The Zoo over Ambuscade Street

It doesn't hit me nearly as often anymore, but there are those strange occasions where I sit back, stunned, and realize that damn but I live in the middle of nowhere!

Take today, for example. We ran out of milk, and rather than driving half an hour to the closest real grocery store, I decided to go to one of the strange little "corner stores" we have around here. The closest one is almost within walking distance, but it scares me. I have no idea if or when it's open, and I'm convinced that I'm going to walk in and see hanging deer caracasses (they have scales for weighing your hunting catch, so this isn't completely baseless). I decided to keep going about another five miled to Keystone.

I walk in, and go to the milk fridge. And look on in shock as I realize...that there's no skim milk. At all. Anywhere in there. Nor is there any empty spot where skim milk should be. They...don't carry skim milk.

That's when it hit me today - I'm so far out in the country that I have to drive half an hour to get skim milk! Are these people all barbarians? I suppose I'm lucky that they had milk at all, considering the number of cows in the area. I don't know what kind of cows they are - I wouldn't know a meat cow from a dairy cow if my life depended on it.

You all remember my sister-in-law Bridezilla, right? She's an endless font of amusement. She's pregnant as well (err...I guess I can't say that anymore, can I?), due at the end of March, and frightfully bitter that Rachel A) Got pregnant first and B) Also had a boy. Frightfully bitter, as only Bridezilla can be. Because, of course, both were premeditated just to piss her off. The world does revolve around her, after all.

She didn't go to Rachel's shower, because she was "on bedrest." She somehow managed to go to a bar that night, though. Anyway, her shower's apparently in two weeks. At my mother's house. The first indication my mother recieved that the shower was at her house was when she got the invitation. This prompted a frustrated "She's so uncouth!" from my mother, which is the rough equivalent to sailor-class swearing and threats of eternal damnation.

I'm torn about this. I mean, I'm going, despite my passionate hatred for baby shower games (although if there are dipers containing smushed candy bars, I'm so leaving and going to hang out at the comic store instead). I'm not getting her anything near as nice as I got my sister, though, and I feel guilty about that. I just...don't feel like spending more than $60 on the girl (I guess boy would be more appropriate here), which isn't a small amount, but I still feel guilty.

She's just so hard to deal with. And I had my fill of narcissistic borderline personalities in the first eighteen years of my life, thankyouverymuch. And I very much fear that this will be The Return of Bridezilla, or perhaps The Birth of Momzilla.

Rawr!