07.15.02 - 7:06 p.m.

I am BACK! Even though I first had to read Bassetta-letta's diary and think on all the excitement in J-town I would have missed had I stayed (or not). And I had to hustle my ass back to work today and crawl through a mountain of free books, dumb press releases, otherwise useless mail, contracts, vacation requests, time sheets, and one empty fax toner that no one saw fit to replace the ENTIRE WEEK I was on vacation. Hmmmm. But what else should I expect? I'm an assistant, and at least I'm not answering phones or cleaning falcon shit off conference room chairs.

But I digress. I suppose I should be all Dan-like about recounting the vaca and do it chronologically. So I'll start with the Fourth and see how it goes. Perhaps I will veer onto some crazy tangential winding mind path as I go, but I will start at the very beginning. A very good place to start.

The Fourth was spent at Uncle Chic's pool, or IN Uncle Chic's pool, rather, since it was 100 frickin degrees out and every time I drank a single measly Corona I would get all lightheaded and have to consume major quantities of water until I felt normal again. We ate fried things, and I felt guilty for the men slaving over the hot grills and fryers but that's what men do and it's not like I was forcing the party upon them. People talked about babies and I tried to smile but felt like my face was frozen into a grimace of horror anyway. This was a very trying trip for wedding and baby convo, though I don't want to get into my domestic issues at the moment. Maybe when we get to the wedding portion of the trip.

So I got tired, and went back to Dan's house to play with Oreo (official weight: 14 pounds) and do laundry for the upcoming pilgrimage. Then I watched Annie on Fox Family and the Britney and Madonna concerts on HBO. That more or less covers the Fourth.

The next day we headed off for the sunny climes of western PA, rolling into the Jolly J around 3. The original plan was to hit Idlewild before the Pirates game, but we were tired of driving and felt like having my speed demon father take us into Pittsburgh and buy us dinner. Plus, I was convinced traffic and construction would snarl me up and I would once again find myself on the wrong, industrial side of the city....

Um. I have to go to Whole Foods before Dan gets home. So the Pirates game and the Dipsy Doodle (oh yeah!) will have to wait.