we will come back!

bethlehem @ 2009-04-25T23:09:00

2009-04-26T03:10:27Z

i hate the end of vacation!
i hate that i haven't written in here in so long.
i shouldn't hate so much.
count down!!!

bethlehem @ 2008-08-25T16:06:00

2008-08-25T20:06:40Z

one week countdown....

6 barbecues to go!!!

bethlehem @ 2008-04-17T11:47:00

2008-04-17T15:47:44Z

you checking up on me here, too?
just a hunch.

bethlehem @ 2007-11-07T13:18:00

2007-11-07T18:27:38Z

my father left the power plant two hours before the explosion.

what a miracle.

posted by popular demand....here's abbot!

2007-11-03T12:12:35Z

the last one is the "winner" in Topsfield Fair. Shenanigans!
the rest, well, speak for themselves, I guess.

bethlehem @ 2007-11-01T13:21:00

2007-11-01T17:25:39Z

And I'm still growing...

bethlehem @ 2007-11-01T12:18:00

2007-11-01T16:30:44Z

and i'm still getting bigger...
55 pounds and growing!

been a while

2007-01-09T19:30:40Z

it's been a while. but i have a department meeting in five minutes, so it will be a little while longer.
s-t-a-r-five-months-to-go!!!

bethlehem @ 2006-03-08T18:46:00

2006-03-08T23:46:26Z

new icon? $.50 to anyone who can figure out where i am...

bethlehem @ 2005-12-04T10:38:00

2005-12-04T15:38:28Z

the greatest disservice ever done to me was being warned.

why? you may ask. or, how? or, what? even.

i never should have censored myself. i realize now that i wanted to be burned by the hot water i had created for myself.

the worst thought that could possibly enter my mind is "tomorrow is monday."

i think i'm gonna say i'm done at christmas break.

plus, i'm getting paid squat. literally, the equivalent of a 25/hour week at the store.

bethlehem @ 2005-10-05T19:58:00

2005-10-06T00:00:13Z

yo
ss, dd
alum??? curiousity piqued.
so much to say, but can't.
if you care, friends, stay tuned.

bethlehem @ 2005-09-24T14:05:00

2005-09-24T18:07:32Z

censored, rightfully so.
quiet for the moment.
to whom do i owe thanks?
see 'yall on the flipside - june.

bethlehem @ 2005-07-30T13:48:00

2005-07-30T17:53:00Z

MONDAYMONDAYMONDAYMONDAYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Of all the things!

It's on...

drumroll please.......

Back to Star!

The annual day trip has returned - despite the week em and i spent up there.

I think getting my pics developed totally convinced our dad - especially the porch pics.

I wonder if my bathroom poem is still hanging up in the second floor of Cottage B?

The 4-line ode to bucket flushing. It was fun being the cottage's mystery calligraphist/poet for a while.

Departure time of 6 am, breakfast on the Annisquam, arrival by about 9:30 10ish, depending on conditions.

Hehehe!!!

Now if only things with Chuck were going so well... there are reasons i'm not at work on a beautiful saturday in july. and there are reasons i never should have come home last night. but for now, i will be excited and content to return to paradise, of sorts.

Em Whitten - anything I can bring back for you?

bethlehem @ 2005-07-22T09:23:00

2005-07-22T13:25:46Z

got a package from nicola yesterday - nice card, mix cd, and a copy of her wal-mart poem! and on that self-same day, i got the pictures from sandy - which my parents loved. AND i got the instructions for making the moravian stars from les about three days ago!
i forgot how cool it is to get real mail.
it's nice to be able to confirm that the week at star was not, in fact, a dream.

bethlehem @ 2005-07-17T18:23:00

2005-07-17T22:26:19Z

just heard an expression for the first time.

"tragedy plus time equals comedy."

cool.

bethlehem @ 2005-07-01T18:13:00

2005-07-01T22:18:05Z

just got the pictures developed!! all 162 of them... guess i went a bit nuts with the sunrise/sunset/fullmoon thing. chuck just didn't get it.
fourth of july coming up! we're doing the day shift and have the all-important night of the 3rd off too.
i'm so mad at myself for doing more creative things in one week than i have in the last year.
maybe i'll learn a song or something tonight.

bethlehem @ 2005-07-01T09:41:00

2005-07-01T13:43:39Z

Bravely bold Sir Robin rode forth from Camelot.
He was not afraid to die,
O brave Sir Robin.
He was not at all afraid to be killed in nasty ways,
Brave, brave, brave, brave Sir Robin!

He was not in the least bit scared to be mashed into a pulp,
Or to have his eyes gouged out and his elbows broken,
To have his kneecaps split and his body burned away
And his limbs all hacked and mangled, brave Sir Robin!

His head smashed in and his heart cut out
And his liver removed and his bowels unplugged
And his nostrils raped and his bottom burned off
And his pen--

ahh, sir robin.

bethlehem @ 2005-05-02T21:48:00

2005-05-03T01:49:04Z

a pig and elephant dna just won't splice...
tonight is right for love, love gravaaaayyyyyy

bethlehem @ 2004-05-18T18:25:00

2004-05-18T22:28:22Z

i worked 70 hours last week. i called in payroll this morning - if i had more than this one night off for the next three months i'd consider celebrating. maybe just pay off tuition for summer classes. now there's a sadistic perverse phrase.

bethlehem @ 2003-04-27T10:09:00

2003-04-27T14:12:58Z

party was last night! my parents didn't have a clue... until they went to park at my cousins' house and couldn't find a space cause the cars of everyone they knew were parked all up and down the street. i think everyone had a reallly good time, and this is the lastest i've seen my parents stay out in years. and on top of it, i still have at least half a keg of heineken to drink at my leisure. and mini pastries. and lasagna. and fruit salad. yeah, it was worth it for the leftovers. and my parents friend dave who no one has seen in over 10 years showed up! i haven't seen him since i was about 10. i figured i was sending his invitation to a dead address. so i'm a little hung over. a couple of my aunts asked how i got there - how em and i got there acutally cause neither one of us brought a car. my response became "the boyfriend i haven't had for the past three years and who i'm really sick of not talking about cause everyone knows he exists brought us here and will be back at the end of the night to get the keg." then my aunt janine called me a chicken shit for not bringing him in. i am, but after all the bullshit i've been through i think i have a right to be paraniod. she has a good point though. i'm tired, i'm gonna go sleep this off now.

bethlehem @ 2003-04-06T10:14:00

2003-04-06T14:14:59Z

the store opened yesterday. there goes my nonexistent social life. went to dinner at asahi last night - i can't believe i never went there before. chuck locked the keys in the ignition - may be it was the 25 oz. beers. or the drinking black jack. so we broke in the same way we did at fenway last year. it felt good to open. things with the register went smoothly. the popcorn tastes completely different than last year - it tastes good. i'm excited but nervous. we'll see what happens.

bethlehem @ 2003-04-03T10:01:00

2003-04-03T15:26:14Z

no, nothing ever. what is nothing as easy as it looks? i'm not lazy (when i don't want to be), just frustrated. take for instance, um, well, this party emily and i are throwing for our parents. the first, the absolute first thing i did, before i told anyone about it, before i started researching food possibilities, before a guest list, decorations, invitations, ordering shit, organizing shit, before the months of all of that, i booked the hall. this was back in febuary, for a party to be on april 26th. i booked the hall over 2 months in advance. well guess fucking what????? not even a week after i finally sent out invitations, i think it has to be moved. the situation is this (i'm sure no one really cares, but whatever, stop reading this then): when i booked the hall, the property manager at winter island (where the function hall is) told me to contact my parents homeowner's insurance company (because i don't have either homeowner's or apartment insurance) and tell them i needeed something called a binder with the city of salem listed as an interest for the duration of the party. okay, may be i'm a little slow (imagine that), but i wasn't too sure what this all meant, but he assured me that if i called and explained the situation, it would be no problem. he said to have the company fax the binder right over and everything would be all set. wellllllllllllll...................
i get on the phone with the insurance company not even a week later. i don't get off the phone with them for at least another month. after getting bounced around to 5 or6 different reps, faxing in the actual contract from winter island CLEARLY STATING exactly what i needed from the insurance company, and almost getting the suprise blown from pretending to be my mother on the phone and the company returning a disconnected call by calling her house, i'm left with nothing. the only thing i could finagle out of the insurance company was a copy of the homeowner's insurance policy, which i didn't even need. sooooooo..............
i went to winter island yesterday (when the property manager got back from vacation) and showed him what i had and explained that without telling at least one of my parents enough of the story for them to call the insurace company themselves and approve of this, i was screwed. he asked if i had any relatives whom owned homes or had aparment insurance. of course...
sooooo........ i went to my grandmother's sister's house. since my grandmother's still in fla, peg has been my new england bud for this. i brought her a sample binder, explained what the guy told me - it's not a contract, no liability, just an extension of coverage and a statement of that - and begged for her help. across the driveway from peg lives her brother and his wife. her brother, my uncle pete was home, and he came over, having more of an understanding of this insurance shit, and explained that (kind of what i feared this all meant from the beginning but tried to convince myself otherwise) the binder puts one's home or apartment up as collateral against the city's property in case of damage or whatever. in other words, if god forbid anything happens, whoever gets the insurance binder could lose their house. neither peg nor peter agreed to anything, and offered up their back yards as an alternative location.

never, ever easy. the guy at winter island made it sound so simple, like it would be a 2 second phone call - and there would be no problem with security breach if i explained the suprise party situation.

so now i'm left with two choices:

1 - tell one of my parents about the party, or at least enough about the party, to get them to agree to call the insurance company and get the binder. the risk is that it would be a waste to tell one because they still (understandably) might not agree to put the house up as collateral. i can't believe there's no way around that. pete said that private clubs like kofc don't do that cause they have their own property insurance. i guess the city requires you to privately insure their property on a rental basis, must be too expensive to have full time insurance on a glorified shed.
2 - move the party. after spending $10 on stamps and a whole hell of a lot more on invites, send out addendums (thank god i still have all the addresses) to them saying it's been moved. i'd rather have it at my parent's house than at peg/peters (they have a big back yard but inside is smaller), but how do i get my father and sickly mother (she's been sick for months) out of the house for an afternoon? (from 3 or 4 until 6 specifically, and have it have nothing to do with food?)

they never go out or do anything. not to sound weird, but they don't. my mother gave me a book of movie theatre gift certificates she got for christmas cause she'd never use them. they can't go out to eat cause that would defeat the purpose of half the people coming to this shindig cooking like crazy (cheaper and better than catering!). and my mother's diet is so werid... that's another thing, it has to be somewhere with a bathroom in case she has an attack.

i'm sick of writing. how do you get two people out of the house like that... they could go to a friend's, but all their friends will be coming here. may be someone could pick them up and take them somewhere and walk in with them. i needed emily to help set everything up, but may be she could take them somewhere...

fucking winter island. for years the city has been fucking the willows to save places like that. now it's personal. shit chucks back gotta go.

bethlehem @ 2003-03-20T10:26:00

2003-03-20T15:27:36Z

i will never, famous last words, drink double vision again. i have rarely, if ever, sworn off an alcoholic beverage and seriously meant it. but come on, there is no reason in the world i should have been sick (at least nauseous) for almost three days off of two of those and one other small beer. never never never again. damn beer works, only because they were out of pumpkin too.

bethlehem @ 2003-03-06T09:50:00

2003-03-06T14:51:26Z

ugh, i have cramps. and onto even less pleasant things, my pathetic attempt at creating a web site will take place by one week from today. to be shortly followed by, or preceeded by, i haven't decided yet, teaching myself how to program a cash register. the fun never ends.

bethlehem @ 2003-02-20T11:10:00

2003-02-20T16:15:04Z

step one is done! today i have to go sign paperwork and fork over the money plus a security deposit - just in case my grandmother gets a little roudy and breaks a window or something. it's so cheap too! i think it will be a nice night. now how in the world am i going to get my parents to go to winter island? what in the world would they do there at 6pm on a saturday night in april? emily could say she wants to take them out to dinner... there's plenty of time to think of something. i'm just afraid of easter, when everyone is together, of someone saying something. i'm not doing this months in advance so somebody who had too much to drink can blab this to them. 25 years of marriage... and i can't even manage less than three years in this relationship. i am so sick of this damn drama!