Have been meaning to post, but keep getting distracted by life.

Summer session starts next week which means my life will go from being nice and tame to insane. I'm taking two classes (Quantitative Research Methods and Linguistic Applications in ESL) which will entail being in class Monday thru Thursday from 6 to 9/9:30pm. I'm looking forward to the classes, especially the linguistics class, but I'm not looking forward to losing my evenings. Especially now that Niels is done with his summer class and his internships are winding down and he'll have a lot of free time. The fact that our schedules have not meshed in anyway this summer has been frustrating, but such is life when graduate school is involved. I'm hoping things will settle down in the next six months or so which will allow us to spend time together! (A girl can dream, can't she?)

I'm off to Buffalo tomorrow evening to spend time with the family for the holiday. I'm looking forward to it, especially since I spent all of 5 minutes with the niece and nephews when I was up two weeks ago for my Mom's birthday party. I'll try to post while I'm there, but I may fall off the blogosphere again.

PS - A shout out to Bread for the City for raising the money to cover May's food gap!

I was going to write about my quick trip to Buffalo this past weekend, but just visited Bread for the City's blog and read the following:

"We need your help: Fill the Food Gap!

Today we have an urgent request. We just ‘closed the books’ on the month of May, and the books tell us that we spent $10,360 more than we’d budgeted on food for that month.

We don’t regret spending whatever it takes to feed the hungry in our community. But that money must come from somewhere, and we can’t balance last month’s budget deficit against the hungry families who come to us this month.

Will you help us fill the gap in our food budget? Please consider donating to our food pantry today.

The cost of food has been rising for years; so, too, the need for food assistance in our community.

Fortunately, Bread for the City’s Food Director Ted Pringle is a seasoned pro at finding inexpensive supplies of healthy bulk food. However, Ted recently had surgery, which kept him out of work for most of the month of May. This meant he wasn’t able to take the time he normally does to find the best deals.

“Every day I search through inventory sheets to find what’s healthy and cheap,” Ted says. “For instance, there’s this brand of good, unprocessed canned chicken. If I have the time, I can find it for 99 cents a can. But in May, I had to place an advance order for $3 a can.”

Ted has since come back to Bread for the City fully recovered, but in low spirits for having gone over budget by more than ten thousand dollars. He’s working hard to catch up, but he can’t do it alone.

Nobody can do this alone. But working together we can make up the difference.

You can help us. $30 will feed a hungry family of four. Please give today.

You can also help by spreading the word. Share our message above, and use this link:
www.breadforthecity.org/fillthefoodgap

Between now and the end of the month, we’ll post occasional updates on this blog, and more regular updates on Twitter. So follow us on Twitter, and help get the word out by tweeting @breadforthecity and #fillthefoodgap.

If you can spare $30 (that's sacrificing 10 visits to Starbucks or going out for lunch for three days) please consider donating, they're in desperate need of the funds.

This was taken yesterday after thirty minutes of waiting to just get on the platform:

Since my birthday I've been a lazy butt. I've zero motivation to do much of anything. I'm bored with the Internet, although I still spend way too much time on it. I can't concentrate on the crocheting project I'm working on. And I can't sit still long enough to read The Russian Debutante's Handbook, whose title belies the plot of the novel.

I think part of this lack of attention span is due to the fact that I've not been able to work out since getting my tattoo. My back is still too tender to wear a sport's bra, and the idea of wearing one at this moment makes me cringe.

I'm always surprised on how much working out helps keep me focused and grounded. It's going to be hard to keep it up once my summer classes start in July, I'm not sure when I'm going to breathe let alone workout for the months of July and August. I just have to keep reminding myself that taking these classes will help me graduate on time and lighten my load during the Fall semester.

I have a photo to share of the clusterf*ck that was the Metro ride this morning, but my phone was acting up before the battery died and I couldn't send it to myself. Hopefully I'll be able to get it up when I get home. 

Today is MY DAY. Yes siree bobby!!! Because it's my special day I can ask for anything I want! And what do I want?? I want you to go to the Bread for the City website and make a donation. Any amount will do.

Still haven't gotten all the photos up to Flickr from the NYC trip. This week has gotten unexpectedly busy. Actually that's not true, I knew it'd get busy with preparing for my birthday on Friday, but I didn't think it'd get as busy as it has. But it's cool, it keeps me out of trouble. ;)

Here's one photo, 'tho to tide you over.

Am still here. Have been too lazy to write, the past week.

I've some photos from my recent NYC trip to post. Will hopefully get them up by the end of the week.

Until then, my pretties, stay well.

On June 4, 1989 Chinese government cracked down on pro-democracy, student-lead protests that started weeks earlier, on April 15th, as a gathering to mourn the death of reformist leader Hu Yaobang, in Tiananmen Square.

Since then the CCP has done everything in its power to ensure that the citizens of China are denied access to any accounting of the massacre that killed hundreds of people. There is no mention of it in text books, former participants are harassed on a regular basis, imprisoned, amongst other things.

China, I spent two years in your beautiful country, got to know many wonderful people. It is time you open up about what happened twenty years ago. Otherwise it will continue to hold you back.

I've realized I've turned into one of "those people", you know the ones who talk about their pets ALL THE TIME. I can't always help it, I love my kittehs, but sometimes I think I must drive people crazy. I think I'm still working on rebuilding my speech filter after it's utter collapse while in China.

Got back from NYC late last night. An Amtrak train broke down ahead of us so we had to stop and load the passengers onto our train. But it didn't kill the buzz I was on from an awesome weekend.

The more time I go to New York, the more I love it. Especially Spyder's neighborhood in Astoria. If Niels and I ever get the chance to move to NYC, and if all goes well someday we will, I totally want to live there. There's awesome little shops, great places to eat and it's only 15 minutes to the city.

Oh, New York, I miss you already.

Heading up to the Baltimore area to spend the night at D&S' before heading up to NEW YORK CITY for the weekend with the girls.

Hope you all have a great weekend! See some of you VERY soon!! eeeeeeeeeeeppppppp!!!!!!!!

So angry I can see stars.

California Supreme Court Upholds Ban on Gay Marriage

How a vote to withhold rights from a population can stand boggles my mind.

I wish I could be more eloquent in my anger but the only thing I can think of saying is:
F*ck you California.

Had an awesome four day weekend. Niels and I had a co-worker/friend of mine and her family over for lunch on Saturday. As expected Ginger hid under the covers the whole time they were over. But Grey was out being a social butterfly, becoming fast friends with my friend's 2 1/2 year old son. We were a bit concerned at first because Grey's never been around small children and we were unsure how she'd be, especially since she often likes to play bite. But we had nothing to worry about, Grey was awesome with S and they  had a wonderful time romping around the apartment together. Niels and I think because Grey's still very much a kitten so she was excited to have someone around close to her age to play with.

Sunday Niels & I went to the Arlington Cinema n Drafthouse to see Monsters vs Aliens. We were the only people there without kids, which was not unexpected since it was a noon showing. The movie was really cute and I recommend it.

Unfortunately, I completely changed my sleep cycle over the weekend, which has become the norm lately, and I'm exausted today and feel like I'm walking in a haze. By the time I recover it'll be the weekend and I'll screw it up again.

Am slightly hyper, not sure if it's the Woodchuck or that I just watched Glee on Fox and LOVED IT!! Yes, I was a chorus geek, a totally uncool and very unpopular member (I think my uptightedness had something to do with not being liked by the cool kids, whatev), but loved, loved, loved singing.

Anyways, a brief update on things.

Semester's over and finally got all my grades, straight As. I rock thank you very much. My first semester EVER of getting straight As, I'm stoked.

Got a mole removed yesterday from the side of my head, wasn't too bad, novocaine's a wonderful thing. Plus the way my hair falls, you can't see the nasty scar-to-be.

Still totally in love with the new tattoo. I love having one that I can see on a regular basis. A friend is working on a knitting inspired one for me that I'm hoping to get done this summer.

Have read Hellboy: Seed of Destruction, John Constantine Hellblazer: Reasons to Be Cheerful, and B.P.R.D.: Hollow Earth & Other Stories, over the past week and loved all of them. Niels had Hellboy, but got the other two when we were in Old Town two Sundays ago and discovered a small, but awesome comic bookstore on King Street.

Finally, I wants one:


But I'm not sure how the kitties would feel about it...