Susan has been without her computer for two weeks. Two weeks!
One week went by while Susan dragged herself over miles of molten concrete and the second week was eaten up by the husband forgetting to pick the computer up every single day.

Anyway, the children adjusted very well to using their father's laptop, so first thing Susan did when she got hers back was to change the password & lock them out. G'bye kids.

The second thing she did was to import her vacation pictures and who doesn't love vacation pictures!

Here's some jelly fish from the aquarium in Baltimore

And, proof that she was in Philadelphia

She spent the hottest night of her life with Abe

Then saw him again the next day

She visited the fantastically ornate Jefferson Building at the Library of Congress 

Which is directly across the street from the wonderful Capitol 

 

These girls are in the sculpture garden of the Hirschorn Museum 

During this trip Susan found the lovely Sackler Museum

She took her children to see the Wall

Then over to the Jefferson Memorial

And looked across to the White House 

Then everyone went to Chinatown for dimsum and Susan had a kumquat mojito or two.

The End. 

It's already been well documented how poorly Susan does in the heat, how she immediately and completely decompensates leaving only the extremely rotten parts of her personality in evidence. Heat and Susan are not friends, they can't even give a civil nod as they pass one another on the street. And, don't even mention that f*cking b*tch, humidity. Oh, how she hates humidity!

Susan walked on boiling hot pavement all week, first through Philadelphia then through Washington, D.C.

Susan walked till she couldn't walk any more, then somehow found the strength to keep going specifically, but not limited to, the Lincoln Memorial. It was the hottest place Susan had ever been at 10pm, like wading through an airless, steamy landscape, she could barely put one foot in front of the other. The husband referred to their nighttime trek as the death march.

At the end of the next day after walking a thousand miles across the surface of the sun Susan saw the Lincoln Memorial and said
Ooh, I'll be right back then sprinted away like a gazelle to ascend the steps and pay her respects again.

You don't get much better than Lincoln is what Susan thinks.

She had a wonderful, educational, visually spectacular trip and didn't even get blisters or a sunburn, although she got two mosquito bites and a cramped toe had to be massaged back into shape.

Susan and her family went to see
this exhibit in Philadelphia and upgraded their tickets to include admission to this IMAX movie. The theatre was set up in extreme stadium style with plush seats and a dome shaped screen which took up the entire overhead space, much like a giant umbrella. Susan happily settled into the air conditioned comfort of her situation and studied the screen before the movie began. It was made of many, many fabric topped panels behind which were the speakers and other things of a technical nature. The lights went away, the titles started and a deep masculine voice began explaining how the giant screen worked. The audience was advised that some may experience a dizzy feeling, but to close their eyes and the feeling would go away. If one had to leave, they were to climb upward to the back of the theatre and once they exited the doors would lock & that would be it.
Susan wondered who would have to leave.

The movie began with a great, swooping aerial view of the desert. It was right on top of her.
She immediately panicked and closed her eyes.
I don't like this.
She waited a moment, it was only a movie, she's sat thru IMAX movies before.
She tried again.
It was too much, she bolted up to the back of the theatre and out the doors.

Claustrophobia: you don't always see it coming.

Susan is now the mother of two teenagers.
She can't get by anymore with the ambiguous reference to medium sized children. Alas.

The thirteen year old girl spends her days reclining in front of a fan reading. Or drawing. All day. A summer's worth of glorious leisure time to jump in the pool and pal around with friends and paint her toenails and play with the dog.

Her fifteen year old boy has a gig as an unpaid camp counsellor which he takes very seriously; getting up & out on time and dressing like a pirate when mandated. It's his third summer as such, he calls it going to work, Susan reminds him that one can't call it work if one doesn't get paid. It's the same thing she sez to her self-employed husband.

If the kids are getting older then Susan's getting older too. She's adjusted pretty well to her advancing decrepitude. She just needs to know that somewhere out there is somebody older than her.

She really didn't get it together until she became a working mother. Her five years as a stay at home mom mixed pleasure with depression and loneliness. Being forced to return to work with small children made her figure out how to get stuff done. That notwithstanding, she's still lazy and not too smart about some things and erupts easily over nonsense and never met a magazine that she didn't want to keep stacked in a corner and would rather go to sleep than meet her marital responsibilities.

And, speaking of working mothers; poor JLo, eh?

Susan's f*cking computer is out of commission again.
Did you hear her put her fist through the wall?
How about when she was throwing sh*t all around the house, did you hear that? The only thing that kept her from really going crazy was that it wasn't her hard drive. Again. The point of entry for the power cord will cost $130 to be soldered back in place. Until that magical transaction occurs she's sitting at the dining room table using the husband's relic, the one she spilled sangria on.

So many exciting things have happened to Susan since last she blogged.
First, she had a piece of home made chocolate cake with peanut butter filling that just ruined her for any other cake.

Next, a recurring house guest sent her an ice cream maker, which is a bloody awesome gift to give someone. Susan's daughter, the floor installer, immediately made strawberry ice cream. This was followed by the most painfully tart and sweet lemon sorbet, which got eaten up by a house full of puckery faced guests. Doesn't a limey, minty mojito sorbet sound fantastic? Yes, it does!

Then, Susan's friend GP came for a visit with her little dog, Sadie who was immediately set upon by Lucy. Sadie was snatched up in Lucy's pit bull teeth and shaken from side to side making a reality of Susan's worst expectations. Lucy went at Sadie twice, ignoring all hysterical instructions to the contrary, then released the pup and stood calmly looking at Susan.

Miraculously, there was no blood and Sadie walked away without so much as a limp although the dogs cannot be in each other's company. So, when one is inside the other is outside. When both must be inside, one is upstairs and the other downstairs.
Oh, my.

3:30 am GP awakened Susan with Sadie's having trouble breathing! Susan stumbled out in her underwear to research the address of the 24 hour veterinary  hospital in her county. She remembers a story told by Cousin Lisa's brother, Captain Andy, of his own dog's emergency followed by the general location of the hospital and 'if ever you need one'
Susan sent GP off with directions and the prophetic
It's gonna be expensive.
And it was.
Susan's in for half.

Oh, and Susan would like everyone to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to her daughter, a brand new teenager!

Susan and her family are going on a road trip next week, can you guess where?

Alright, alright, calm down everybody. No black walls.

Susan's little sister recommended Susan paint the kitchen the color of Lucy the Lucky Pit Bull which is such a dark brown it may as well be black. Susan thinks she's just going to choose something a few shades darker than the newly painted cabinets and be done with it.

In the meantime Miss Twelve helped her father install a new linoleum tile kitchen floor. Susan was onsite during the critical initial stage to argue about how they should be placed. When she saw how enthusiastic and capable the daughter was Susan left the room to search for Celebrity Rehab on TV.

When she returned she was impressed with their progress, almost half the floor was done. Under closer inspection it was determined that the tiles were only sort of straight. Susan pulled them all up and made the team start over, this time under her supervision.

Miss Twelve displayed a wonderfully professional demeanor, free of complaining or pouting or anger. She stuck with it & finished as much of the floor as she could before everybody got sick of the project and quit for the evening.

Oh, and Susan would like everyone to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to her mommy.

What do you think of black walls?
Susan's kitchen is very small, it's more like a pass thru from the livingroom to the dining room.
It's really the perfect location for black walls.
But first she's got to paint the ceiling.

Susan got bleach in her eye. Ow!
She was cleaning the bathroom using her regular glasses in lieu of protective eye wear when a single drop of bleach went airborne and scored a direct hit. Pow! Immediately Susan's eyeball burst into flames. She flushed it with water like a crazy person but it still smoldered for the rest of the day.

She took her Marilyn Manson eye and started prepping the kitchen cabinets to be painted. They were sporting an undercoating of grease topped with a layer of dog hair. She green cleaned them with rubbing alcohol and a surprisingly small amount of physical effort.

Next came the disassembly, which she left to the husband; fourteen doors and two piles of hardware. Then the priming then the painting. Priming is easy because you don't have to be neat, but painting requires two coats with 24 hours drying time in between. Susan doesn't want to mislead anyone into thinking that she knocked this project off quickly. Nay! It's taken three days and she's still working on it. She fears that when she's done she'll have to paint the walls too.

It's pretty certain that she'll have to paint the walls.