Nice to have a friend like you

So, my parents friends just celebrated their 22nd wedding anniversary. Mr. John, who is not quite right in the head, provided this lovely card for his wife:
The front features 2 women in bikini's standing very close to each other.
The inside of the card reads: "It's so great to have a friend like you-- with similar interests".
Below the card he writes "Happy 22nd Anniversary"
... and tapes a 22caliber bullet to the card.
Lucky for him, he also gave her diamond earrings or she may have used the bullet that he provided.

Self Portrait with Corn

I used to have a drawing blog which I have since deserted. One of my husband's friends commented that he checks my old drawing blog every day in hopes of me making a new drawing. That is a bit sad- but it explains where all of my traffic comes from...

Anyway- that comment inspired me to draw tonight. And here it is: Self Portrait with Corn. Obviously I am the orange lady. Do you like that groovy hair flip I have going on? This weekend I saw a black woman with short hair flip it up to one side. A-symmetrical they call it. No, in real life my hair doesn't actually look like that.

And then you see my students-represented by the blue piranhas sucking the life-blood out of me and carelessly spilling it on my clothes-and face-and hair. Damn students! Stop sending me a million emails and complaining about 2 point deductions! I have research to do! (And lives to save.)

To my right you see The Corn, and between us: wedding bells. This is supposed to be representative of the fact that my new boss "Alice" just got engaged. Well- he asked her- I bet on valentines day- and they got the ring later. A beautiful diamond ring. And since he asked her on VDay- he is depicted as corn. And since diamonds are impossible to do justice to in the 2D form in which my art lives-- we have the bells.

What these two things really represent I think is the fact that I am looking forward to having lunch with my new boss "Alice" tomorrow at the semesterly "Take-A-Prof to Lunch" event that my university holds. I have asked around-but little is known about Alice- or her Fiance. They both have tattoos. It is interesting to me that such a superficial observation is all that my lab mates have gleaned about them. But this will all change tomorrow at lunch when I discover the life of my new boss, my favorite professor.

Slow Children at Play

Here's another Sylvan anecdote for those who enjoy them:
I arrived at work the other day to find the two owners (a married couple) in a big and raucous hoopla, over what, I was not sure. The wifey was squawking and flitting about worrying that her toddler of a husband had planted the lizard she found crawling on her purse strap in the actual purse. The husband was getting her all worked up by throwing pieces of balled up, lime-green post-it notes at her.
"What's going on?" I demanded. Note, there is NEVER this much excitement percolating when I come into work.
The wifey gave me the run down on the invading lizard who had set up camp in her office.
Feeling bold, I marched into her office to find the little guy (note, I really like lizards!). He was in between the wall and the side of her desk, with his eyes squinted. It was almost as if he hoped that if everyone else was coming in fuzzy for him, that we would have the courtesy to pass him over in the landscape as well.
Now, lizards are fast. And I don't like grabbing their bellies, cause they're soft and I don't want to squish anything important, as it would defeat the purpose of the rescue mission. So I made a rookie mistake and went for the tail, figuring that he'd be easier to catch and I wouldn't harm him in the process. I hoisted him in the air and he started thrashing every which way for about three seconds before he detached from his tail. The tail segment fell to the ground and continued its wiggle, and the lizard bolted to hide under some buttons and fliers underneath the wifey's desk.
I moved the propaganda out of the way and unearthed the now scared-shitless lizard. I knew I had no choice but to go for the abdomen. With my ninja-like reflexes, I caught him before he could dart off again, though I was careful to not squeeze him too hard.
He held his mouth open as wide as it would go and began turning all assortments of colors. I tried rubbing his head to calm him in his duress, but figured that was ridiculous so I just brought him to the door as quickly as possible.
I carefully and strategically dropped him in the "garden" onto some ground-cover, but he got confused and turned around since he couldn't stick the dismount on an even, flat surface. He headed straight back inside and the wifey started clapping and yelling, "Oh, no! Don't come back THIS way! Oh, he's a slow learner!"
And before I could stop my mouth, these words fell out, "Well, no wonder he's at Sylvan."
Immediately afterwards, I placed my hands over my mouth to prevent anything else just as horrible from spilling forth.
Needless to say no one, save my terrible, awful self, thought it was funny.

we'll stay alive no matter what occurs!

I'm not sure why I've chosen this movie quote as the title of my post . . . other than it popped into my head, and that seems to be how I label most blog posts: the first thing to pop into my head wins!
Nice feedback on the bummer of a coffee meeting! What TR commented was of particular interest to me, and something that I will keep in mind as I take my first flying leap into the world of dating. Don't get me wrong, I've dated here and there, but never with rapid-fire succession, i.e. I've never dated a high volume of guys. I'm normally way too shy when it comes to interacting with males in whom I have romantic interests. The reason for that is VERY old, and boils down to this: when I was little I didn't think I was of value or worthy of love because I was fat. There. I said it.
But now that I've set foot on these online dating grounds, I've been thrust into a world that is somewhat alien to me.
I met up with someone last night, let's call him Col. Mustard, whom I'm connected to through one of the afore-mentioned sites and I dare say that this meeting went SO much better than the last. There were things I liked and things I didn't like as much about the guy; however, I'm coming to realize that I've been far too critical of the opposite sex. As long as the good outweighs the bad, which in his case it does, then I feel like I should learn to accept that people are people and not a damn one of them is perfect. Yours truly included.
A good sign about meeting Col. Mustard: I was nervous before we actually met. You might be thinking, "Huh. Nervous? What's good about that, Skuh?" I'm pleased you asked. What's good about it, is that I was excited to meet him. When I was meeting Crema Face, I could have cared less. Of course, the nervousness may have been due to the anticipation leading up to our meeting in person, but I'm confident that part of that anxiety was, "Oh, man. I'm glad I finally get to meet Col. Mustard."
Yet another precursor to my tension was due to worrying that he'd find me too rotund for his taste, and that it would be obvious. But that's neither here nor there.
We're probably going to hang out again.
So, I guess you could say last night was very heartening.