This afternoon I was taking the boys for a walk, which is not normally very much fun, but it's especially unpleasant when it's 42 degrees and super windy. It only took about three minutes for me to get cranky because I realized that somehow we were walking directly underneath the only raincloud in the entire sky. So now, not only is is cold and windy, it's raining on us. I could not get rid of this cloud, no matter how hard I tried. (note to self: learn the opposite of a rain dance) A few minutes later, we came upon a man who was getting something out of his truck. He looked at me and said with a laugh "goin on a walk?" Is that a question? Am I supposed to answer that, because it seems rhetorical to me. In case you didn't notice, I've got this hoodie covering most of my face, so if I'm not going for a walk, guy, you're in trouble, because I'm probably coming to rob you. I know some people just want to be friendly, but that's just a stupid thing to say. How about something like "not great weather for this walk, huh?" Or "those dogs are lucky they have an owner to take them out when it's this cold." And, yes, I did just toot my own horn in a hypothetical conversation. But it was just such a dumb thing to say. Is there any other response than "yep"? If Oscar hadn't been pulling so hard, I would've said something like "so, you drive a truck?" or "parked in front of this house, huh?" or "you wearin shoes?" My only compliment to this guy was that he didn't say "looks like they're walking you." Such a pet peeve. I think I've heard that like...80+ times, and boy it never gets old. I always wonder, when someone says that, do they think they're being original? Look, I'm grumpy when I'm walking the dogs (and most other times), so I'm not really up for folksy humor. I've got two 75 pound dogs, one of which wants to go as slow as humanly (caninely?) possible, the other who wants to sprint the entire way. Which leaves me with one arm stretched all the way in front of me, and the other pulled far behind me so it looks like I'm doing some sort of figure-skating move, but really all it's doing is separating my shoulders. And of course we're taking this walk at a sprinter's pace since the dog that wants to go fast has more muscles in his huge neck than I have my whole body. No, I don't enjoy walking with this much force, it hurts my feet and my shin splints, but every time I stop to slow one dog down, the other sprints out ahead so it can be the leader. In the meantime, the wind has managed to free 40 strands of hair not only from my ponytail, but also from my hood, and now there are about 10 strands stuck to the middle of my eyeball, while the rest of my hair is plastered to my lips and stuck in my mouth. Because my arms are pulled so tight by the dogs, I have no slack to pull the hair out of my mouth, so my attempt at spitting it out is just making me spit all down the front of my face and jacket. Also, in case you haven't noticed, I have two steaming hot bags of poop in my hands which are getting tossed around due to the militant speed of this walk, and any second now they're probably going to bounce just the wrong way off the leash and break open all over me. SO NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO GET FOLKSY, NEIGHBOR. From now on, when someone says some variation of "who's walkin who?" I'm just going to respond with the equally annoying cliche, "workin hard, or hardly workin?" and then laugh and walk away.
Tonight I was in a bit of a foul mood (pretend to be surprised), but I don't know why (hormones, Mom, I got it) and I just found myself getting VERY frustrated at minor things. For example, on nights when Jacob's not working on his computer and there aren't sports on, I've noticed he becomes quite the talker. Which is great, because I love him, really I do, but the thing is, when I'm trying to watch a tv show I like, and I've paused it for you to talk, can you limit your discussion about our cable provider to 6 minutes, rather than 21? Seriously, I was being completely illogical in my frustrations, and he'd say something to me and I'd find myself thinking "DON'T I EVER GET ANY SILENCE AROUND HERE? IS IT TOO MUCH TO ASK THAT I WATCH 4 SOLID HOURS OF TV UNINTERRUPTED?!?!" But then realistic, nice, non-crazy Hayley would be like "oh, hey friend! Just a reminder-you're home alone all day to do as you please...so....carry on." Don't be worried about my inner monologues, okay. I'm not schizophrenic. At one point, (my show is still paused at this point, in case you care, which Jacob clearly didn't) when Jacob asked me to make a phone call tomorrow, I was like "geez, okay, better start making a list of all the crap I gotta get done now!" so I had him pass me a pad of paper and a pen. Looking back, it's pretty comical (maybe not for Jacob) how over dramatic I was being, because as I tried to write down what I needed to do, I couldn't get my pen to work, so I was like "Ugh, pass me another pen." He did, and that one also didn't work, so I was like "UGH PASS ME ANOTHER PEN!!!!!!!!!!!" and then scribbled with all my might to get the pen to work, managing to tear through 5 pieces of paper. It's just now hitting me, but I really and truly think I missed my calling--acting on a soap opera. I used to think I could cry on command, but it turns out I just cry so frequently that the odds are just in my favor that I'll be crying when someone would need me to. On top of all these minor irritations, I had food questions that I needed help with, but the people I called screened me--I'm looking at you, Aimee and Dana.
I just finished watching Bad Teacher, and I have to say I'm pretty disappointed. I know, I know, it's got Justin Timberlake and Cameron Diaz, but I really thought it could have been funny. Jason Segel was my favorite part of the movie, not surprisingly, since I can watch Forgetting Sarah Marshall literally every time it's on tv. I don't even know why I didn't like the movie, either. It just felt like Cameron Diaz was trying too hard or something. Plus it felt like it dragged on forever, which isn't great when the movie is like and hour and 33 minutes long. It was similar to Birdemic, in that they could have cut 30 minutes out of the movie and you wouldn't miss it. It differed from Birdemic in that it was just a bummer, and I don't think I even laughed once.. I've been waiting forever for it to come out, too. I put it on the top of my Netflix queue so it would come as soon as it was released. You're probably embarrassed for me, but I DON'T CARE. Overall Netflix rating: 2 stars.
In positive news, I got to talk to sweet Avery on the phone today, my baller 3 year old niece. I've been missing all the kiddos in my life a ton lately, and talking to her was definitely the highlight of my day. And while it's possible that she tried to hang up on me, I believe it's because hearing my voice and being separated from me is so painful she physically cannot bear it. Yeah, that's it. It's definitely not because she was sick of talking to me and wanted to go back to dressing up like a fairy while her brother played pirate....
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