| It won't be much longer, it won't be much longer... (I can also transfer stores, too! YES!)
Check out our Home Sweet Home, come June. Fireplace! Lakeside balcony! Indoor pool!!!
Click here for the beauty of it all!
And soon, coming very soon, are pictures and recaps of The Great Adventure that was Spring Break.
(I love you Amanda!) | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment   |
| Excellent, Liz. Excellent.
Parents who bring squalling brats to R-rated movies, General asshats
Circle I Limbo Michigan drivers
Circle II Whirling in a Dark & Stormy Wind Paris Hilton and Jessica Simpson
Circle III Mud, Rain, Cold, Hail & Snow Yasmin at Horrocks, My actively sexist customer service manager
Circle IV Rolling Weights Republicans, Any judgemental hypocrite in general, really...
Circle V Stuck in Mud, Mangled River Styx Mel Gibson and Bruce Willis, The NRA
Circle VI Buried for Eternity River Phlegyas George Bush
Circle VII Burning Sands Sean Hannity
Circle IIX Immersed in Excrement Rumsfeld/Cheney/Ashcroft, Bill O'Reilly
Circle IX Frozen in Ice Design your own hell | | comments: Leave a comment |
| This morning, AJ and I will be going to Chicago. To catch our plane. To Las Vegas!!!
With many many adventures ahead, we are so excited to finally be starting our trip.
We, along with our friend/roomate Amanda, will also be taking a road trip through California.
And yes, I promise there will be many pictures.
Have a good week, guys. I'll see you soon.
:::Excited beyond belief::: | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | And now... | | Time: | 10:28 pm | | Current Mood: | ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/niaha/kitty/ankhappyb.gif) loved |
|
| ... I would just like to say that I have the most wonderful, talented, intellgient, handsome, special person in the world as my husband.
With what would be insurmountable odds for anyone else, AJ has accomplished more in his life than I can do justice in a journal.
He is constantly setting goals, and then surpassing them. He earns the trust of colleagues, teachers, friends, and aquaintances with ease. He is charming, charismatic, and always sincere.
He is so smart, and has a limitless capacity to his memory. He has a knack for recalling any little thing at a moments notice.
He is skilled in his hobbies, and talnted beyond belief. He can handle anything that comes his way, and often finds ways to fix a problem that most people wouldn't think of.
He has the biggest heart in the world. When offered a rewarding situation, he always thinks of how it can benefit everyone, and not just himself. He is always there for friends, and is supportive to a fault. He's the most trustworthy, loyal, positive man I have ever met. He does so many things for so many people... Just thinking about what a kind person I was fortunate enough to marry, it makes me want to cry.
AJ, you are an angel. I will never understand why I was blessed with you as my soulmate, but I will be forever thankful. To share my life with you is more than I could ever ask for.
I love you. You never cease to amaze me. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| My friends had this cute quiz, and it seemed to fit them pretty accurately. Seeing as how I enjoy the oddly precise outcomes of these quizzes, I decided to do one for myself:
| NOTE: z | | No smoking around Nicrenkel. Thankyou for your co-operation. |
From Go-Quiz.com
And then my loving hubby:
LOOK OUT!
ïòð | | ajsatchboogie is a radioactive squirrel!! |
From Go-Quiz.com
And then I just gave in:
| UCAUTION | | IN THE INTEREST OF SAFETY IT IS ADVISABLE TO KEEP Denise AWAY FROM FIRE AND FLAMES. |
From Go-Quiz.com
| George Bush is poisonous! Induce vomitting if ingested. | N
POISON |
From Go-Quiz.com
Paris Hilton Look out for the | m
HOLE |
From Go-Quiz.com | | comments: Leave a comment |
| | Did I mention AJ and I are going to Las Vegas in four weeks? Less than 4 weeks, even... | | comments: Leave a comment |
|  | You scored as Winter. You are WINTER. You're more introspective, thinking deeply, feeling deeply. You love nothing better than to enjoy one on one time with those who are important to you. You are cautious, and sometimes second guess yourself. Dreams, though you have them, are a luxury, because life is not a plaything.
Winter | | 80% | Fall | | 65% | Summer | | 55% | Spring | | 40% | </td>
What Season Are You?
created with QuizFarm.com |
 | You scored as Ruby. Ruby, resembling love, wealth, wisdom and purity. Ruby-types tend to think with their heart and not their heads, sometimes resulting in wild desicions, but constantly following love and romance. Ruby-types also tend to have a fair judgement and sweet and good feelings for many things.
See All Results/Comment
Ruby | | 97% | Aquamarine | | 93% | Athemyst | | 90% | Garnet | | 90% | Peridot | | 87% | Emerald | | 83% | Topaz | | 70% | Celestite | | 53% | </td>
Which Mystic Gem Stone Relates To You?
created with QuizFarm.com |
| | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| 
Wednesday was AJ's birthday! Tonight, we went to Olive Garden to celebrate. And, for the first time since he was 5, he had people sing Happy Birthday to him and bring him a cake. He currently plots his revenge. ;) We had so much fun! I love you, Baby! | | comments: Leave a comment |
|  | You scored as Love Machine Cat. Look out! The love machine is on the loose. You might want to take off a night of permiscuity and go get your junk checked out. Nothing sadder than a cat with herpes.
Love Machine Cat | | 100% | Couch Potato Cat | | 0% | Drunk Cat | | 0% | Derranged Cat | | 0% | Pissed at the World Cat | | 0% | Nerd Cat | | 0% | Ninja Cat | | 0% | </td>
Which Absurd Cat are you?
created with QuizFarm.com |
| | comments: 47 comments or Leave a comment |
|
You Are a New School Democrat |
You like partying and politics - and are likely to be young and affluent.
You're less religious, traditional, and uptight than most Democrats.
Smoking pot, homosexuality, and gambling are all okay in your book.
You prefer that the government help people take care of themselves.
|
And, after changing the answer to ONE question...
You Are a Liberal for Life |
You've got a bleeding heart - and you're proud of it.
For you, liberal means being compassionate, pro-government, and anti-business.
You believe in equality for every person, and you consider yourself universally empathetic.
Helping others is not just political for you ... it's very personal too.
|
I like that it always takes two results to describe me.
| | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| I am an Intellectual
Which America Hating Minority Are You?
Take More Robert & Tim Quizzes
Watch Robert & Tim Cartoons
Werewolves of folklore differ greatly from modern
renditions seen in movies and shows. People
believed there were many ways to become
werewolves, such as drinking rainwater
collected in a wolf's pawprint, eating meat
gnawed on by a wolf, or being born with a full
set of teeth or covered in a caul. And unlike
movie werewolves, werewolves of old were
oftentimes harmless and highly honorable!
As a werewolf, you are loyal, strong and honorable,
and you will protect all you hold dear with
your very life. Although you are not a violent
individual at heart, you will fight for what
you believe in. You are a good friend and truly
are a wonderful person to be around.
Who is your inner Shapeshifter?
brought to you by Quizilla | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
| Back in the day, people fought to protect human rights. Civil liberties were worth dying for, and brave heroes gave their lives for them.
Of course, so was patriotism. When a radical group of people wanted to separate, and keep all the murders and brutality a part of normal life, they were stopped. The slaves got their freedom, and the country was held together.
Look familiar?
And, as people said long before the 2000 elections, there are about to be some strong efforts to bring the confederacy back.
Why stop them? I say, instead of having our country and all its citizens be shipped to the inner circle of Hell-- just let them have it.
Of course now, thanks to the countless selfish, stupid, ego-centric, prejudice, immoral bastards who voted Republican, that's no longer necessary. It's already here, and the blue states are merely the coastline to the expanded version. It's enveloped everything, and doesn't need to secede to exist.
But hey, show those racist, gay-killing, baby-neglecting, wife-abusing, cheating, stealing assholes some sympathy. They're just so plainspoken! | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Current Music: | Mosh - Eminem | | Time: | 08:14 pm |
|
| Icon courtesy of Courtney Beth. Post courtesy of senatorlarry.
Note from Nicrenkel: The following was posted by senatorlarry, and I thought it was perfectly worded. I'm posting it here so all of my non-community friends can see it.
"After being an ubiquitous presence for nearly a month, this is my last posting in this community, my last empty shout into an abyss that died with my last hope for a tolerant future of America.
There is already so much talk and so little action regarding the renovation a political party that is dead. The Democrats will rally for reform and end up with more of the same, crumbling under the very fact that because they wish to help everyone, they are able to help no one. Democrats already salivate and masturbate to the image of Barack Obama, heralding him as our Messiah. But the right wing will not stop. They will make Obama the same pariah they made Hilary Clinton – the last Great White Hype.
In the end, the mediocrity you take is equal to the mediocrity you make.
How right wing is America going to go? Barry Goldwater, the outright racist who said the country would be better off if we sawed off the Eastern Seaboard and let it float away, stood firmly in favor of abortion rights on the grounds that it's not the government's place to enter that arena, and on the subject of gays in the military said, “You don't need to be straight to shoot straight.”
We stand on the cusp of a violently conservative Supreme Court and new Senators who advocate capital punishment for abortion, urge that all gay teachers be fired, and another who is quite literally losing his mind, all elected on the coattails of a draft-dodging C student.
As Eric Alterman wrote, “More than half of the citizens of this country simply do not care about what those of us in the ‘reality-based community’ say or believe about anything. They don’t care that Iraq is turning into murderous quicksand and a killing field for our children. They don’t care that he has mortgaged our children’s future to give trillions to the wealthiest among us. They don’t care that the economy continues to hemorrhage well-paying jobs and replace them with Wal-Mart; that the number without health insurance is over forty million and rising. They don’t care that the air they breathe and the water they drink is being slowly poisoned and though they call themselves conservatives.”
It is a fundamental disconnect - two nations, one in the middle and one on the coasts, who are incapable, by nature, of reconciling their differences. The center of the country, championing "family values" but legislating to prevent families from flourishing, fear attacks that will land not on their soil, but on the coasts. They accuse the people on the coasts of intellectual snobbery simply because of their disgust at the concept that the people on the coasts read books that aren't part of the "Left Behind" series.
Partially because of the crowded quarters and partially because of the attacks on the World Trade Center, the people that live on the coasts live together, unable to ignore each others' dreams and values, while the people in the middle impose their narrow values on the coasts and plot to implement an arch-conservative, subjectively-religious agenda until the people on the coasts are legislated out of existence.
These are people powered by naked intolerance, dressed up in the guise of “moral values.” These are the people who deign themselves as culturally superior by virtue of being intellectually inferior – an anti-intellectualist snobbery that sees a (D) next to a political candidate’s name as a Scarlet Letter that cannot be ignored.
Conservative leaders will defend this culture war for people who still believe that there were WMD in Iraq in blatant ignorance of any factual accuracy, and accuse liberals of elitism simply because they pay more attention to the NASDAQ than NASCAR and listen to Radiohead instead of Travis Tritt. They say they stand for “real Americans” without actually believing that ALL Americans are “real Americans.” And the right wing will keep this red-against-blue war alive forever, because as long this house is divided against itself, they stand.
That is the very definition of tyranny.
What always sustained my hope and my love of this country was that we would talk. We may be incensed or elated or anywhere in between, but dangerous few realize that the only way we could heal the deeply-divided nation is to fight to come together. For anyone who voted for George W. Bush, I would die to support their right to do so, because democracy is about respecting the ideas of another person because they are the ideas of another person.
But there are people who now have a foothold and will not let it go – people who believe liberals hate America, who call Democrats “Commie bastards,” and who wish to banish anyone who criticizes George Bush. This is not empty hyperbole – I have met these people, and they will not stop until reconciliation is dead.
Respect has died, and no matter how much I want to bring it back by screaming into the abyss, its time has ended.
I can no longer recognize this world, because it is a world controlled selfish autocrats without remorse and mandated by people who are fearful that their marriage might be destroyed because there might be a gay guy living down the block. The 51 percent of our country knew precisely what they intended to do – to place in permanent power a team of vitriolic bigots who talk about “moral values” when all they really mean is “fag hating” but won’t say it.
Reason is dead.
The people asked for George W. Bush, and they got him. Republicans now control the entire national government, and will only broaden their control in the coming years, as Supreme Court justices mandate that abortion and birth control are too “immoral” to be allowed to proliferate and that the only way to save our nation from the ravages of immorality is to wipe it clean and place their subjective vision of God in ultimate control over the state.
The more optimistic people among us assume, for reasons I only wish I could understand, that there is an invisible line in the sand that the nakedly-intolerant autocrats will reach a certain point and refuse to legislate their subjective vision of morality anywhere beyond that point. But these people don’t stop. They will not stop until we have fought a dozen wars in our ill-conceived and poorly-executed pursuit of "terror," they will not stop until Social Security and welfare have been completely eliminated, they will not stop until the police state that is already developing sucks every young man up to fight a war that we are not designed to win.
As was said on DailyKos, this occurs because terrible leaders are doing terrible things to our country and calling it wonderful. Because radical reactionaries are trying to impose their imperialist schemes on whoever they wish and calling it just. Because amoral oligarchs are determined to enhance their slice of the economic pie and calling it the natural order. Because flag-wrapped ideologues want to chop up civil liberties and call it security. Because myopians are in charge of America’s future.
They wrapped themselves in flags and held up crosses, using fear as the ultimate motivator to ensure that the country is not only divided in two, but cleaved into thousands of unrecognizable, irreconcilable pieces – a puzzle with broken pieces.
My last sign of hope had absolutely nothing to do with George Bush or John Kerry. As I wandered the streets of New York and read newspapers from far-flung counties, I saw the glimmer of hope with tens of thousands of people who had never voted before – young people, black people, Americans who thought, for once, that they could make a difference. Disenchanted, those people will never vote again.
Help is not on the way.
I suppose it is entirely appropriate that my college career began with a national tragedy, watching towers burn and fall, and ended with the same. Even after watching hopeless Americans pitch themselves head-first out of 90th story windows, through wars and fire, George W. Bush is our country’s greatest national tragedy. But I will be deeply ashamed and afraid when the next terrorist attack occurs, probably in New York.
Beneath stifled tears, people claw for transparent changes in the way the opposition is organized, waiting for their opportunity to pick up this mantle, as I once assumed I would, to continue this losing battle with irrationality. Others, myself included, have begun laying plans to leave the country behind and expatriate – the first time that the world may face refugees from America, all because the fatal blow in this war has already been delivered.
I just cannot fight anymore.
I have worked tirelessly to find a framework for how I feel, and end the exercise vacillating from inexpressably-inadequate patriotic rhetoric to abject depression to righteous indignation. But then, I read something that reminded me of the core of everything I believe in – words that are all too often forgotten:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
We were patriots. The truth is that there is more hatred and vitriol bottled up in America than anyone gave them credit for. From sea to shining sea, this no longer resembles the place I was proud to call my home. It is not the America that I loved.
I don’t know this country’s mind anymore, let alone its heart. As Joan Didion said, Goodbye To All That.
It’s over." ~senatorlarry
The Future Is Now | | comments: Leave a comment |
| This has been the worst day.
Lately, we've been having problems with our heat. A few days back, a maintenance guy came and "fixed" it. Of course, the next day, it stopped working again. After calling maintenance back, they announced that it was screwed, and took the entire thing out. They replaced it with a newer model, one that looks more up-to-date and functional. Yay, we thought. Now we won't have to worry about it constantly breaking down, like it has been doing since we moved here.
When we left in the afternoon to start our errands, it was set at 76. Both the room temperature, and our room temperature preference. We go out, dropping AJ off at school, me finally getting a real retainer for my eyebrow, picking AJ up from school, spending some time at Barnes and Noble, etc. We get home around 11pm, and open the door. Hot air comes gushing in at us. The thermostat is cranked ALL the way to the right- at 105 degrees. You could barely breathe in our apartment.
Worst part of all: I went to pet the cats, and they were burning up. Their fur was too warm for my comfort. They were walking fine, purring, meowing, and looking me in the eye, so at least I knew they weren't in any physical danger. But the fact that they COULD have been... that, had we not come home that night...
So we immediately shut the heat off. All the way until it clicked. Waited a few minutes, nothing happened. We wanted to open the patio door, so that the cold air of night could come in, but we recently had air sealant applied. It was intended to keep the hot air IN during the winter, since last winter we were freezing all the time (and spent a fortune in heat bills). So what were we to do? We ripped the plastic down, and opened the door. The air was cold enough to make a difference, but we had to sit a fan in front of it to blow it in faster. Of course the cable was too short and we had to pull the entire tv stand away from the wall, but by that point we already had chipped paint all over from ripping out the plastic, so it wasn't that important.
Also, after we opened the sliding glass door, AJ went to close the screen door. It fell off just as he touched it. Maintenance had "fixed" it a few months back. So AJ had to go out, at midnight in the cold, and try to realign the tracks. It wasn't easy. Finally, we got to a place where we could rest the fan against the screen, and it wouldn't topple backwards. So, thirty minutes later, we check the thermostat, and it's back to 78/80. Good enough, at least our kittens are safe now. We turn off the fans and close the door. Not five minutes later, the apartment is roasting again. AJ had already turned off the thermostat; why was it doing this? We opened the doors, turned on the fans, and waited.
It became clear we weren't going to get any sleep that night. We had to camp out on the living room floor, watching the screen door. 1. To make sure the air temperature stayed level. 2. To make sure the cats didn't get out (they could have easily pushed the screen out of place if they wanted to). 3. To make sure no one else got IN. And we have plenty of people around here who would try it. So after maybe three hours of light sleep, I wake up to go do Arnie's. AJ checks the thermostat. Balanced, but why would it be balanced with the door open to the cold air all night? He does everything he can to make sure it's turned off, and it is. It won't even click. That little thermostat was as far off as we could put it.
I head out to Arnie's. I've never done the job faster in my life. It's funny how fast a chore gets done when your entire being is focused on one point of worry. Just as I was finishing up the second store, AJ calls me and informs me that The Fire Department is there. At our home. The lady that lived above us
called in a possible natural gas leak. Thank goodness she did. Although they found no readings of gas, AJ informed them of our situation, and one of the guys checked our main heat engine, in the shed. Turns out the maintenance guy never fixed the toggle switch, and the heat had been on all night. That's right, even though we shut it off, 105 degree heat was pouring into our house all night long. I can't wait to see our heat bill this month.
I raced home, and we tried our best to collect our thoughts and figure out what to do next. We were running on negative hours of sleep, and still worried about what went wrong with our new heater. Most of all, would this happen again, and how will we be able to protect our cats? At the firemen's insistence, AJ called the maintenance team again, and told them they had to come over here immediately. When we didn't hear back from them, the fireman told us to "tell them to get their asses over here, because the fire department was there". At least somebody knew that this was a serious situation. But after waiting and waiting, we never heard back. We decided that, since I had to work from 3-11pm, and AJ would be away for school from noon to 11pm, that we needed sleep. Desperately. We went to our room and turned on the fan. We closed the door so the cats wouldn't have access to the hottest room in the house. We put both of our phones next to the bed, so that when (if) the maintenance guys show up, they can call us, and we can let them in.
Come 11:30, just as AJ's about to take a shower and leave for school, I get up and realize we have a note on the inside of our door. The maintenance guy was here, entered our house without permission, never called, and apparently never realized we were inside the bedroom. The note said, "Everything seems to be working fine". A quick check to the shed makes the situation clear: The motherfucker never even checked the heat. He walked in, looked at the thermostat, figured the mechanical pieces looked fine, and walked out. HE DIDN'T EVEN REALIZE THE HEAT WAS TURNED OFF. If this maintenance service wasn't free, I would sue them for every penny they have. How the fuck are they supposed to fix this thing when they don't even know how to fucking work it?
I am so angry right now. AJ got ready for school, and we went to the office. The most arrogant, selfish, stupid woman was there when we entered, it was obvious from her fake, "HI" that she wasn't going to give a shit. As AJ explained everything that had happened, she kept interjecting with "Uh huh. Uh huh. Uh huh. Uh huh." Every three seconds. He couldn't even finish his sentences. Lo and behold, the maintenance guy is walking around, and comes up to us all, "So, you guys were the ones I was just at?" We ask him why he never called us, and why he didn't bother to check the heat shed, but since this man was dumber than a
rock, he couldn't find the brain cells in his head to answer. All in all, the woman ended it by saying, "Alright", and walked away. She and the maintenance man turned away together, laughing, as if this were the funniest story they've ever heard. AJ was already out the door; I just stood there looking at the two. I couldn't believe this had just happened. Then, she turns to the maintenance guy and says, "So, what's the apartment number?" He slowly mumbles it, and I'm glad I was there to see that he at least got the number right. But I couldn't believe she couldn't ask me that herself.
And as I'm typing this, we still haven't heard back from anyone. They were supposed to send someone over from the heat company to fix this, and maybe uncross the lines they crosses, but nothing. And I have to go to work soon. I will be stopping by my house on every break I get tonight, to check and see that the place isn't roasting again. Fortunately, I now know how to completely cut the line, so I won't have to worry about any sporatic outbursts from our heater again.
Please pray for this situation to clear. Or at least keep us in your thoughts. Because I know this may sound like a silly, trivial event, but I cried so much last night. Right now, my nerves are so scattered I feel like I'm going to crack. I'm worried, angry, and confused.
And please say a prayer for my friend Liz. That her health improves as soon as possible, and that she knows show much she is loved. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | Will work for Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. | | Time: | 08:04 am |
|
| Well, that's all for today, kids. Join me next year, when I get yet another chance to post something.
But before you go, be sure to stop by my artist friend Denise's page. Scroll down to Recent Deviations, and check it all out. I'm a Siren! That's right, luring men to their watery deaths is all in a day's work for me.
The truth about John Kerry's consistent position on the Iraq war. John Kerry hasn't been flip-flopping. George Bush just hasn't been listening.
Contact us to find out what else you can do to help get the word out! | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| |
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
nicrenkel's journal![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/niaha/kitty/ankwinkb.gif){kind=small}
giddy
![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/niaha/kitty/ankgeekb.gif){kind=small}
accomplished
