Jenn Martinelli Blogging in Boston

Sorry, I really wanted to post this yesterday, and I wanted to put up a fun little picuture of a birthday cake or something but I can only do that from home, and at home our time is still taken up with Billy's intestinal woes, which I will not mention further in this birthday post.

Happy Birthday! Hey, it's your "last birthday" right? Now you're 29 every year. Ha ha.

AJWP and I had a very fun psychic twin date on Saturday for our joint birthdays (we were born 51 weeks apart since she's just a youngun). We went to eat at Cheesecake Factory, which was very yummy. We had planned to eat at Masa but they don't have brunch on Saturdays anymore. Well, thanks for nothing! It's OK, we stuffed ourselves like the classy ladies that we are and had cheesecake dessert instead.

Then we headed to Exhale for our facials. We were both a little anxious about it, never having a real facial before (7th grade birthday party facials aside), but it was very nice. First of all, the spa is all holistic and whatnot so they have a quiet relaxing room for you to wait in for your treatment(s) and they have a tea bar, and it's all hushed and dimly lit and relaxing. When you get there you get a locker and change into a spa robe and slippers, so already you know I'm ready to fall asleep.

Our appointments were one after the other so I actually went first and we ended up randomly having the same woman for both our facials. In the room there was a heated table/bed with a blanket that you lie in, which was enough to put me half to sleep too. It was very nice. Plus, according to my aesthetician, my skin "responded very well" to the facial, so when those big bucks start rolling in I can get one every week or two! Ha ha. Anyway, it was a very nice time. AJWP enjoyed hers too though her fair anglo skin is more sensitive than my swarthy Italian hide (ha ha), so her facial was a little gentler than mine.

PLUS, AJWP got me the nicest gifts EVER. I still owe her a gift and I think I know what I'm getting. She bought herself a book I wanted to get her a few weeks before her birthday. Not allowed! Anyway, she got me The Yarn Girls' Guide to Simple Knits, so I can finally take it off my amazon.com wishlist, and she also got me enough yarn to make my first sweater! I'm so excited, I'm planning to start it soon. Also, she got me bright green Crocs - so awesome! I LOVE them. As comfortable as Birkenstocks, as easy as slip-on sneakers but without the smell or messiness of either. Since they're basically just some kind of foamy cushy plastic, you can just wash them off if they get messy. I've been wearing them since Saturday! They're great. Also, she made me a crazy trivet with a cross-stitch from Subversive Cross Stitch, the book I saw that I was going to buy for her but she bought for herself! So funny. Anyway, this was all wrapped up in a crazy 5th-grade-girl unicorn gift bag. She loves teasing me about how I loved unicorns and lavendar and all that really girly ridiculous stuff when I was a kid. She was too cool for that stuff apparently. I very often receive cheesey unicorn pencils and other similar gifts in recognition of our 10-year-old selves' difference of opinion.

Anyway, it was a very fun time and AJWP was so thoughtful! Thanks so much AJWP!

Hey, check out this site, just being built still, of a girl I used to work with who makes really pretty earrings, necklaces, and bracelets. You should contact her if you want something unique and/or custom ordered. Really nice stuff!

Is it normal to feel murderous rage at 1:00AM Friday night/Saturday morning because your stupid-ass 20-something idiot neighbors are being loud and drunk and keep running in and out of the apartment building and talking loudly outside about how awesome they and all their friends are?

Second question, if it is normal to feel murderous rage in this circumstance, would I then be able to avoid going to jail if I actually killed them? Because seriously, the world would be better off. Really, you should hear these people. It makes my brain hurt. I think they're killing my brain cells actually.

Oh, did I mention they're not even keeping me up because I'm up anyway? Is it still OK to kill them? They're pissing our dogs off. I wish I could take Billy down and let him bite them.

SHUT UP YOU STUPID FUCKING WASTES OF SPACE.

Sigh.

Here are just a few of the photos I took. As always, I really want to do a better job of organizing and editing them and make an album that we host ourselves but for now I wanted to put a few up anyway. Enjoy!

Look how freaking cool this is! I totally want one.

Billy is sick with diarrhea and puking and decided to both diarrhea almost on Heather's head and all over her bed and then walk into our room and puke all over our bed. Why do dogs do these things? We have a huge apartment full of hardwood floors, and he has to do it on the bed.

Anyway, she's in the process of cleaning everything up now. Not sure if a mattress or two is ruined and possibly her down comforter.

Hopefully Billy is better because nobody wants him to be sick not only for his sake but our own. Billy, what happened? Too much excitement? We fed him some people food on the trip but really not that much. Unfortunately he's had plenty more at home before on occasion, and without any kind of result like this.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

• Albert Einstein

My dad put up some photos on his Flickr site. Where does he get off beating me to this? Geez.

Good job, Keyrock. Too bad you put up a terrible one of me!

Check them out here.

So we're 264 miles into our 1600 mile trip to Kansas to pick up Dr. Heather Rose Martin and Miss Cleo and move them back to Boston where they belong. :)

So far so good. The only bad news is the dvds we recorded from tv to watch in the car don't play on our laptop. So now I have to wait to see the last 20 minutes of Lost. Don't tell me anything!

I've got a ton of pictures from my trip for Brian's graduation, I'll try to get those organized and up soon.

Hey everyone. Sorry I didn't post for a few days, it got very busy with Rob finishing up his classes and me getting ready to come down to Auburn for Brian's graduation, which is where I'm posting this from.

Lots of stories to tell involving the trip down and Grandma. Dan and I escorted her down. Also lots of dorky family stories to tell.

Right now we're in Brian's apartment in Auburn in between graduation activities. This morning there was a reception for the Architecture department and this afternoon at 2pm is the graduation ceremony at the school.

Yesterday there were crazy storms down here but today it's nice - not hot at all luckily, and sunny and breezy.

Last night we went to dinner and a private party for Brian and a bunch of kids from his program. It was nice. Dad was on super friendly introduction duty, running around saying hi to all the other kids and their families and introducint them to us. Brian was all embarrassed. Oh, Keyrock.

Anyway, I'm taking lots of photos so I'll get those up when I'm back in Boston. Saturday I get back late, then Sunday Rob and I are driving to Kansas to get Heather and move her back to her favorite city! Billy is coming too and so it'll be another fun car trip for Billy and Cleo.

I am glad I remembered to post this story. Rob and I overheard this while my site was down and I said, "I have to remember to post this."

In any case, we were at the Wendy's in Copley Square having lunch. At the table next to us, were a young girl and a slightly older guy. Maybe she was 20 and he was 28 or so.

She was bemoaning the fact that some other guy stole her cell phone. Apparently, he's been harassing her with it by calling her at home and telling her he has her phone. He also seemingly told her she could have it back if she slept with him.

Apparently, her response to this is to cry to this other guy, "What other choice do I have? He won't give it back. I can't call the police because it will just be his word against mine. It will be word of mouth."

There are so many problems with this I don't even know where to begin. The biggest, obviously, being that she hasn't called her cell phone provider yet and told them to turn off the phone. The second being that she is actually considering sleeping with this guy to get her phone back. Next, I would like to point out that maybe she could set up an incredibly ingenius sting where she agrees to meet him to swap sex for phone only really she's waiting with a police officer so they can arrest him for theft and stalking. Lastly, she doesn't know how to use the phrase "word of mouth".

Her older and probably also creepy male friend then began to lecture her about how this kind of thing was bound to happen to her because she was a young pretty girl, and that it might even happen frequently, and she had to call the cops, or else he offered to kick the guy's ass.

Apparently this is average intelligence at work everybody. Of course, calling her provider and turning the phone off would mean that he could no longer use it to call and harass her, and that she could get a new phone without sleeping with him.

Isn't this story ridiculous? Can you believe these people exist?

Here's a fun quiz. I knew number 8 because of an Indigo Girls song! Oh, Smith.

I got an 80%.

Apparently, everyone in China spits in public. It's such a problem that the Chinese government is trying to "teach people" to stop doing it before the Olympics. Games organizers have also told China that people there need to "learn to stand in line". Now I don't know why that's coming up - nobody anywhere I've been in Europe knows how to do it either.

"There is no reason to suspect that the inferior grade concrete used in the Big Dig compromises structural integrity." Oh, good. I'm glad they cleared that up. Now I can use inferior grade concrete for all my construction needs. I bet it's cheaper.

Check out the "days until I turn 30" countdown on the left. Pretty soon I'll need to break out my cane and hearing aid. Ha ha. I know everyone's dying to buy me all kinds of fabulous gifts. Sorry I haven't put up a new list of things you can buy me recently, I'll try to do that at some point soon. In the meantime, you can always check out my amazon.com wishlist. There's a link to it under the countdown.

It's not fixing the problem, and I think they're a perfectly terrible idea. I can't believe my tax money goes to support them.

The solution is to fix the public school system. I know that's not a simple task, but it's the truth.

I swear, what the hell is wrong with these two? Please notice the other upsetting things in this photo that the ladies at gofugyourself were probably too traumatized to even notice - the stupid Louis Vuitton-esque fanny-pack looking thing hanging off Kanye's waist and Tom Cruise's hideous cream-colored 80's-stylin' jacket. FUGLY.

Um, the cover says: "One of the smartest, funniest romantic comedies in a long time." OK, replace "smartest" with "saddest", "funniest" with "most upsetting" and "comedy" with "drama" and I agree.

Check out Rotten Tomatoes for a collection of reviews. Overall it comes out positively, but as many people point out, this is not a comedy and also not particularly romantic.

Did I ever tell you kids about how AJWP, Hashbrown and I went to the unveiling of some new statues in Boston several years ago and one of the Boston society types there who helped in the ceremony or whatever was a woman named SMOKI BACON?

I kid you not. There is a rich-ass woman in this city proudly walking around calling herself SMOKI BACON. Hey, she seemed like a very nice lady. But HER NAME IS SMOKI BACON.

That's all.

Thanks AJWP and Hashbrown, for your nice comments. I'm glad my blog is back too! Now I can whine and complain! No, I'll try to say nice things too.

For not posting for so long! I'm back, folks. Several saved-up posts to come..... Look for anything posted after April 2. I'll try to back-date them accurately.