zonkered.net

I got a wild hair this morning to clear out my closet (well okay, its been something I’ve been meaning to do for awhile, as I’m moving in August) and now most of my wardrobe is in white trash bags, including the following:

• a black cocktail dress I bought for a wedding two years ago and never wore again
• t-shirts I’ve had since college and haven’t worn since about then
• my first pair of Doc Marten boots, bought in London when I was 19
• five pairs of shorts that I was saving until I lost weight again
• a really cute pair of black pointy-toed flats that have no sole left and are so stretched out that they slap against my heels when I walk
• almost my entire collection of purses, with the exception of a slate blue sequined bag shaped like a leaf that I bought in Chinatown, a red patent clutch I got last year from Ann Taylor Loft, a black suede purse embroidered with flowers, and small messenger with a bird printed on it

My actual wardrobe is now limited to two pairs of trousers (one black, one ivory), two pairs of jeans, two dresses (one black, one purple), a bunch of skirts, a few suits, a few jersey tops, a handful of sweaters, and some t-shirts.

Oh, and about a dozen pair of shoes.

At least it’ll be easy to pack in August?

And it’s from the Onion.

There really IS nothing to do in Moline.  Or Rock Island.  Or Davenport.  Or Bettendorf.

This is why I went to grad school in Madison.  Well, most of the reason.

Or maybe it’s just me.

I order groceries every other week or every three weeks, depending on how many days I can subsist on tv dinners and/or my default dinner of beans, rice, and sausage tossed together with onion and garlic in a skillet.  I order them because I have no car – otherwise trust me, I’d be headed to my beloved Trader Joe’s on a weekly basis.

It’s a crapshoot to see what I’ll actually be getting out of a given order (see what I did there? switching up the gambling metaphors!) although I can usually make some guesses.  Basic produce items like celery hearts, carrots and lettuce? These are the things that are most likely to be out of stock.  Seriously, I have not received a single head of lettuce in my six months of ordering groceries online.  But sometimes there are glitches that make me wonder what in the hell they were smoking when they put together my order.

Like this week.  I ordered six tv dinners and some frozen vegetables and received…nothing out of the freezer section.  Nada.  Zilch.  As my father put it when I called to wish him a Happy Father’s Day “OH NO! What will you EAT this week?!” (he can snark all he wants – I’d like to see how much cooking he’d do if he got home at 8 pm every night.  Hell, he wouldn’t even cook if he lived alone).

As for the question of what I’ll be eating, well.  I may be trying to set the record for longest-lasting batch of tacos this week.

Got back from a work trip to Portugal on Monday.  On the plus side, I finally have a stamp on my almost ten year old passport that is NOT London Gatwick.  On the minus side, I’m still jet-lagged.

Portugal was pretty much awesome.  We went on a cruise on Friday, and otherwise spent the weekend clubbing and hanging on the beach.  I’m horribly sunburnt and dehydrated – the wine is good in Portugal! – and thus my feet are swollen.  I’m also slightly broke so the shopping will have to be curbed for the next little while, especially given that I have to move this summer.

On another note, I flew through London Gatwick twice and it has risen to my Most Hated Airport, even beating out O’Hare, Atlanta, and JFK.  Yes, it sucks that much.  The terminal train was busted, meaning I had to double back and take the bus, it has seriously the slowest moving walkways I’ve ever been on, customs was bitchy both times I had to go through it, and I was – as usual – at the butt end of the terminal both times.  Someday I’d like to have the experience of boarding one of the first gates in the terminal instead of having to haul my baggage all the way to the end.  Just once.

Later we will have the plane reading update.  I took four books, which made my roommate go bug-eyed.