November 2007 Archives

Oh.  My.  Goodness.  On the soul of Jerry Reed, how did I not know about this????

"The good folks at YearOne, along with Restore A Muscle Car, Motortopia, and 78TA.com, have organized the first Bandit Run to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the release of the original Smokey and the Bandit film. It'll be a recreation of the route Burt Reynolds took in that American cinema classic, taking participants from Texarkana, Texas to Atlanta, Georgia, passing through Arkansas, Mississippi, and Alabama along the way. East bound and down, indeed.

The cruise is open to all makes and models, but Trans Ams are especially coveted, particularly black '76-'81 T/As and SE models. The Bandit Run starts on May 15 and ends in Atlanta on May 17."

Smoke. Key.  And.  The.  Bandit.  Cross.  Country.  Road.  Trip.  Trans.  Am.  I.  Can't.  Breathe...  Skip to the -6:00 minute mark on this clip to see the part that almost literally made me pass out:



I left out a detail up there. It was on May 15-17, 2007.  MY 30TH BIRTHDAY WAS THE SAME DAY AS THE 30TH BIRTHDAY OF SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT AND I DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT THE BANDIT RUN AND I MISSSSSED IT!!!!!!!!!

But you know what?  Just like their was a sequel to Smokey and the Bandit, they're doing it again this year.  Vacation plans and birthday present to self for 2008?  DONE.

Have you ever had one of those nights when you're at the bar, and suddenly you realize:

• 2 of the 6 people at the table are internet-ordained ministers,
• 1 of the 6 people at the table is a Notary Public,
• 1 of the 6 people at the table is a lawyer,
  
• 6 of the 6 people at the table are pretty drunk,
• You have all the right ingredients for a quasi-legal marriage ceremony to be performed?

In other words, I think Jackie and I got married last night.  We allegedly consummated our marriage under the table when no one was looking, and I have a sparkly diamond ring crudely drawn on my left ring finger in marker. 

The ring won't wash off.  Does that mean this is legally binding??

So there I was.  Innocently and hard-workingly sitting at my desk.  In the distance, the pug that works around the corner from me began to bark.  Not the usual cute innocent barks of a spastic friendly doggie, but barks of terror.  Barks that would not stop.  The kind of barks that were engineered to alert their owners to certain danger.

I looked up in time to see a lion slowing rounding the corner, surveying the scene on our floor.

This lion casually walked over to an empty desk in our area and picked up the phone, apparently to check some voicemail messages.  He sat down at the computer and propped his back paws on the desk as he listened to the phone, then put his legs down and sat up to take note of something on a post-it.  Then he stood up, stretched, and reached in his pocket for a stack of index cards.  






He then proceeded to walk around to each and every person, and handed us all one of these cards inviting us to the Christmas party.  Please carefully note the the reason "why":



Apparently similar incidents happened in our offices in other cities.  A bulldog delivered the invitations in Detroit.  Portland was visited by a penguin.

I went back to Texas for Thanksgiving, and as usual, my family crammed in a double-dare-dosage of holidays into the extended weekend.  Thanksgiving was Thursday, Christmas was Friday.  (For the past 10 or so years, my family has been exchanging gifts at Thanksgiving instead of Christmas.  This is a beautiful thing, and I highly recommend it to anyone not tied to traditional "calendar-based" holidays.  Let me put it this way: you get all your Christmas shopping done in October.  And then sit around in November and December looking down your nose at all the chumps scrambling to buy gifts.)

Typically we've drawn names, but this year we decided to turn in into one of those swapping party games.  I still don't know the proper name for it.  White Elephant?  Chinese Auction?  White Chinese Elephant Auction?  Whatever.  There is a pile of wrapped gifts, and you draw names.  On your turn, you can pick an unopened gift from the table, or steal something someone else has already unwrapped.

* Note: Mom refused to buy a present on Dad's behalf.  It was mandated that he was responsible for selecting, purchasing, and wrapping his own gift.  We were all quite anxious to see what this would be.  The last time something like this happened he contributed a framed portrait of Sharon Stone.  

** Additional note: The other mandate for Dad's gift was that it could not have anything to do with Sharon Stone.

I think I was 3rd out of 12, and my strategy was to choose the heaviest gift on the unwrapped table.  When I picked up that box, Dad started squirming with glee.  Little did I know that it was his box.  I tore away the paper to reveal...

A hydraulic trolley jack:

He clapped at his own cleverness, and explained that he needed one for the shed and was hoping to steal it back.  The swap pressed on.  Staci stole the jack from me, although I don't know why she would ever need a hydraulic jack.  I think she was just doing it for the satisfaction of taking it away from me.  At the very end of the game, Dad stole the jack back from her...and thus succeeded in his master plan.

There was one spare gift left on the table from my Uncle Joe.  Since the gift I got stuck with was too big for me to bring back to Seattle, I opted for that gift instead.  So ladies and gentleman, my big Christmas present for 2007 was......an autographed Hooters calendar:




Merry Christmas.

Because I wanna be like Matt...

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet & current car)
Ginger Golf

2.YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (fave ice cream flavor, favorite cookie)
Dulce de Leche Snickerdoodle

3. YOUR NATIVE AMERICAN NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal)
Blue Miniature Pony

4. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born)
Ann Amarillo

5. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 of your first)
Kotha

6. SUPERHERO NAME: ("The" + 2nd favorite color, favorite drink)
The Yellow Water (ack!!)

7. NASCAR NAME: (the first names of your grandfathers)
Sam Wallace

8. STRIPPER NAME: ( the name of your favorite perfume/cologne/scent, favorite candy)
Vanilla Reese's Peanut Butter Cups

9.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother's & father's middle name)
Murrel Wayne

10. TV WEATHER ANCHOR NAME: (Your 5th grade teacher's last name)
Halee Sanders

11. SPY NAME: (your favorite season/holiday, flower)
Spring Daisy

12. YOUR PUNK ROCK NAME ( favorite body part, bodily fluid)
Shoulder Drool

13. HIPPY NAME: (What you had for breakfast, your favorite tree)
Carnation Instant Breakfast Redwood

14. YOUR ROCKSTAR TOUR NAME: ("The" + Your fave hobby/craft, fave weather element + "Tour)
The Hula-Hooping Tornado Tour

I don't talk to my friend Amy enough, so about a week ago I tried to correct this by accosting her over IM, trying to distract her from working so we could get caught up.  At the end of our conversation, she mentioned that she and her Sean (her husband, my non-biological non-legal baby brother, for all intents and purposes) were on their way to Vegas that weekend.  She asked if I had any bets I needed placed.

"$5 on 17 black, roulette.  Somewhere Irish."

I was mostly kidding, as that is my stock answer anytime anyone asks me anything about what to bet in Vegas.

Two days later, I get a weird frantic call from Sean with all the slot machines dinging in the background, informing me that they walked straight into Fitzgerald's downtown and plunked $5 on 17 black....which promptly HIT!?  I was incredulous, and his side of the conversion included a lot of "I shit you not!"-type phrases.  In roulette, hitting the actual number is a 35 to 1 payoff.  That little $5 bet became $175.  Sean told me he would give me "my" money over Thanksgiving.  I said no, that it was "their" investment, and therefore "their" money.  This quickly turned into a patented Halee/Sean argument stubborn-a-thon, which I think ended with me hanging up on him.

Two days later, I get a weird call from my dad saying that Sean had given him a Crown Royal bag full of 175 $1 Fitzgerald's casino chips that morning at the coffee shop.  I got super annoyed, because:
 

1. That means Sean got the last word.
2. That is super-stupid to take chips out of Vegas, because if there is a security breach they will sometimes swap out the chips and not honor the old ones.
3. That meant Sean got the last word.
4. Sean was being a fucking pest to the casino, and cleared them out of 175 dollar chips, which is inconsiderate and possibly illegal.
5. My dad is going to Vegas in a week or two, and he is totally going to steal all that money from me.

When Amy got back to work, I sent her an IM threatening to kill both her and Sean.  And then I learned how much trouble Sean went to (and how gleeful it made him) to execute the logistics of rounding up that many chips.  From Amy:

• "you cannot imagine the fun sean had getting all that converted to small denominations"
• "he almost got kicked out of the casino"
• "he spent HOURS"
• "i guess one pit boss actually took pity on sean and was asking what he was doing, so sean told him the plan. the guy was like 'but why?' and sean said 'because it's funny!' so that's the guy who told him to hit all the tables instead of the cage"
• "sean kept coming over to me saying 'I finally found a way to have fun in Vegas that doesn't lose me money AND isn't illegal!'"
• "then he recruited me and my dad to go change some more chips in b/c all the dealers were starting to recognize him"
• "so my dad was REALLY nervous about doing the changing.  he kept making up all the elaborate stories about changing in the chips... he sat down like he was gonna play something, then said he was gonna make a side bet for the dealer. Then he sat there until right up till time for her to deal cards and pretended like his phone rang and EXPLAINED to everyone that his phone rang and he had to go"

So after hearing all that, I went from annoyed to annoyed AND amused.  Which is like a double word score play for Sean.

(5:01:27 PM) Matthew:  they delivered my turkey today. thats like 5 whole days early. chris is home sick so its at the homeless place
(5:01:41 PM) halee: what if the homeless eat it???
(5:01:41 PM) Matthew: i guess i would be ok with a homeless person eating it, but id still be bummed
(5:01:46 PM) halee: "bummed!?!?!?"

He didn't even mean to do that, that's how magic Matt is.

I made this for my friend Jenni the other day when she asked how I was doing, and wanted my answer to be phrased in Excel.  Click on the thumbnail below to view the detailed version, and keep in mind the happiness levels are based on a scale of 1-10:

1. Extraordinarily, unnaturally, suicidally unhappy
   
2. Very unhappy, despondent and inconsolable
3. Unhappy
4. Sorta unhappy
   
5. Not happy, but not unhappy
6. Relatively happy
7. Happy
8. Very happy
9. Extremely happy
10. Retardedly happy

My average was 6.74 at the time of making this graph.  I am happy with that result, and therefore would have ranked the day that I realized that at a 7 or 8.

TO:        Eco-Elements
FROM:   Concerned Citizen
SUBJ:    humble request for the public good

Hello,

I take the #15 bus every evening to get home from work, and I wait for my bus at the 1st and Pine stop right outside your storefront.  The smell of incense even a few doors down from your store is extremely overwhelming, and on some days, flat-out nauseating.  Do you think maybe you could tone it down a bit?

If not, maybe you should consider selling dust masks at a kiosk outside your front door to the other bus commuters who aren't as interested in the odor of patchouli as you are.

Thank you,

h.k.

Today I got the most amazing email from my friend Val's mom:

FROM: Val
DATE: November 12, 2007
SUBJ: FW: Something for your friend

Please see the note below from Goodie, who is currently in FL.

-----Original Message-----
From: goodie
Subject: Something for your friend

Good Morning:  I read an article last week and I thought about your friend who just moved to Seattle.  It was about couch surfing.  There is an organization that will get you in touch with people that will let you sleep on their couch while you are traveling.  And, sometimes they take you on sightseeing trips in their towns. Anyway here is the address, I though you might sent it to her to check out:  CouchSurfing.com It sounds just like something she would enjoy.  Hope you are having a good weekend.  We went to eat at Auntie Bo's last night and Jan said to tell you that she ate green beans and new potatoes for you.  It was really good. The Blue Angel Air show was awesome yesterday.  Love,  Mom

This reminds me of an amazing email from my own mother that I received a few years ago:

FROM: Mom
DATE: January 16, 2006
SUBJ: Horse Clip Art

I found an American Quarter Horse coloring book that has several horses that I think will work well. Love, Mom

Lifehack tip of the day: I highly recommend starring such emails in your Gmail account for quick reference later when you're having a bad day and need a little love from your mommy in your day.

Hulk Hogan.  Musicianship.  The two are virtually synonymous.  I was fortunate enough to happen upon his "Hulk Hogan and the Wrestling Boot Band" album, and I feel inclined to share it with you.

• Hulkster's in the House (mp3)
  Genre: Hard Rock
  Best lyric: "When the going gets tough, the tough get rough."
  Summary: A generic party anthem, presumably for a party full of weight-lifters who could actually move the house and/or remove its roof.
  
  
• Hulkster's Back (mp3)
  Genre: Synth Pop/Rap
  Best lyric: Spoken overlay of a Valley girl hitting on Hulk, who then challenges her to arm wrestle.
  Summary: The backup chorus is: "Hey, check out the pythons, baby!"  But the first time I heard this song I thought they were singing "Hey, check out the pinecones, baby!" and I was so confused.
  
  
• Wrestling Boot Traveling Band (mp3)
  Genre: Caribbean Adult Contemporary Soft Rock
  Best lyric: N/A
  Summary: Kinda like pro-wrestling's answer to Journey's "Faithfully."  If Jimmy Buffet were singing it at karaoke.  Wearing wrestling boots.
  
  
• Bad to the Bone (mp3)
  Genre: Hard Rock
  

  Best lyric: "Turn up the volume 'cuz we like to rock 'n roll, the girls all know that we're out of control."
  Summary: It's unclear if this is an ode to rock 'n roll... or motorcycles.  Song ends with a motorcycle vrooming by.  I haven't listened to it in stereo surround to confirm whether or not the vroom-vrooms go from left speaker to right like they do at the end of Motley Crue's "Girls, Girls, Girls."
  

  
  
  
• I Want to be a Hulkamaniac (mp3)
  Genre: Synth Pop/Rap
  

  Best lyric: "Always go swimming with a buddy, work real hard, and always study."
  

  Summary: A literal checklist of all the things you should do to be an effective Hulkamaniac (including taking your vitamins!), rapped to you by the Hulkster himself while a chorus of drones sings how you will "have fun with your family and friends."  20+ times.  In immediate succession.  I counted.
  
  
  
• Beach Patrol (mp3)
  Genre: Synth Pop/Rap
  

  Best lyric: "Saw a girl in trouble, a sticky situation.  She wanted me to give her mouth to mouth resuscitation."
  

  Summary: This is just a big mess of mixed styles, I don't even know where to start.  The synth-y intro sounds like the song that Julie Lloyd's cousin Arthur wrote for her to use in her floor exercise on "American Anthem."  Then the first part of the chorus says "We are the beach patrol..." in a voice like the lead singer from Cameo.  The second part of the chorus "We wanna party party party" sounds like En Vogue.  Then Hulk rips off "Whoomp, There It Is" but sings it "Whoops, there it is..." and on the last chorus makes Three Stooges "whoop-whoop-whoop" sounds?
  
  
  
• Hulk's the One (mp3)
  Genre: Adult Contemporary
  

  Best lyric: "My friends all tell me that you're bad to the bone, please be bad to me!"
  

  Summary:  A Pointer Sisters-esque ballad extolling the virtues of Hulk Hogan...in the romantic sense.  One verse has the line "you came on so strong" and I was disappointed they didn't turn this into some sort of wrestling pun, like "you came on so strong, but I countered with a suplex."
  
  
  
• Hulkster in Heaven (mp3)
  Genre: Gospel/Religious
  

  Best lyric: "I used to tear my shirt, but now you've torn my heart."
  

  Summary: An ode to some dead friend, and Hulk promises to "tag up" with them again.  In heaven.  Or ringside.  His narrative is not very consistent.
  
  
  
• Hulk Rules (mp3)
  Genre: Hard Rock
  Best lyric: "He knows that talk is cheap.  If you mess with the Hulkster, he'll rearrange your teeth."
  Summary: The song begins as a threat, explaining how the Hulkster will hurt you...then quickly changes to explain how he will protect you.  Then there is a saxophone solo.
  
  
  
• American Made (mp3)
  Genre: Hard Rock/Ford Truck Commercial Soundtrack
  Best lyric: "He's got the stars and stripes running through his veins."
  Summary: If the Hulk is such a fucking patriot, why did he always wear red and yellow...the colors of the communist regime?  Hmm, Hulk??
  
  

A couple of years ago Matt showed me this article about a medical mystery in India, where a man had an abdomen tumor that turned out to be....

...the parasitic fetus of his twin brother, which had been absorbed into his body in utero.  The operating doctor described the exploratory surgery as follows:

As he cut deeper into Bhagat's stomach, gallons of fluid spilled out -- and then something extraordinary happened. "To my surprise and horror, I could shake hands with somebody inside," he said. "It was a bit shocking for me."

Today I heard a new story of another parasitic twin sighting in India.  This time, it is a parasitic twin on the outside of the subject's body, which is attached in such a way that the child looks like the eight-armed Hindu goddess Vishnu:

The headless 'twin' is joined to Lakshmi at the pelvis and has its own spinal column and kidney.

These accounts are considerably different than the twin tales I'm used to hearing about, where Jessica is the parasitic one who is always trying to get Elizabeth to do her homework for her while she's off hanging out with Lila and the other Unicorns at Sweet Valley Mall.

I wasn't as hungover as I thought I would be after Video Game Vomit Day, but apparently I was hungover enough that I never checked the text messages on my phone.  So this morning at work I was very pleased to find this message from Jackie:

Sent: 04-Nov-07 3:31AM
"I threw up.  Your party was a success!"

Hooray!!

\

Today has been a long time coming.  Almost a year ago, my friends Jeremy and Jackie were back home visiting Texas from Seattle, and I told them of my plans to be in Seattle for Halloween.  Jeremy didn't used to drink back when I first knew him, but he has since jumped off the wagon into Whiskey River...and we agreed that when I came to Seattle to visit for Halloween, we would light fires in the backyard and get as drunk as possible off the grossest whiskey of all: Old Forester.  (Which I was to bring with me from Texas since it is not available in Washington.)

As luck would have it, I actually moved here prior to Halloween, but we felt we should hold true to our promise.  So I bought a bottle of Old Forester when I went home for my grandma's funeral last month, and Jeremy and Jackie will be here in a few hours to drink it:



The success of the evening will be measured on how much we all vomit.  I don't normally drink liquor, so this is going to hurt.  Bad.  If Jackie and Jeremy are game...I'm planning for us to live blog our evening here...

5:20PM - The house is ready.  The Texas-shaped ice cubes are ready.

5:45PM - J&J are on their way, hooray!

5:50PM - Matt thinks I should have already gotten drunk before they arrived.  I'm considering faking like I'm passed out on the porch for when they pull up...

6:00PM - I bought mixers last night at the store, but since I don't really ever drink liquor I wasn't 100% positive what to get.  So I got ginger ale, Pepsi, and Dr Pepper.  Are those socially acceptable whiskey mixers?

7:57PM - "Jackie's mom is the reason that 'fat' should be a verb because she just fats around the house.  And she sucks donkey balls." - Jeremy

7:58PM - "In Mother Russia, the donkey fucks you." - Jeremy

8:04PM - "I like props!" - Jackie

8:05PM - "I didn't fuck those kids." - Halee

8:08PM - Pinkie swear promise to Jackie to go to Waffle House when we're all home for Christmas in Texas because she's never been.

8:09PM - Dream jobs:

• Jackie - Waitress at a greasy spoon choke n' puke diner who calls everyone "Sugar", "Darling", "Plum", "Sugar Plum," "Sugar Darling", or "Sugar Darling Plum."
• Jeremy - "I was always a very reasonable child.  I did not bother with dreams, and always made good decisions."
  
• Halee - NASCAR driver's wife.  (Jeremy remembers me outlining my dream man, who was a NASCAR mechanic [note: not a NASCAR driver] who lived in a mobile home with walls with alternating panels of wood and mirrors.)

8:19PM - "If maps were a living breathing creature, I'd totally fuck the shit out of them behind Jeremy's back, and post the video on the internet." - Jackie

8:32PM - "Every dude's wang was realistic...but it had two things sticking out the side that made it look like a crucifix.  Owen Wilson would try to draw a crucifixation wang, I'll tell you that right now.  And then he'd try to kill himself." - Jeremy

8:34PM - "Sweden and Norway look like a big ol' double-ended cock." - Halee

8:35PM - "Halee, I've known you since 1995 and I've never once seen you without eyeliner on." - Jeremy

9:12PM - "Ask him if he's ever had sex with a map!!!" - Jackie

9:16PM - "Jackie's mom paid $3 more than your mom." - Jeremy

9:17PM - We called our friend Morley to see who he liked more, me or Jeremy based on whose call he answered.  He answered Jeremy's call and would not click over to my call.

9:23PM - Morley has never been to a clock tower.

9:36PM - "Squiggle porn. Trust me, I know. " - Jeremy

9:42PM - Here is our progress at 9:42PM:

There is still much work to be done.  WWF UNO hasn't even begun.

9:51PM - "Did you hear my sea shanty????" - Jackie

10:09PM - "I  don't want to die I just need to, ooooh you asshole" - Halee

10:13PM - "I'm a tribe of people. Fuck. . . .  I GOT NO CASTLE! I GOT NO CASTLE!!" - Halee

10:16PM - "Marilyn Monroe had laser surgery to remove her hair to make her forehead bigger." - Jackie
10:17PM - "Why????" - Halee
10:18PM - "Because she's DEAD!!!" - Jeremy

10:19PM - "I'm gonna fuck you so hard you're gonna get pregnant and have an abortion at the SAME TIME.  Blue is gonna lose when he is his own stepfather!!!" - Jeremy when playing Warlords on Atari

10:20PM - "Green was his second cousin, and he just twice removed him." - Jackie on Jeremy kicking Warlords' ass

10:22PM - "Mine's got the weird bottom." - Halee

10:22PM -  "Have you ever seen something have a baby out of its mouth on your VCR?" - Jeremy

10:24PM - "Oh! Fuck you! bah guh guh guh guh!" - Halee

10:27PM - "Oh, I'll tell you all my faint stories!" - Halee

10:43 "and then the bastard dipped it in holy water" Halee

I didn't say this but i love the fucking twinkles. - jeremy.

11:08iPM - "Whiskey bounces!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" - halee

11:13PM - "If I was going to have sex with any 80s TV show, it would be the A-Team.  Take that, DJay-azzy Jeff!" - Jeremy\\

12;09pmAM - "APPARNETly having curly shoes or tight armbandfs and insanaly insane amounts of steroisds makes you absolutely patshit carzy.: " - jheremery on iron sheik on
jim helwig aka ultimate warrior

1:30AM -
"why did you you go to that lynard ksynard swho???" " because my sister gave blood and gave met he tickets." - jeremy red


1:31AM - "Basically this song teaches you to beware of nippily men who will of course eat uyopur motor boat" - Jerewmy.

1:3o02u
H"i,. Fuck there there names in there butts." - yeah it me.

1:37 -
"Watch him watch him he's pullijng string out of his nipple!" - Jackie

1:35 -
"I'll punch that dude in his turban" - Jeremy (god i'm an asshole)

2:17 -
"River Phoenix left Weezer to join Jerry Lewis and form the Rentals" - All

3:00AM - I don't know if it's really 3AM or 4AM or 2AM because the time changed to night and I'm all confuessed...but J&J just left and my tummy hurts from laughing and we should have included all the links of all the dumb bvideos we watched.  I mainly remember something hwere Travis Tritt was the devil.  And Johnny Cash was reading from the bible about best practices for playing hte fiddle.  I think it's 4 AM whiecha means we just drnak for 7 hours straight which means I'm entitled to go to bed now.  Nobody threw up.  Mission failed.  We're going to try again when Rhonda comes to town.

One of the perks at my new company is that they pay for your gym membership to a relatively fancy athletic-type club.  I signed up a couple of weeks ago, and it's a pretty nice place.  The main thing I liked about it was that it is on the second floor and they don't have elevator access to that floor....only stairs.  The thought of people taking an elevator to go use the stairmaster frankly enrages me, so thank god they've taken a stance on this critical issue.

Anyhow, I've gone in a couple of times to use the elliptical trainer, but today I decided to give one of their yoga classes a try.  I'm not usually a big fan of yoga or Nia or any of the other hippie-based exercise regimens, but I can admit the benefits of yoga and stretching and power isometric poses and etc.  And I actually kinda enjoy the fitness/strength-focused yoga classes, when the instructors aren't so ditzy and force you to imagine your inner light going through your spine to diffuse compassion and acceptance through your body, and henceforth the universe.  Fuck that.  I'm just there to stretch my hamstrings, hippie.

I would say that the class was 65% stretchy/posey, and 35% hippie bullshit.  And 25% of the hippie part happened at the very end when the instructor vomited a mouthful of fancy Indian words, as if any of us in the room had a clue what she was saying.  It was seriously like she was possessed, I think her eyes even rolled back in her head a little.  And unfortunately I just watched "Child's Play I" last weekend, so for a split second I thought she was chanting the spell that Charles Lee Ray used to transfer his soul into the Good Guy doll.  And when I realized that wasn't what she was saying, I was wishing that I had that memorized so I could say it.

Note to Halee's self, memorize this before your next yoga class:

Auday duay dumbalar. Auday duay dumbalar. La mwar de sway de pwa de yo. Se swa seten de pwa de mor. Auday deway dum balar.  Give me the power, I beg of you!!

If you know me, you probably know I hate phones.  I also hate talking on phones, and I double especially hate listening to other people talk on phones.  But every now and then I'll have a perfectly satisfying phone conversation.  Like the one that just happed with Wes:

*ringy-ring-ring*

Halee: "Good afternoon, this is Halee...how can I help you?" (it's 8PM)
Wes: "Hello?"
Halee: "Wes!"
Wes: "I thought I was going to get your voicemail."
Halee: "Nope...what are you doing?"
Wes: "You know you had those two beanbags with mean stuff written on them.  And one said 'douchelord' and the other said...."
Halee: "'Dicktard'?"
Wes: "YES!!!  That's all I needed...I'll talk to you later!"

I can only hope that call meant that Wes was poised at someone's back windshield with shoe polish in hand, and that they will soon be driving down the highway with something like "DICKTARD ROD" emblazoned across the back of their car.

But even if that's not the case, I can just be happy that I just had a phone conversation where I had to utter no more than 15 words and one of them was "dicktard."