We went upstate to the lake for Labor Day to enjoy the merriment that is the infamous “Ring of Fire.” Ok, it might not actually be infamous. I don’t even think it’s a little known fact. But if you are from Canandaigua, NY, hoo-boy, it’s the highlight of your year. (There’s not a lot going on up there.)

The event started out years ago and involved people lighting campfires all around the lake in honor of some Native American ritual at Bare Hill. Well, things have changed a bit over time, and somehow it became a night where everyone around the lake lights traffic flares along their property for what looks like some sort of devil worship ring of evil. It’s breathtaking, really.

My parents were out of town on the night in question, and had asked me to do the honors of not embarrassing them by being the “only scrooges on the lake without flares” as my mom so eloquently put it. So flare lighter I became.

At around 8:45 p.m. I realized that it was t-minus 15 minutes til ignition, so I sort of clumsily stumbled down the steps to the lake, arms overloaded with what seemed like way too many traffic flares. I hadn’t thought about how they went in the ground, hadn’t read the instructions on how to light them, and was generally pretty clueless as to what I was doing. I think I dropped about half of them along the way. My sister and Justin were none too helpful telling me they’d, “Be right there.”

When I got to the water I realized how not on my game I really was. The neighbors had all their flares perfectly lined from property marker to property marker, equidistant from one another, tops off and ready to go. The next five minutes or so were a blur as we ran around trying to get all the flares in the ground. Just as we had finished our neighbor comes over with this huge blowtorch in his hands and bellows, “ARE YOU READY?” As if igniting the flares would somehow disrupt the space-time continuum.

He looked like a mad scientist with that torch and I kind of wanted to ask him where his rubber apron and welding goggles were, but the look in his eye told me there was to be no riff raff tonight. So we lit them, one by one, and an eerie red glow began to spread around the entire lake. The ring was followed by tons of fireworks and a few drunken, “whoo-hoos.” It took us all of ten minutes to be over it and head in to play board games.

Behold, the Ring o’ Fire.

I saw a very large woman today, about my age. She was pushing three bills for sure. And she was wearing a shirt, clinging to her tummy, that read, “Genius by Birth. Slacker by Choice.”

And I thought, if I were morbidly obese, would I wear a t-shirt like that? And I think yes, I most certainly would. I do love a clever tee.

I was going to do a whole photo blog and tell nice stories with beginnings and middles and ends, or “begiddles” as Eugene would say. But, I’m not. Turns out I have no time. I did have a nice time with Karen and Meg in Canada, and you should check out the pictures. Find them here:

West Lake Set 08/07

So, Hey. Just crawled out from under my desk to peer out the window and remind myself the rest of the world was still alive. But then I remembered I work in the basement and have absolutely no contact with the outside world, so I thought I’d stop by here instead, if for no other reason than to look at my shiny new monitor. It is so bright it hurts my eyes, but I think that’s supposed to be a good thing so I’m just going to wear sunglasses at work.

So I’m heading back up to Canada this weekend and not a moment too soon. I’ve seen entirely too many people lately spitting on the subway. Not the street, although I’ve never really understood that one either. Do you ever get the uncontrollable urge to spit on the street…like, if I swallow this wad of saliva right now I’ll simply die! ‘Cause I don’t. Never have. But that’s not even my point. I can deal with the street spitters. Sometimes you’re too tired to swallow.

I’m not even talking about the subway platform, which I also see people spitting on all the time and can’t quite comprehend. Cause that’s like a floor, dude. You just spit on the floor. Unacceptable. But nay, I refer to the people who actually hock loogies of phlegm inside the subway car. Twas never a grosser site to be seen. And whenever I see it, which sadly is way more than I should - ‘more than I should’ being once - I think, maybe it’s time to move out of the city.

But then of course I’ll come out of the sweaty tunnel and a summer breeze will sweep the park and rustle the leaves on the trees lit by the baseball field lights, and the icecream truck will be out, and people will just be getting out of the movie at the public pool, which even though it has no water is still very lovely, and I’ll think… maybe not quite yet.

But F-that, I’d still rather be in Canada. Warm up the electric boat lift. I’m a comin.

Whenever we go up to the cottage there’s always somethin. I think that’s what makes it so great up there, you have to work for it. So once you’re actually relaxing you’re all, my God, this is fantastic. This time it was the boat hoist. Broken again. It’s this super convenient electric boat hoist that requires no cranking. The only problem is, it’s never really worked. And there is no way to do it by hand, so when it shits the bed…weekly…you are screwed.

So when my family had been up there the week before they took the boat out of the water, which meant that when we got there we had to put it back in. That requires launching the boat. At the boat launch. With a trailer. Attached to the car. I could have whittled an entire canoe during the time it took my dad to explain to me all the steps involved in this process. I’ve never “launched” anything. It really seems like you should have some sort of advanced degrees to be “launching” things. And the only thing I know about boats is which seats are the best to drink beers in.

The one time I pretended to know what I was doing on a watercraft I ended up driving on the wrong side of some bouys and beached Karen and myself in a swamp leading out to Lake Ontario. So the thought of actually getting the boat in the water did not particularly appeal to me.

Getting the trailer attached to the back of the car was deceivingly easy. This, I thought? This is cake! The drive to the public launch was a bit uneasy. With a tap of the breaks it felt as though a 1,000 pound boat was about to come sailing (pun intended) through the back windshield and park itself in the backseat. That coupled with the fact that the rear bumper was about an inch and a half from the ground.

When we arrived the line wasn’t bad. There were only two cars ahead of us. Justin decided he was going to go watch others do it so he would be prepared when it was our turn. I sat in the A/C and played with my nails. Helpful, I thought. Don’t want to get in the way. But before I knew it we were blocking a car trying to get out and Justin is nowhere in site. Oh God, I thought. I have to maneuver this behemoth. Palms instantly sweaty. I jumped behind the wheel, silently cursing all leisure activities. I somehow managed to swing the boat around in a giant circle, albeit almost snapping the car in half because I turned way too sharply.

“You’re doing great,” Justin said. He had conveniently returned. “Just keep going, I’ll guide you.” The next half hour was a blur. It consisted of a shouting match made up of these few phrases:

Justin: “STRAIGHTEN IT OUT!” “PULL UP!” “STOOOOOOP!” “TURN THE WHEEL TO THE RIGHT!”

ME: “I HAAAAAATE YOUUUUUUU!”

Somewhere in the midst of all this some guy and his kids had sauntered onto the dock to marvel at our boat, as apparently he had just bought the same one. “Look, kids! Our boat! Oh man, I just bought this same boat, how old is she? Kids, get Mom. Get Mom. Get Mom.” I was concentrating on getting his dog out from underneath the passenger side tire.

I gotta say though, I launched that bitch. Yes, there was a line ten cars deep by the time I got it in, and it was less than a straight line from the tip of the car to the back of the boat, but hey, she was floating. I did it. Stress is over… I thought. While Justin drove the car and trailer back to the cottage, I was put in charge of driving the boat back. I thought I had the easier job. The channel out to the lake from the launch is very narrow, so being the genius that I am, I decided to reverse it the whole way down, thinking there wasn’t enough room to turn around.

Fisherman were literally crying they were laughing so hard as they passed me, NOT going backwards. As soon as I thought it was wide enough, I went to turn the boat around. I thought too soon. I should never think. The propellers got stuck in the mud and I was immobile. At this point, thinking I had ruined the boat and was going to have to get out into the mud and push, I was doing something that can only be described as a mix between dry heaving, sobbing and hyperventilating. Alas, I was my mother every time I have ever called her “a spaz.”

I finally got the boat dislogded, although I think the engine is shot and the motor destroyed from me just gunning it until there was no mud left for me to be stuck in. Hey fishermen, thanks for helping! I hope a pike bites your finger off. The water was choppy as hell so as my legs and arms shook violently from my nerves being shot, my stomach shook violently from the waves, and it took me a solid 40 minutes to get back to our cottage. Justin almost called the cops. I kind of wish he had.

I was half amazed at myself for having accomplished the big “launch” and half disappointed in myself for messing up at every stage of the way. But hey, we enjoyed the hell out of the boat that week, and I enjoyed the best swim of the summer so far off her stern in the middle of the lake.

So, yeah. Someone give me a cookie. And don’t tell my dad about the whole “broken engine” thing.

When I was a waitress during grad school at a BBQ joint in Times Square a customer once told me I looked like someone famous. He said he had to think about it though, so I let him mull it over while I got their drinks. Upon my return he said, “I got it… Val Kilmer.” Really? Thanks.

I’m back from vacation, a little tan, very rested (we’ll see how long that lasts) and hopefully not quite as bloated as my celebrity doppleganger. I had an amazing time. Just absolutely perfect. I miss it like crazy already. I have plenty of stories, but I think I have to wait until I can see over this stack of papers on my desk to share. I’m now officially the last person in my family to get married, and as someone so sweetly pointed out to me at the wedding, “Hey Erin, your clock is ticking.” Really? Thanks.

Stories to come, I promise. Don’t leave me.

So I’m going on vacation in two days. It’s the first time in nearly two years of working at this job that I’ve taken more than three consecutive days off. It kind of makes me realize why I’m such a miserable ninny. I mean, my employer really comes through with that whopping two weeks of vacation a year, so it’s not as though I need to use it wisely, goodness knows.

So despite the fact that this will pretty much wrap up my available time off for the rest of the year, I’m so excited I could spit. I’m about to hock a loogie of ecstatic proportions. If that makes any sense, which it does not. I’ll be heading upstate for two weddings, one of which is my little brothers. Yikes, by the way. I look forward to every one of my extended female relatives asking me when I’m getting married.

The weddings will book end a trip up to the family cottage at West Lake in Canada where Karen and her boyfriend will join us, lots of turkey burgers in tow, apparently. I don’t think I can emphasize enough how much I need this break. I will not think about anything work or computer related, I will not shower, take off my bathing suit or put on shoes unless absolutely necessary. I will not eat anything unless it has been cooked on a grill. And I will keep a beer koozie in my back pocket at all times. My heart is lit up like a Fourth of July firework, which I will be watching roof side on Wednesday. See you on the other side, suicidal and tan.

So I’ve got two jobs, blah blah blah. On Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays I work 8:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. I work the first job until 2 p.m. and then the other until 10. Great, glad we’re all together on this. That is a 13-and-a-half hour day, and usually I have no lunch break. Actually, I never do. So imagine my surprise today when I got out of the first job at 1:15. Somehow that 45-minute break seemed like a real siesta, so I decided to run over to Saks and look for a dress to wear to a wedding next Friday. No big deal.

It’s all kind of a blur now, but I think if you had seen me in there, it would have looked something like Nicolas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas when he hits up the liquor store. I was just grabbing things off racks in a mad dash to the dressing room. Dresses were flying off shelves. If it was under $200 it was in my hands. I know, there is approximately ONE dress at Saks that is under $200 and it’s a size 14 fuscia ruched tube dress. Whatever, minor detail. My two little eyes were just peering over a mountain of dresses that I had indiscriminately grabbed on the way to the fitting room.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed but it’s been about 100 degrees in New York this week, so by the time I actually got to the “trying the dresses on” portion of the show, I was sweating and pretty smelly. Oh, and by this point I had 10 minutes to get back to work. So I’m just throwing dresses over my head, nixing them, and throwing them on the floor. But finally, the last dress, when I was at my stickiest and ready to pass out. Oh, it was perfect. Black, strapless, simple, perfect fit. I did a twirl in the mirror to show my reflection how happy I was.

But of course, the inevitable…shamblesville. I hear this “zzzz” noise behind me, turn around, and realize that the dress’ zipper has busted and come undone from the bottom up. So the top of the zipper is still closed, but the rest of the back of the dress is a gaping hole. No worries, I thought. I’ll just take it off and fix it. But the zipper is stuck, and I can’t get it over my head. Let’s just say the next 5-to-10 minutes did nothing for my sweating situation. Finally, totally at a loss, I had to walk out into the store and ask a sales lady to rip it off me. There were several of them in a cluster and they just stared me down, Pretty Woman-style, saying, “You got yourself stuck.” Actually, bitches, your dress broke and trapped me in this sweaty designer chinese finger cuffs.

So the dress was totally ruined because she ripped the zipper right off when she tore it from my body in front of many well coiffed shoppers, and I had to walk away and leave it lying there, empty-handed, riddled with body odor, and about half an hour late for work. I’m going back tomorrow, though.

So in preparation for the big season o’weddings this summer, I plotted out a precise schedule for how I was going to get tan, get in shape and get sexy for the big events. Gottsto look good.

So here’s how my weekend broke down. Went all the way to Rochester to go out on the boat and work on that bronze sheen. Got all the way out to the middle of the lake before I realized one of my fingers had turned black and fallen off from frost bite. I don’t think I took my sweatshirt off once the whole day, except the time I had to jump in the water because I had to pee and I couldn’t hold it any longer. That only stopped my lungs from functioning for about 30 seconds, and then my body went into shock from the frigid waters and I couldn’t feel anything anymore. But Sunday was beautiful – when I was in the car driving back to New York! I’m bringing pastey back, that’s all there is to it.

Also, to keep up the spirit of my getting in shape and looking trim plan. I had turkey sausage, potato salad, a turkey hot dog and a veggie burger yesterday. And I nearly hyperventilated when I had to walk up the 4 steps to get to the car in the driveway.

Dude, I’m going to look so good.

“What’s more chickenshit than fucking with a man’s automobile? I mean, don’t fuck with another man’s vehicle. You don’t do it. It’s just against the rules.” Apparently that poor sap’s never been to New York.

So, if you really hate your car, I mean, really really wish it to die a slow and painful death at the hands of a series of unfortunate events, then this is the place for you!!

A long time ago when Justin and I were on our way to do laundry he drove a tad too close to the parked cars lining the street and sort of, kind of smashed somebody’s sideview mirror off. It was all drama and slo-mo, like, ”look out for that….Noooooo!…” loud crunching sound ensues. And when it happened I just thought, if someone ever did that to me and drove off I would be so sad. So we left the guy a note and ended up writing him a check for the damage. He also sent me a link to his band’s website after all was said and done. Gotta love the W-burg.

Well, I feel violated and abused by karma on this one. That scrappy little bitch decided to leave me high and dry. First there was the New Year’s Eve break-in. They smashed the back window, stole a piano keyboard out of the trunk and a bag of creamsavers out the glove compartment. And apparently sat in the car jamming on the piano eating candy, because creamsaver wrappers were strewn all about the place. Mingling nicely with the broken glass!

Then there was the big back windshield blow out of April ‘07. Getting that fixed at ‘Two Guys’ Autoplex – No I’m not kidding, that was the name of the shop — was on par with getting  your fingernails ripped off at a live Carrot Top show.

And then yesterday somebody hit my SIDE VIEW MIRROR while I was at work. The only note they left was probably the little giggle they whispered into the wind as they drove off, thinking, so long sucka. The mirror isn’t detached, but now it won’t stay still. It swings back and forth like a flag in the wind. Convenient, if I need to see what the car ahead of me is doing. Unfortunately, I use the eyes in the front of my head for that. The eyes in the back of my head will now constantly be on the lookout for anyone, anywhere, messing with someone’s car.

Because, “I’d have given anything to catch that asshole doing it. It’d been worth him doing it just so I could’ve caught him doing it.” Amen, Vincent.