WTF Allergies

Growing up, I wasn't allergic to anything. Not even poison ivy. I would literally play in the woods with all of the kids in the neighborhood all day long and wake up the next day the ONLY one without a rash. This made my life significantly easier.

And then I moved to NC and developed some pretty serious seasonal allergies. It's the pollen. It is just awful down there. And according to my research, a LOT of people who didn't grow up in the Carolinas have the exact same problem when they move there. But it's only for a few weeks about twice a year, and it's nothing that eye drops and the generic OTC version of Claritin can't fix.

Recently, I've been discovering some new and interesting allergies. For example, I'm definitely allergic to something involving the bedding in certain hotels. I have a pretty good hunch it's down pillows and comforters. Because when I stay at the cheaper chains where they only have fake down pillows, nothing ever goes wrong. But when I stayed at the Richmond Marriott for DLo's wedding in January, when I woke up each morning, whichever eye was laying on the pillow would be crazy swollen until after I showered (thank god Katie was staying with me, because I definitely felt like I needed a doctor). And this week, we've been staying at a Radisson, and there are down pillows on the bed as well as a down comforter, and the other night I woke up with an itchy rash over all parts of my body that were touching the pillow/comforter region. Fortunately, I always travel with Benadryl, Claritin, and Hydracortizone cream. So I was able to do something about it. But I've noticed that in the subsequent nights, as long as I remove the down pillows from the bed and make sure that the sheet is shielding my skin from coming into direct contact with the down comforter, I seem to be ok. But I mean seriously, WTF? How did this never happen until I was 26 years old? And further, I used to have a down comforter inside of a duvet cover ON MY BED that never affected me. I guess the duvet cover was a more adequate shield? Or am I just allergic to the detergent that they use here or something??????

I guess I travel a lot more now, and recently as a result of the recession, we can't always stay at Marriotts, where I have all sorts of loyalty perks and therefore always receive my requested down-free rooms (something I had requested not because I thought I was allergic, but because I HATE down pillows). But it is really annoying. Like REALLY. I don't care for having to sleep in a restricted manner and waking up itchy. It stinks. I'm ready to go back to my home bed now.

End Rant.

In other news, last night we saw Austin's famous bats. There's this big bridge over the river downtown that our hotel is right next to, and apparently over 1.5 million bats live in a cave underneath it, which is totally gross. But as soon as the sun goes down every night, people gather on the bridge and watch as the bats all fly out and disburse to look for their food. While I don't particularly care for bats, because they are filthy flying rodents, it was actually pretty cool. And sweet jesus, there were a lot of them.

Today we went to the outlet mall, which was AWESOME. Thank god we went at 10am though, because by the time we left at 2 it was crowded and effing hot outside. I even got out of there spending only $100, which was awesome. I got a pair of shoes, a shirt, a skirt, and a dress. Pretty successful I think. There was a bag I loved at Coach, but I'm trying to conserve money and it was $250, which I did not want to spend. Also, the store had about 1000 people in it and I was TOTALLY OVER IT as soon as I walked in (I was both hungry and hot at that point, which is a potentially lethal combination).

Tomorrow after brunch I think we're just going to hang by the pool. We had wanted to explore the trails around the lake, but it's over 100 degrees out during the day...and I just don't think I can do that. We need to start coming here in November or something to make this more tolerable.

Happy Birthday to me.

Celebratory (half) slice of cake from Whole Foods. I may or may not have also had pancakes for breakfast (emphasis on the may).

We went to the most amazing cowboy boot store EVER last night. Here's the link. I loved at least 5 pairs, and every single one of them cost at least $400. So I refused to try any on, because if I'm going to buy a pair of $400 shoes, it's going to be the ones I posted about last week. Not cowboy boots that I'll wear once a week to line dancing lessons. But if I lived in Texas, I'd have about 15 pairs.

Hitting the BR sale tonight. Big day. I'm old.

Hi from Austin!

Hello all! I'm coming to you live from Austin for the next week and a half. I've been here for nearly 48 hours, and I've only been to the US's Largest Whole Foods one time. This is a tragedy. However, it is a tragedy that involved Susan and I eating dinner while splitting an entire bottle of Shiraz/Cabernet blend in the Whole Foods restaurant last night, so it is acceptable. After dinner, we wandered around the store for about a half hour until Susan felt sober enough to drive back to the hotel, which is downtown this time around (yay!). We're staying right on the 10.5 mile trail loop around the lake, and I intend to investigate it via foot or bike at some point this weekend (that point will be either before 8am or after 8pm, as it is hotter than hell here).

Anyway, I don't have a whole lot to report yet because most of our exploring will be done this weekend, but I wanted to say a quick hello. Also, I wanted to remind everyone that my birthday is Thursday, so only two more days to overnight mail me gifts (ha). Blake gave me the purple 16GB nano I've been wanting for MONTHS, as well as the EA Active Wii game Sunday night. I didn't get to play with the game much yet because I had to leave town, but I look forward to checking it out.

I'm sure I'll have updates to come soon. Especially since I found out today that there is an outlet mall here that is heralded as "the third largest shopping destination in the world" and includes a Neiman Marcus OUTLET. I've never seen one of those, so I clearly MUST check it out. Ciao!

Crazy Cat Lady - a picture update

I unloaded my camera a week or so ago, so I thought I'd entertain with a few new cat pictures. Also, I've included a picture of the TV/entertainment unit/speakers that I blogged about in like January but never posted pictures of (because I'm a liar). Enjoy.

Pretty much all Wylie does is sleep, so here he is.

Sleeping in his favorite box.

Norman likes to sleep on my suitcase a lot.

He's also a fan of the box.

And he appreciates my taste in eveningwear.

Norman's favorite time of the week is when he makes it impossible for me to change the sheets.

"This remote is mine."

They think they're people occassionally. Sometimes they sleep like this at night...directly on top of Blake.

Silly Kitties.



This is where all of our money went.

And now back to work I guess. Boo. It's hard to work in the summer. Seriously.

Torture

I have a problem. I am OBSESSED with these Stuart Weitzman shoes. I have been stalking them at Nordstrom's for MONTHS waiting for a sale. Because at present, $400 is too much to spend on shoes...I'm trying to save money for Italy, especially now that I'm taking a 12 week paycut in return for extra vacation time (totally worth it).

And then we went to Chicago, and as I was passing the Stuart Weitzman store, there was a huge Sale sign in the window and I went in, and THEY WERE ON SALE. In a size 7. That was WAY too big. I usually wear a 6.5, but my feet are fat, so 7 is generally doable. Not this time. I might even need a 6 due to how big they were. I figured no big deal, I'll go on the website and order them.

Not so. Apparently this was a limited time, store only sale. And of course there are no stores in NC. So I go to Nordstrom's website and they are on sale. If you have feet bigger than a size 9. F. What's a girl to do (other than pray that someone gets them for her for her birthday in two weeks)? I mean really. LOOK HOW PRETTY.

That is all.

Things that are awesome

And probably worth the astronomical price? I got my Rosetta Stone Italian software yesterday and tried it out for about an hour and a half. And IT IS AWESOME. To be fair, though, everything that was happening I did learn in high school and remembered as soon as I saw it. But I feel like I retained it really well this time. I have high hopes. The microphone is a bit sensitive and didn't care for some of my pronunciations, but otherwise it was a good time.

Blake wasn't home yet when I was trying it out (he was playing in yet another flag football game with the team that is terrible and makes him enraged), but I'm sure he's going to be laughing at me quite a bit when he hears me attempting to speak into my headset. He'll get a nice preview of that this weekend. I'm trying to do one "objective" per week so I can be solid when I go to Italy in October.

Side note: does anyone else think The Hangover looks HILARIOUS? I think we may go see it tomorrow night. Anyone in Charlotte up for a 10:00 show at the Epicenter? You can get booze there...

Quickie Update/Long Awaited Update

I don't have much time, and, as per usual, I forgot to take pictures at Dan and Leeann's wedding. But I stole some via facebook, so here's pics of what I did for Memorial Day weekend. The wedding was on Saturday night and was beautiful and probably very expensive. It was good times. The next day, a large group gathered at the Braves game, where the Buerglers continued to buy us drinks. If there's one thing I've learned about the Buerglers, it's that they enjoy booze.

Don't know if you can see it, but the theatre where the reception was had Dan and Leeann's names up in lights all weekend!

Ceremony.

Happy couple commences drinking.

Reception shot.

Braves game crew.

That's it for now, congrats to Dan and Leeann and I hope you're having fun in the Caribbean (I am hating you from my cube even as we speak).