Bon Voyage! I'm leaving for Jordan on Saturday and I'm thinking I won't have time to post anything tomorrow. So, for my extremely small crowd of people who peruse my babbles, I'll not be babbling again until after the 31st of July.

"Jordan?" you ask. Yes, my cousin (my dad's brother's son) is getting married. He's the eldest boy, and so it's this big hoopla (you know....cuz he's a boy and Arab's love to have big hoopla's over their eldest boys getting married). So, I'm flying in from the good 'ol US of A to see my cousin get married. But, honestly....I'm mainly doing it just to spend time with family again. I haven't seen them for about 6 years and I figure I'm overdue for a visit. My brother and his family will be there, too. It should be fun, but exhausting. I'm sure I'll have pictures and posts once I return.

Oh, and I think I'm going to have to scan in some high school photos soon. I found an old box of photos during my move and they made me giggle. Since all the people who happen to read my blog are from high school, I figured it might be fun. Woody....there is this one of you where you were OBVIOUSLY not happy. I think you were in the process of having a fight or breaking up with one of your girlfriends (the younger one that I don't remember her name). It makes me laugh. I'll definitely post that one. :)

Mosquito bites are horrible! I have barely been outside and I have about 8 bites already. It's ridiculous how much mosquitos like me. I have about 5 bites around my ankles (since I wear capree pants) and three on my arms. AArgh! When I was little and we would go visit my grandparents in Jordan, their house would be packed with mosquitos because their screen were full of holes (and they didn't have air-conditioning). So, at night, my mom would tuck me all in with nothing exposed except my face. The next morinng I would wake up with about 10 welts on my face. They are evil. I don't kill bugs ever....I even set flies free if they get into the house. But mosquitos deserve to die in my book. They attack, eat me, and leave an aftermath of itching torment. It's horrible. See the attached picture of me at a 4th of July party getting eaten by mosquitos.

I moved this weekend! And it was tough...but it's mostly done! In an effort to forget my moving woes, I spontaneously decided that I needed to go out Saturday night and have some fun.....something I haven't done in a long, long time. I mean, I've had fun, but I haven't "gone out on the town" to party down in months. So, I called my good friends, James and Seth. Seth couldn't make it, so James and I went to The Blue Cactus. It's a bar that does salsa dancing on Saturday nights. IT WAS SO MUCH FUN! I wore a skirt so that it would flail out when I spun and wore my hair tied tightly back like the flamenco dancers do....sorry, I'm giving too many girly details. ANYWAY, after two Long Island Iced Teas and a few hours of dancing, I finally got home at about quarter till two. It was a blast. I have had about 6 lessons for salsa dancing but hadn't actually gone out salsa-ing until this last weekend. I went salsa dancing once in Denver, but I had never danced salsa before. i had the best time dancing ever that night. I must have danced with about 10 different people, and half of them didn't even speak English (Denver has a huge Hispanic population...I think it's about 30%). That's what got me hooked and now I'm going to try to go dancing whenever I can.

Some landlords are crooked. My current landlord is a jerk and I made the mistake of signing on for another year with him (a different house with the same landlord). Why on earth would I do this? Because the deposit transfers over to that house and I don't have to come up with about $2000 in rent/deposits in order to move into a place.

But yeah....he has this clause in his lease that states that tenants are responsible for repair and replacement of appliances if they need it. WHAT? There aren't too many perks to renting. Renting is actually a stupid thing to do because you're just pouring your money away rather than investing it. BUT, one of the perks of renting is that the crap in it isn't yours and so if it breaks down, you don't have to worry about it. NOT SO with my landlord. So, I did some digging and it turns out that what he's doing isn't even legal (at least I don't think it is from interpreting the information I found). Apparently there is a Warranty of Habitability law that states a landlord having certain obligations, including upkeep of appliances if they were on the premises of the rental unit at the start of a lease. And, the law also states that even if the landlord says shit in their lease about not having to repair appliances, that they have to anyway. In other words, they can't waive away this law.

So, to sum it up, my landlord is full of it. I'll sign his dumb lease and then when something breaks down, I'll inform him that he is full of it. That will be fun. Unfortunately, I don't have time to find another place because I have to move this weekend.

Moving is hard, yet I seem to do it almost every year. This month is my moving month. I'm just moving down the street (literally, only three blocks down the same street where I currently live), but I'll be saving 400 bucks per month in rent. Prior to this I lived with a friend for a few months after living in Denver for 6 months. Prior to that was the place where I lived longer than 1 year....that was in Bloomington while going to grad. school. I lived in that apartment for 1 year and 10 months. Since 1997, every year before grad school I moved. Man....I just can't stay put. And I don't anticipate staying at the new place longer than a year, either. I have no idea what will happen....maybe I'll buy a house (yeah right), maybe I'll move to Denver, maybe I'll just become homeless and travel the world.

I suppose at some point I'll find some stability in my life and I'll be able to say "Ok, this is where I want to be because this place feels like home and I feel like I belong." That will be nice. I look forward to that time of my life.

My poor little Geo! It died on me yesterday. So sad. Yes, I'm driving the same 1991 red Geo Prizm that I was driving back in high school. I drove it yesterday for a jaunt across Indianapolis and the temp started to get hot. I parked it and the temp got up into the red and smoke started coming out from under the front hood. Not cool. I then stepped out and saw that there was a pool of anti-freeze under her. Since I was about 30 minutes away from home, I had to call a towing service. Since it was July 4th when all this happened, I just had her towed to my house since nothing would have been open.

I guess the next question once I find out the damage and repair cost will be - to repair or not to repair. She only has a trade-in value of about $350. But getting a new car means having car payments. What a pain in the ass. Can I really give up my baby Geo?? Such a good little car. We've been through so much together. *sigh*

Softball rocks! The last time I played softball was in high school with fellow band people and I sucked. I still suck, but I'm better than I used to be. I can actually hit the ball now, and I made it to first base once!!! Yes, this is something I'm excited about.

Ok, so our team sucks and we lose every time, but we are technology people! You can't expect a bunch of tech-geeks to go out there and beat jocks at a sport. It's all about the the fun....for real. As my exceptionally good friend put it, "I guess this is just one more case where brains don't beat brawns. "

Exploring Indianapolis......hmmmm. Ok, so that doesn't sound too exciting, does it. But, I figure if I'm going to be here for a little while to save up money, I might as well explore the city a bit. One great thing about my job is that I've met some really wonderful people and met some more wonderful people through them.

So, my new good friend, James, and I have decided that we are going to explore Indianapolis offerings. We will eat, drink, be merry and post our critiques, thoughts, descriptions of the places we go on a website geared for the single 20-somethings in Indianapolis. Of course, I'm almost not in my 20-somethings anymore, but that is beside the point. I think it will be fun. We even thought up a name for ourselves....we are "The Dangerous Duo." Cool, eh? My goal for the day is to create a form that we fill out for each place we go to. I also need to create a website, but I need to figure out a design for it, first. I'm always so particular with my website design, so this might take awhile. I'll be sure to post the website once it's up and running. I know how excited all of you must be to FINALLY have a website about Indianapolis single-life. Wait....I'm not sure Indianapolis really has a single-life, so it might just be useful for me and my five single friends. Oh well.