Acetone, Gelato, A Cat Fight and Tylenol

Oh, how do I get myself into these predicaments?

Between working two jobs, working out, socializing and sleeping in my space time when I'm not working, my nails have suffered. Chipped, with a band of grown-out color on the tips, I die a little each time I look at them. Yet I refuse to go without polish. Why? Because, like an idiot, I refuse to wear a base coat, thus allowing the color I wear to stain my nails an ugly shade of reddish yellow. Though I have found if I paint them their complementary color (color opposite of them on the color wheel to those of you who aren't artists), it cancels out most of the stain. I've also filed them before, but this just makes them stain darker when I repaint and leaves them scratched.

Anyway. Who knew you could write a whole paragraph on the effects of nail polish alone? The point: Do NOT repaint your nails while sitting withing 5 feet of your laptop on the same level. If you absolutely cannot get by without a little background noise of Pandora (like myself), sit on the bathroom floor with your laptop perched on the sink. Otherwise, like me, you will probably make the mistake of accidentally nudging your removing with your elbow and watching as it tips in slow motion, spilling over your keyboard.

Note. I did this not once, but twice. I do not learn from my mistakes...uhg.

The first time, I was remarkably lucky. After spilling half a bottle of acetone nail polish remover on the keyboard and screen of my laptop ("Eek!!"), clawing off the casing and removing the hardrive, and then spending a half hour blasting it with my hair dryer ("Oh, please God, pleasepleaseplease..."), it survived and even the screen was okay. What a trooper, my Alice! :)

The second time...not so lucky. Remembering my first mistake, I placed my remover a supposedly safe distance of 1 1/2 feet away from my laptop. Silly me. I spilled it just as I was polishing off my second coat. Down it went, safely away from spilling completely onto the keyboard, but I hadn't taken splatter-distance into consideration. Blotting it with tissues, I hoped for the best. After a half hour, the keys selectively stopped working. The most important ones of course. Caps lock, c (copy), v (paste), r, s, t, n and a (the top 5 letters you first guess when playing Hangman) and the Ctrl key. Awesome.

After copy and pasting the missing letters into a Facebook status that took me ten minutes to write, I called my dad and asked him to accompany me to the iTech store in town. In case you've never been there, its a Jekyll and Hyde experience. There is one very nice and accommodating guy, and one very rude and aggravating one. I took my dad with me as a manly kind of incentive to give me what I wanted (hehe).

I'd been told the casing was on recall. It had several cracks and I found online that I was not the only one experiencing this, and many had gotten their cases replaced for free. Since the casing was attached to the keyboard, many got a free keyboard as well. Yay! So we went in, explained the issues with the casing, tactfully leaving out the detail about how the keyboard didn't work. Sneaky, I know. :P No problem, they'd replace it and have it back to me after the weekend. Huzzah!

We celebrated by walking down Main St. (gorgeous day) and I treated my father to Scratch Bakery's ah-mazing cupcakes, gelato and freshly squeezed lemonade. Heaven. A perfect spot of sunshine to the afternoon. :) If you've never been to Scratch Bakery and had their cupcakes. Go. But I warn you, they will ruin commoner cupcakes for the rest of your life. Also, they are the only place I know of in the Cedar Valley that sells Gelato: Italian Ice Cream. Less fat, less air, creamy heaven in a cup or smoothie, and sorbetto flavors provided as well! If any of you have read Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, you'll remember how she raved about it for about 5 pages.

See other photos and read an article about Scratch Bakery at The Connection.

In other news, I came home from work one night to be informed by my parents that Oliver, my cat (aka my baby, babycakes, cutie wootie, Cat, my pride & joy, etc) was in a fight earlier that night. Apparently, while enjoying the night air on our porch, Oliver was jumped by a stray black and white tom cat. Not being much of a fighter, I'm guessing he didn't have much choice in putting his paws up. Mom said she and dad were enjoying a leisurly night of reading when they heard the cat screams and ran to the door to find Oliver rolling around on the sidewalk with this cat who was about 2 sizes bigger than him. Mom ran to get a flashlight and dad started throwing his shoes at the other cat from a safe distance, as he was wearing no shoes himself and donned in only his pajamas. :P Oliver was pretty quiet afterwards, and I was filled with pride by my parents' courageous attempts to save our cat, despite the common complaints of cat hair and a smelly litter box.

Lastly, dispite the fight I've put up to avoid sickies like the plague, keeping them at a 5 foot radius space bubble, I'm sick. No idea how I caught it. Probably from touching something and then my face. Gross. Its a mild cold, but still disabling and leaves me feeling foggy and weak most of the day. Reminds me of this new movie coming out soon that I want to see oh so bad!

Finally off to sleep, I can feel the meds kicking in. :) Goodnight blogging world.