Little Miss Sunshine

Since my last post, I have packed up my life into 25 boxes, booked a plane ticket for my pop and scheduled a pick up for a 10ft U-haul truck. Two days from now I'll be on the road headed south on I-5.

And it couldn't come soon enough.

The past 4 weeks in the old witch's house have been a living Hell. It's been so stressful having to avoid someone who NEVER LEAVES THE HOUSE. The strategies that I've found to be the most successful are to either A.) hide in my bedroom all day or B.) be gone most of the day. Scheduling meals has been the most difficult aspect to my avoidance tactic since the witch manages to always be in the kitchen. I often wonder what she does down there. How is it possible to spend so much time in a kitchen? It's not Disneyland for Christ's sake. Suffice to say, I haven't been eating as heartily as I'd like these past few weeks. I'm going to have to make up for it when I get home. I've even made a list of all of the places I'm going to eat at. Here's some of the top contenders:

*Krua Thai
*La Parilla Suiza
*Pei Wei
*Cherry Blossom Noodle Cafe
*Rubio's 
*Pita Jungle
*Wok Express

Since my last post winter has come to Washington and you know what I think about Washington's winters? I FUCKING HATE THEM! All this time I thought I hated being hot the most but guess what? I hate being cold even more. When you don't have any meat on your bones and no else's body heat to absorb at night, being cold is a bitch. And what's even worse is the dampness in the air. It's soggy and muddy everywhere I go and don't even get me started on the pine needles! Dried, stinky pine needles get everywhere! And the old witch keeps leaving notes for me and Alyssa (the good roommate) to vacuum them--like we're the only ones who bring them in. The other night Alyssa and I went to see "Breaking Dawn: Part 2" and had a grand ol' time. When we returned there was a huge note in green ink on our bathroom door telling us to vacuum the stairs in the morning and to be "courteous to others". Ummm...you know what would be even more courteous? To stop leaving passive-aggressive GD notes all over the GD house! 

(Did I mention that I hate this woman?) >_________<

The next morning I went to work and when I got home it was super late so I didn't want to wake the beast by vacuuming so I thought I'd do it after work the next day since I would be home at 7pm. So that next evening I got home and vacuumed all the stupid pine needles. When I went up to my room there was the note AGAIN. She had fished it out of the garbage can and put it back on the door!! She's totally nutzo! GAAAHHHHH!

I just have to keep telling myself that in 2 days it'll all be over and I'll never have to see her again.

Anywho, the last two weekends were fun because my friend Nikki, her boyfriend, and I went to Seattle. We wanted to see the King Tut exhibit that was at the Pacific Science Center. The first time we went downtown I drove us...which was a wee bit stressful. I am not going to miss driving around Seattle one bit. No sir. It took me about half an hour to find a parking space and when we got to the Science Center they told us King Tut was sold out for the rest of the day. Fuck. We'd already paid for parking so we went to the EMP museum. Honestly, it was pretty boring. There was a Nirvana exhibit and a Hendrix one and I'm not too keen on either so I was pretty "meh" the whole time. The Science Fiction Museum was connected to the EMP so we checked that out as well. Unfortunately, I'm not much of a sci-fi fan so that museum was wasted on me too. For dinner I had MOD Pizza though, and that was awesome! 

The next weekend we went back (we'd pre-ordered our tickets this time) but took the bus. It was my first time riding the bus actually. It took over an hour to get to downtown since the 520 bridge was closed so when we got to Seattle it was already 1:45pm and our reservations were at 2pm so we had to haul some major ass. It was windy in addition to being rainy so Mama was not too pleased. At least my makeup looked good.

The exhibit was pretty badass...I just wish we'd been able to enjoy it more. There were about 100 people crammed into each segment of the exhibit so you had about 30 seconds to look at each piece before you were literally being shoved out of the way. I was also disappointed that the sarcophagus and the death mask weren't there. Bummer. After King Tut we checked out the rest of the Science Center. The coolest part was the tropical butterfly sanctuary. We got to go inside and have the butterflies flying all around us. It was pretty neat! We even got to see one coming out of its cocoon while we were standing there. Once again I had MOD for dinner and it was the yummy. I wasn't too thrilled about walking back to the bus terminal at night in the rain so Nikki bought us tickets to the monorail. It's amazing how short of a ride it was. I think it was like 2 minutes? It dropped us off at the mall (the bus terminal was underneath the mall) and while we were going down the escalator we passed a shop called Daiso Japan. Nikki's boyfriend saw me staring at this shop with giant eyeballs and said, "You can go in there if you want. We're in no hurry to get home." 

OHMYGOSH! 

This was the cutest store ever! Everything was $1.50 and it was Heaven. I filled an entire basket up with goodies for less than $20. While in the mall I also stubbled across this:

 Gawd, I love Boo. He's my spirit animal.

We took the bus back to Kirkland and when we got back to my car I had a parking ticket on my windshield. What a great way to end an otherwise awesome day. >___< That's the last bit of money that Washington is getting out of me. Hey Washington, quit bein' a dick!

Here's some good news though! Since I'll be home the first week of December that means that I'll be able to see "The Hobbit" with all my mates! I'm going with my girls Maddie, Jackie and Heather and we're wearing matching Hobbit t-shirts because we're awesome. I seriously can't wait. It's going to be the best.

Man, it's gonna be great to be home :3

R. Crumb

Since my last post a lot of shit has gone down and as a result a very important life decision was made.

It's funny how something as insignificant as a few crumbs forgotten on a counter top could turn into the catalyst that changes your life. I'll never look at crumbs the same way again.

About a week and a half ago I came home to a very long and very passive-aggressive note addressing all of my foibles. It was brought to my attention that I number one, (yes, this note included bullet points) leave a trail of crumbs everywhere I go and fail to clean them up in the appropriate amount of time. Number two, I get tiny splotches of spaghetti sauce on other people's tea kettles and fail to read their minds when they put said tea kettle on "my part of the sink" to communicate to me that it needs to be cleaned. Number three, I own too many pairs of shoes and hog the shoe rack (when there is ample empty space on said shoe rack even with my plethora of shoes). Number four, I feed hungry cats who do not belong to me as not to wake their sleepy owners and change their water dish when it is empty or filled with mud. What a terrible human being I am! I'm so grateful that all of these faults have been brought to my attention! And in such a polite and courteous manner to boot! 

Christ Almighty.

After reading this lovely piece of wisdom I decided it was time to leave this bat-shit crazy house. I immediately set to work looking for a new place of residence. But to my displeasure, all of the available rooms in the area were just as unaffordable as my current sublet. Regardless, I went to look at another room in Redmond. The ad promised a large room in a large, luxurious home. All utilities would be included with the $500 for rent with the addition of free maid service. Wowee! I woke early in the morning, bathed, groomed and optimistically made the short drive to what might be my future home. I walked up the driveway not knowing what a treat I was in for. The carpets looked as if they hadn't been cleaned or vacuumed in 20 years. This "large" house turned out to be very small and was covered in old plates, food, and beer bottles. Could it get any worse? Of course it could, silly goose! The landlord escorted me to the open room and asked me to forgive the "mess" and informed me that the maid would be in soon to tidy up. Maid? WHAT MAID?! The room was small and dank and looked like some poor beast had come to its unfortunate demise in there. The carpet had horrible brown stains all over it and was caked in mud and clods of dirt. And all of this for the low price of only $500 a month! I spent a grand total of 45 seconds in this house before I quickly turned tail.

Since I had planned on this interview to take more than one minute I had about 40 minutes before I had to be at work. A lot of thinking and soul searching was done in that 40 minutes. I saw a glimpse of my future, moving from room to room to room like a gypsy leaving a line of asshole roommates in my wake all while my savings continued to diminish. 

I went into work with a heavy heart. Where would I go? What would I do? I had 4 weeks to figure it out. The stress was making me nauseous and I was filled with despair. On my lunch break I called my dad. I told him I was reaching the end of my rope and was contemplating accepting defeat. Washington had beat me. He told me what I had been thinking since the day I left Arizona, "Come home." He said he could be here by the end of the month and not to worry anymore, that this nightmare would soon be over. 

I accepted this offer.

There comes a time when you have to sacrifice your pride and admit you made a mistake. Seattle was not the place for me. As much as I hate to admit it, Phoenix is my home. It's where I belong. I had everything a person could need in Arizona and it was all right in front of me. I was blind to all that was good in my life. But I think I needed to come here and experience all of this adversity and loneliness so I could be truly grateful for all that I had in the desert. I've learned that in life where you are is less important than who you're with. I need to be with my people to be happy. Emails, texts, and phone calls can't fill your heart the way physically being with the ones you love can. And now I know that first hand. It took two moves to learn this very important lesson. 

But don't get me wrong, this is not an anti-Seattle post. Seattle was great and I met some wonderful individuals here. It's a beautiful and exciting city and I'll remember it fondly. It just isn't home. And it's time for Mama to get back, get back to where she once belonged.

So Arizona, get ready to see your little adventurer again! The Old Man and I will be setting off at the end of this month. It'll be nice to be home for the holidays and bring in the New Year with all my friends. I've missed you all more than you could ever know and you all mean the world to me. You guys ARE my world. 

See you in December!

XOXO!

Your friend,
Courtney

P.S. Here's some pics of my Halloween costume as Bellatrix Lestrange in case you haven't seen them yet!