Anguna Cbbe checked her makeup in the rear view mirror. Her father griped at her whenever he caught her doing it, claiming that she’d kill herself, but he wasn’t here, and despite his protests of her impending doom by vanity, she only checked her makeup at red lights.

She moved the mirror back to see behind her, hung her hands over the steering wheel, and tilted her head back against the seat rest. It had been a very long day, and the evening didn’t look to be much better. She’d promised her best friend she’d go out for drinks with her new boyfriend, but she had an ugly feeling Betty was trying to set her up.

Again.

While she was musing about the last time Betty had tried this, the car behind her blared its horn. Despite her closed windows, she could hear the man in the car cursing her out. Sighing she put the car into gear and moved through the intersection. The car behind her jerked into the empty opposing lane, zoomed past her, and then cut sharply in front of her as traffic appeared around the corner.

“Jesus Christ,” she muttered to herself as he slammed on his brakes. “I don’t need this shit today.” As they arrived at the next intersection she kept slowing down, and as he went through the intersection she turned the wheel sharply to the right escaped down a cross street.

“What an asshole,” she muttered as she turned left to parallel her previous route.

She ended up at the bar without further incident but her already dark mood had soured further. When she stepped into the dark bar it took her a few moments to see Betty waving from a booth in the back. She sighed when she saw two men sitting with Betty. Anguna recognized Bozz, Betty’s latest dish right off, but although the man sitting with his back to the door looked strangely familiar, she didn’t think she knew who he was.

When Anguna got to the table Betty jumped up to give her a hug. “Bozz bought a friend along, I hope you don’t mind!” Betty said the same thing every time she did this, and it aways worked out very badly. At times she wonder if Betty was secretly punishing her for some past indiscretion.

Then Anguna looked at the man sitting at the table. It was the asshole who’d cut her off in traffic. He jumped out and sidled over to her. “The name’s Durian. You can call me Durian Smooth,” he said, pronouncing the word with about seven Os in the middle.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” said Anguna.

Without a further word she turned on her heel, marched out the door to her car, drove home, and went to bed with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.

Loot for ME! Loot for ME! Loot for Me!

Yes, my prize for winning the Jim Wright is an Asshole contest has finally arrived!

And it’s actually a real prize this time!

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I got expected loot, and totally unexpected loot!

What more could I want?
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While we were gone, apple butter from Janiece arrived.

Being a good granddaughter, I opened the box to make sure nothing had broken, and then closed the box back up for my grandmother.

Since we did the Grandmom exchange with my aunt today, Grandmom finally opened the apple butter.

The jar is now sitting by her chair–presumably so no one else will open it first. :)

If you are confused, see here and here.

So we were in the midwest for Kim & Mike’s wedding, and as usual, I managed to amuse myself.

We found an “Alaskan Fur Store” in Jackson, which may or may not explain Alaskans.

Sorry. None of you were worth $34.99 (or even $24.99 without tail) for a highly disturbing joke. However, you may be pleased to note that I included the phone number, on the off chance you wanted to order one for yourself.

If anyone orders this, let me state upfront that I do NOT want pictures of anyone I know modeling these things.

I also relaxed.

Here you can see me relaxing at Jenny Lake in the Grand Teton National Park.

No, they are not boots, but they were sneakers with laces. And it’s not like I was hiking. We were just walking around the lake.

After the wedding and national park visiting, we took a detour to visit Janiece and Anne.

The fabulous Janiece and her Smart Man allowed us to stay out their house, despite not having anyone to vouch for the fact that we were not deranged killers. I felt very lucky she trusted us so.

We went to the Coors Brewery for the tour, and Michael was pleased to discover that one of the beers he could “taste test” was Blue Moon.

This made up for the fact that he was initially disturbed to discover that Coors made Blue Moon and Killians, two of his favorite beers. (I do have pictures with Janiece at the Brewery, but they weren’t nearly silly enough for this post.)

We then met up with Anne, and wandered around the Denver Museum of Science.

INVISIBLE COCONUTS!

(Confused? See here.)

The museum had many interactive exhibits. Here I am modeling the mule deer ears.

They really didn’t make me hear any better. Or perhaps this was one just more exhibit I went to use that was not working at the time. Apparently it’s not safe to go anywhere with me.

After the museum we went out to dinner, where Janiece was surprised with brownies.

As you can see, Janiece thought they were icky, and said she was going to give them to her Smart Man to eat.

And here we were after dinner.

You’ll notice there is only ONE glass per person visible on the table. You’ll also notice that Anne is the only one who looks consistently sane in these pictures.

That’s all I’m going to say about that.

I’m so glad we were able to take some extra time on our trip to go by Denver and finally meet Janiece and Anne in person! As you can see, we did have some small amount of fun.

I actually got two postcards today. One from my cousin Ben who is in grad school in California, and the other from Nathan.

Nathan’s postcard is a lovely shot of the mountains across the lake, and although my backyard doesn’t quite look like that, the postcard is quite lovely.

However.

82 cents in postage? Really?

Nathan, you do realize that West Virginia is not, in fact, a foreign country, right? And it only costs 26 cents to mail a postcard?

Just checking.

As you may remember, I won Jim’s contest.

Today, my loot arrived!

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By the way, I’m a jerk, because I’ve totally forgotten to thank Ilya for his lovely postcard. Those are lovely guns, and it’s best I not be around them when angry.

And I also forgot to mention that I TOTALLY WON Jim’s contest! (Go read the entries only if you are not faint of heart.) I’d like to say that makes all the pain and suffering of the past couple weeks worth it, but that would totally be a lie. So, I’ll leave it at YAY ME!

For Tania

If the above doesn’t work click here.

Eric?

You win.

Just so you know.

(Confused? Ask Tania!)

ADDENDUM the First:

Go vote for Shawn! I mean it! He’s beating Westley Crusher!

I got LOOT today!

I also laughed hysterically at the return address on one package. Thanks Nathan!

LOOT!

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NOTE: I apologize. I know I’ve not covered everyone, but this is where things led me. I’ll try and rectify my exclusions later.

You were asking about the UCF? Here’s a scrapbook of headlines and articles that tell the story.

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