sit in traffic, shopping naked so as to avoid crowded venues like malls, and running errands on my lunch hour instead of saving them up for the weekend when everyone is out.

Now, I couldn’t tell you which one of us is responsible for the brilliant idea to go to the mall/go shopping as part of our date Saturday. I sincerely wish I could, because whichever one of us it was should be honored with The Dumbass of the Year award, taken out back and flogged with a Raggedy Ann doll that’s been loaded with razor blades and rocks.

Scene 1: congested traffic trying to leave the ‘hood. I mouth something from the four letter word category to a woman who blocked an intersection in her big dumb fur coat and bleached hair and Channel sunglasses. She decided she wanted to play and rolled down her window. I played back…because I’m a horrible little troll with a potty mouth, a quick temper and no tolerance for people who think the rules (and by “rules” I mean traffic laws) don’t apply to them.

Scene 2: what used to be my favorite store. It’s clogged with people who aren’t paying attention to what’s going on around them: 16 year olds on cell phones who aren’t even multi-tasking (isn’t that the generation of multi-taskers?), they’re just wandering around the store breathing through their mouths and randomly grunting/speaking in single syllables. Mothers pushing strollers and stopping abruptly (not that I think women should be confined to their homes on the weekend if they have infants – but I think women should be confined to their homes on the weekend if they have infants…at least with strollers). Less than 5 minutes in I pulled a full Veruca Salt, balling up my fists and chanting “I hate shopping, I hate shopping, I hate shopping” in increasing volume and with increasing rage and walked out of the store.

I am a crazy, crazy little woman with “issues”.

As I said before, the good news is I know what they are and 99% of the time I’m able to keep myself in check by avoiding them. The bad news is 1% of the time, someone is incapable of understanding how truly out of my mind I become and feels the need to try me. I don’t recommend it.

It’s been a long week.

Monday morning I was doing my typical rush-rush to leave the house, and as I sat impatiently waiting for the slow as effing molasses gate to ease it’s way open and release me, I gazed across the street. On the sidewalk was Pepe – my neighbors cat. He was laying on his side facing me and though his eyes were open, his soul was clearly no longer present.

I pulled back into our lot and walked up to my neighbors door. I held her infant while she went to confirm the identity of her pet, and I was as much at a loss for words as I would have been if Pepe had been a human.

She moved to Atlanta from New Orleans, leaving her boyfriend and family behind in an attempt to start over and do what’s right for her. She’s known a good deal of tragedy in the past few years and to say my heart went out to her when she tried to stop the tears from spilling down her face doesn’t even begin to cover it.

So it’s been that kind of week for me…which means my perspective has been reset to one of gratefulness (even if I am still horribly impatient) and that I’m determined to write a different story for myself next week.

Extraordinarily useful WordPress tool: WP Ban

Now - here’s where you come in: currently if you’ve been banned, the message you see is “You’ve been banned.” which I think we can agree is neither creative, clever or as painful as I’d like it to be.

Comments are open for submissions…go!

Like left turns against traffic, I’ll do almost anything to avoid using a semicolon.

That is all.