Oh My Gosh You Guys

2011 Checklist

2012-01-01T21:17:00.000-05:00

I'm not much of a meme person, but I haven't been in a mood to write anything lately (or, you know, since early October), so I'm using this to get back into posting. Hopefully. So! Here we go. Don't get your hopes up; it was really a pretty boring year.

1. What did you do in 2011 that you'd never done before?
Sang karaoke, met Coolio, laughed at something on the Big Bang Theory... that might be it. Those are all pretty major accomplishments though, so.

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I didn't make any last year, and I won't make any this year. I guess I could say I am going to eat better but holy shit, I need to do that, resolution or not.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yes - my boss had a baby boy in November, and a good friend/former co-worker's wife had a boy in mid-December.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
A high school classmate of mine died of a horrible form of cancer in May. We were not in touch recently, but we were fairly close in school. It was the first illness/death that I've dealt with in the age of Facebook, and that made things both easier to keep informed of, and creepy.

5. What countries did you visit?
I stayed domestic this year. Spent an awesome girls weekend in Vegas to celebrate Mrs. Irritation's 40th birthday, and made a couple trips to New York and Cincinnati for work.

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
My husband to be employed full-time again.

7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
February 17, the day J lost his job; August 15, the day I brought Randy Mewman home.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Um, keeping my house out of foreclosure? Downer, I know, but we had some scary months.

9. What was your biggest failure?
I would have liked to have done more career-wise: getting additional training/certification or at least interviewing for new positions. Both were at least partially out of my control, but I wasn't exactly aggressive on either front.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
No, thank God.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
My kitten, Randy Mewman. I had been apprehensive about adopting a new cat while J was unemployed, because I didn't want them to spend all day bonding while I was at work. I wanted it to be *my* kitty. Turns out I needn't have worried. Randy is totally mine. He loves everyone, but I get most of his affection, and that's what matters.

12. Where did most of your money go?
Paying bills. There wasn't much left beyond that, but I'm glad we made it through the year without major financial disaster.

13. What did you get really excited about?
Meeting Coolio in Vegas, the release of The Muppets (and seeing it with Shelly & her awesome kid)

14. What song will always remind you of 2011?
Nothing specific, but I played the shit out of Weird Al's Alpocalypse and Steven Page's Page One albums on commutes to & from work a lot, so I'll pick "Perform This Way" and "A New Shore".

15. Compared to this time last year, are you:
-- happier or sadder? Sadder
-- thinner or fatter? A teeny tiny bit thinner.
-- richer or poorer? Poorer. Good lord, poorer.

16. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Cooking meals at home

17. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Eating bar food for dinner

18. How did you spend Christmas?
At home with J & the kids, and I went with my sister to visit my nephew Connick, who's in a residential treatment facility for autistic kids. I didn't see my mom or my other nieces & nephews & won't until this week. We have too many different complicated schedules, so we do everything with whichever piece of the group we can get together at any time.

19. What was your favorite TV program?
The League, Psych, Sons of Anarchy. I can't pick just one. That's like asking one of you mom types to pick your favorite kid.

20. What were your favorite books of the year?
The biggest reason is probably because it's the most recent, but In the Woods by Tana French. I read some others that I really enjoyed, too: The Girl She Used To Be by David Cristofano, The Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton, and The Replacement by Brenna Yovanoff were all very nice discoveries.

21. What was your favorite music from this year?
Weird Al's Alpocalype, They Might Be Giants's Join Us, Steven Page's Page One.

22. What were your favorite films of the year?
Horrible Bosses, Bridesmaids, and The Muppets

23. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 38 this year. J & I went out to breakfast, then spent way too much time dealing with car registration/title issues, and I went to a minor league baseball game while J umped a rec league game. Afterward we met for a couple beers.

24. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
If J had been able to find anti-depressant drugs that don't have the side effect that they all seem to. Ahem.

25. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?
Undergarments are overrated.

26. What kept you sane?
Twitter, my online & offline friends, and my kitty. In no particular order.

27. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.
Don't fret so much. Things have a way of working out. At least this year they seemed to.

Shit 'n' Stuff

2011-10-07T18:55:00.000-04:00

So. Been a while. I’ve been really preoccupied with (a) a big project at work and (secondively) fretting over money at home. There’s been plenty of stuff to write about; I just haven’t been able to get my brain to focus on things long enough to get a post done. Here’s some bullets to get us caught up.

My new kitten, Randy Mewman, is SO AWESOME. Everyone in the house is in love with him, and he’s very fond of everyone right back. Well, everyone except Fritz the dog. He is trying to start a turf war; every night when Fritz comes in, Randy occupies Fritz’s bed and will not leave. I lift him out and put him on the other side of the gate, and he jumps right back over & dives into the bed. Fritz is too old to fight, but won’t lay down with Randy. He waits for me to remove the cat in a more permanent fashion before he settles down for the night. J is more enamored than he will usually admit, although he did say once that he’s happier since we got the cat (and he is – noticeably). He persistently refers to him as “your cat”, which is just fine with me. I’m glad they get along, but I want Randy to favor me. And he does. Nicole is my biggest competition. When she comes over, he hangs out in her room. But she’s only at the house a couple days at a time, so I can live with it.
Crazy Bitch has sunk to a new low of despicableness. I won’t go into it today, but I’m putting it here as a teaser & will post about it soon. You’re not going to believe it.
J is still unemployed. Going on 8 months now. Hence the fretting.
I’m doing some travel for work, after well over 3 years of being stuck at home. I used to visit our other offices fairly frequently but budget restrictions have kept me in Cleveland for a while now.

Last week I was in New York, which is where one of my 2 favorite out-of-town co-workers is. New York has Hot Bill, and DC has Gay Paul.

GP, HB, and I all like to go out drinking, so whenever 2 of us are in the same city it’s awesome. And when all 3 of us are in the same city, it’s trouble (but oh, it’s the best kind of trouble).

Anyway, I got to go out with HB last week, and it was one of those nights where you get the bill and you’re like “We had HOW MANY beers?” while still, you know that they didn’t even charge you for everything you drank, so you actually had HOW MANY plus about 4.
I’m home now for a couple weeks, but GP is coming to Cleveland next week, so he & I will go out and he’ll tell me over drinks the things he would do to HB if he weren’t married. You know, like all best girlfriends do.
The week after that, HB is coming to town, so he & I will go out for drinks but the sticker shock will be somewhat milder than it is in Manhattan. I already promised I’d take him to one of my neighborhood haunts, and J will probably join us, and I will just completely die from being surrounded by that much hottness.
The last week of October I’m off to Shelly’s neck of the woods & I get to see her and Rizzo and I can’t freaking WAIT. She’ll tell me all of the awesomeness I missed at the Blathering, and I will start a Blathering 2012 fund immediately.
I’ll spend Halloween & the rest of that week back in New York, then it’s back home to let my liver recuperate. At the end of November I'll be in Cincinnati, then in February I’ll have 2 weeks in Washington.

After what seemed like an eternity of not being able to focus on a book long enough to enjoy it, I read 2 in a row that I really liked.

The Replacement, if you’re into YA paranormal stuff, was quite good. It's not a vampire novel but 'd put it along the same lines. I happened on it unexpectedly and was surprised how much I liked it, and how moved I was by one particular scene. I recommended it to Erica who also liked it very much.
After that I read The Girl She Used To Be, which is about a woman who’s spent her life in the Witness Protection Program, and ends up being found by, and falling for, the son of the family she’s being protected from. There are a few places where it gets fairly hokey, but overall it’s a nice easy read. Plus, the main character/narrator is really into math, and on the second page she talks about how satisfying it is to write a geometric proof, and I was hooked. (I used to LOVE writing proofs, especially in college. That final step, where I could state “Hence, [conclusive statement]” was such a thrill.)

Speaking of what a nerd I am, I saw They Might Be Giants in concert a couple weeks back and holy shit were they good. I missed them last time they were in town; they sold out too fast for me. This time, I bought my ticket 20 minutes after it went on sale, and carried it around in my wallet for something like 5 months, checking every other day to make sure I still had it on my person. The day of the show I spent all day at the office nervously thinking about how I had to MAKE SURE I left on time so I could get home, change, and get to the venue. I have a 25 minute ride home from the office, and a 30 minute drive to the venue. For a 9PM show. I don’t know. Anyway, I ran home, changed, and drove straight to the club, planning to get some cash at the bank next door and grab something to eat in the area. When I got there, the bank next door turned out to have closed 3 years ago, so all I had was the money in my wallet, which meant that for dinner that night I had one beer. I would have tried to find another ATM, but instead I got in line to wait for the doors to open. I stood there for like an hour, then when I got inside I grabbed my dinner and staked out a good spot for the show. And didn’t move except once when I had to go to the bathroom & I asked the mom next to me to watch my spot (did I mention I was at the concert alone? It’s for the better; I’m kind of embarrassing to be seen near at these things. My nephew who was mortified by me at a Weird Al show will corroborate.).
I'm thinking of doing one of those accent vlogs that is all the rage these days. Except I don't have a webcam. So yeah.

Weird, Right?

2011-08-05T15:01:00.000-04:00

There's a woman in my department who's getting married in a few weeks. Our administrative assistant arranged a surprise bridal shower for her, to take place today over lunch.

There's another woman in the department who is only in the office 3 days a week (she's a consultant, but she's been working here for like 7 years so she's pretty much one of us). She was invited to the shower, but she was scheduled to be out today.

The consultant had apparently already planned to spend her day off downtown, taking her kids on a local trolley tour. So since she was going to be right here, she brought her kids to the shower. Her 12-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son. She brought them to the office to attend a bridal shower for someone who didn't even know she was getting a shower. There are a few people in the office who know the kids, but the bride's not among them.

That's weird, right? The bride and the consultant aren't close; they are just both part of the same 40-person department. Can you imagine being thrown a shower and having two strange kids brought in - at the office? Can you imagine ever thinking it would be okay to bring your kids to a work lunch thing?

This probably bugs me more than it should. Probably because the consultant also happens to be my chatty cube-mate who talks all the damn time, and I cherish the days she's out of the office. But it's also just plain weird.

Scratch "Caterer" Right Off the Career Aptitude List

2011-07-25T16:56:00.000-04:00

So, Junior graduated from high school this year. We told him we'd host a graduation party at our house for him, but we couldn't do it right away because we were in the middle of getting work done on the house. But by the time he was at the house for the annual 2-week summer visit, the house & yard should be more amenable to entertaining.

Cut to a couple weeks ago, when on a Saturday night I was on my break at Job 2, and I grabbed my phone from my locker to catch up on the outside world. I opened Facebook to see an event invitation. To Junior's graduation party. At my house. On a date that hadn't been run by me ahead of time.

I read the event details, and the scheduled date/time was a Friday, starting at 6:30 PM (at most one hour after I get home from work), ending at 6:00 AM.

6 AM? Must be a typo, right? Nope. In the event details, Jr. stated "I don't know if it will actually last until 6 AM, but hey, if it does, it does." To which I was all OH REALLY?? Oh, and he put 150 people on the event list - including ZERO relatives - and added to the details "If I forgot to include anyone go ahead and let them know. It's an open event." OH MY GOD.

So I get home from work that evening, talked to J, found out that they had picked the only date that worked for both of them, and they should've said something to me but in the end, it wouldn't have made a difference. No big deal. I explained that they had timed it so that when I got the date, it was too late for me to request the night off from Job 2, but too early for me to know if I'd be scheduled to work that night or not. So we'd have to wait and see, but they understood and wouldn't take it personally if I couldn't make it.

It turned out that I got scheduled to work that night, and 2 other nights the week leading up to it, and I had to put in a lot of extra time at Job 1 that week, so not only couldn't I attend the party, I wasn't going to be around to help get the house ready, go shopping, or cook.

In other words, SCORE. I was all "Have fun cleaning the house, motherfuckers!!"

The down side? Since I wasn't available to help plan/work, I really felt like I had to stay out of it completely. So when I didn't see any progress being made on getting the inside of the house straightened up, I just kept it to myself, and told them how great the backyard looked. And I asked precisely once what food they were planning to serve. And when the answer was nothing more than "hamburgers and hot dogs", I just said "are you planning any side dishes?" and left it at that. No one was going to accuse me of being a nag this time.

So anyway, the night before the party, I got home from Job 2 at about 11 PM, and Nicole was sitting in the livingroom. She greeted me with "I have to bake six batches of brownies tomorrow". Oh holy crap. J & Jr. had gone to Costco and done some shopping. I figured that they must have missed the cake order deadline, so they were subbing brownies. Then I headed to the kitchen and opened the fridge. And I saw 2 huge bags of mini candy bars (5.5 pounds EACH), and 2 36-pack boxes of Hershey bars. S'mores were on the menu, no doubt. In the pantry I found a few bags of marshmallows and a Costco-sized package (4 full-sized boxes) of graham crackers. There were several huge packages of hamburger and hot dog buns.

What I did not see: a single fruit or vegetable; a container of any party-type side dish.

The next day, I had about an hour to stop home between jobs. I headed straight for Nicole's room to get a reading on the guys' mood. She was sitting in there with the room A/C turned on, and 2 HUGE plates of brownies on her top bunk; she was keeping them in there because we hadn't turned the central air on, and she didn't want them to melt. She'd spent FOUR HOURS baking brownies, because no one took my suggestion of getting some foil pans to bake them in, so she was stuck doing 2 batches at a time & reusing the same pans. Apparently she had also been asked to make, and had flat-out refused to make, dirt cake and cupcakes.

And they had not missed the cake order deadline. There was a Costco cake in the fridge.

So here's the tally of what was bought:

1 huge cake (seriously, have you had a Costco cake? They weighh like 14 pounds)
11 pounds mini candy bars
150 frozen hamburger patties
a lot of hot dogs (didn't count these)
A bunch of chicken breast tenderloins
6 batches of brownies
72 Hershey bars
6 boxes graham crackers (a last-minute run to the store was made to pick up more before the party because they were afraid they'd run out)
4-6 bags of marshmallows (2 bags also included in the last-minute run)
2 or 4 huge bags of potato chips
0 slices of tomato
0 leaves of lettuce
0 ounces pasta salad
0 cubes of watermelon
0 sticks of carrots or celery
0 drops of salsa or any other kind of dip, even something fattening

As they were setting stuff out, Nicole said to Junior, "There are no vegetables!" and his response was "What would we need that for?"

When I got home from work, things were pretty quiet. There were only about 10 people left at the house, so my worries about things lasting into the wee hours were unfounded. I guess between 50 & 60 people showed up over the course of the night. Unfortunately NONE OF THEM ATE A DAMN THING.

Nicole never had to bring a second plate of brownies out. Maybe 20% of the cake was gone, although Junior decided that when he sliced it, he would cut the whole fucking thing into squares instead of just what was likely to be consumed.

Apparently they were going to make s'mores, but realized there were NO FUCKING STICKS FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. So, no s'mores.

A decent amount of chicken got eaten. I don't know how many burgers & dogs actually got cooked, but there were plenty left uneaten.

One bag of chips got opened, and no one ever had to freshen up the bowl. Same thing with the mini candy bars.

Good lord.

The next day, I took a leftover hot dog and a piece of cake to Job 2 for lunch. It was good, but then later in the afternoon I ended up with a tension headache (gee, where'd THAT come from?) and started to feel generally ill. My situation wasn't helped at all when I started burping the taste of hot dogs. Luckily I made it to the end of my shift and got home, where I had to tell Nicole how gross I felt. She was still ready to barf from brownie overexposure, so she sympathized. I wrapped up the conversation by saying "OK, well, have to go get this hot dog taste out of my mouth," and she responded "Fruit's good for that - OH WAIT WE DON'T HAVE ANY."

I love Nicole. That night we demanded salad for dinner.

Great Pronunciation Guide? Or Greatest Pronunciation Guide?

2011-06-21T14:44:00.000-04:00

There's a local pizza chain here named Zeppe's and on the wall next to the counter, they have a poster with their origin story. I have never read the story, though, because my eye is always drawn to one particular passage. The restaurant's namesake was named Guisseppe, Italian for "Joseph", and pronounced... well, I'll let the poster take care of that part:

That's the best they could do with that first syllable? Do you think it was a prank by someone? It has to be, right?

We Have A Winner!

2011-06-07T13:53:00.000-04:00

At long last (Sorry, I forgot to do this before I skipped town for the weekend), I am ready to declare the winner of my Pay it Forward contest!

Congratulations, T! You were the 3rd commenter so you've got a care package coming! And it's your turn to host a contest - go forth and pay it forward!

Stupidstitions (Also, Pay it Forward!)

2011-05-31T13:43:00.000-04:00

Are you superstitious? I am. Totally. I was raised that way. When I was a kid I played softball, and my dad, a superstitious softball player himself, taught me how to use my dressing routine to deal with keeping a winning streak or breaking a losing one. Not even kidding. I had to keep track of the order in which I put on the pieces of my uniform: socks, underwear, stirrups, pants, jersey, hat. (Yes, we wore stirrups and real softball pants. I played in the days when a uniform meant something, dammit). If we won that day, I got dressed in the same order the next time. If we lost, I had to make sure I made at least one change.

I'm not sure if this was the same year my team went 0-16 or not.

Anyway, I'm still superstitious. I will not speak of a good run of luck for fear of breaking it. When I was on pager duty for Job 1 a few weeks back, a major change was made on our system & everyone expected I'd get hammered with calls the first night. Instead, I got zero calls. And I wouldn't talk about it. When I was forced to (like when my boss asked me how many calls I'd gotten), I answered in a whisper and said "We can discuss it further next week".

There was one thing I was SO AFRAID of doing at Job 2 over the holidays, that I never did. And I still will not tell anyone what it was, even though we're well past the time frame where it is a real risk.

I'm not much for good luck charms, or omens, though. I don't carry anything for luck, and though I have been shat upon by half a dozen birds over the last 2 years, I have not won the lottery or had any other stroke of good fortune.

A couple weeks ago I won Erica's Pay it Forward contest, and I was all, YAY! And then I was all "Oh crap, that means it's my turn to host one now!" I mean, I knew that going in, but I never win these things, so I wasn't too worried about it. I think I'm ready to deal with it now, though. I've got luck on my brain lately so it feels right. So here we are!

If you don't know how PIF works, it's really very simple & kind of neat. To enter, just leave me a comment by 5PM Thursday 6/2 (Don't know what to say? How about telling me your favorite superstition or good luck charm?). I'll randomly choose a winner, and if you win, you'll hold a contest on your blog, and the winner of that one hosts their own, and so on. Hence the name.

What will you win? ~~I... have no freaking idea~~. A care package of yet-to-be-determined fun stuff! Maybe a lucky charm, or maybe some chocolate to help cope with a run of bad luck. Or both!

Good luck!

Synapses

2011-05-04T12:46:00.000-04:00

Last night we were watching the Indians game, and J was doing his now-typical observations of the umpire (ever since he got certified to officiate he watches the refs/umpires at least as closely as the players). He commented on how "almost no one calls strikes like that anymore" (not even kidding), and then he noticed that the home plate ump was wearing sunglasses under his facemask. He was appalled. "He's wearing sunglasses? Why is he wearing sunglasses at night?"

I answered in the only way I knew how: "So he can forget your name while you collect your claim."

This caught him off-guard. I honestly don't know how I was expected to answer in any other way, but he was all "How do you make these connections? How are 80s lyrics still taking up room in your brain?" Or something to that effect.

I've been asked similar questions before, even at work. "How do you remember that stuff?" I wish I knew how to forget a lot of it (it would leave more room for 80s lyrics). I finally started answering by saying I guess I have a really good indexing system? Or something? My internal relational database is just really well-organized, maybe.

I continued last night's conversation with J by telling him about a recent walk to the bus stop, where this all happened in my head:

I walked by a house that had some stuff in their yard that looked like super-long, curly grass, and after a second I realized that it was this wild onion plant that has invaded some lawns in my neighborhood. One house near us has so much of it that when they mow the lawn the air smells like onions. Then I was like, I guess they're wild scallions, technically, not regular onions. Then I mentally spelled it "Wyld Scallyns" because saying the phrase in my brain reminded me of the band from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Wyld Stallyns. Then I was like "Oh yeah, they're making a new Bill & Ted movie", and then I tried to decide if I'm looking forward to it or not.

Then I was like OH MY GOD STOP.

Be excellent to each other.

Big Night

2011-05-02T22:47:00.000-04:00

You'll never believe this, but we were at the bar when we learned that Osama bin Laden was killed. We had gone out to get a couple beers after J dealt with his van breaking down on the other side of town (and not being able to get a hold of me, and somehow not being pissed about it - a complete miracle). We went to Herb's, our favorite cheap hangout, where Sunday night is Karaoke Night. I've tweeted about it before; the crowd used to be mostly old people, which was awesome in many ways. They got a new DJ recently and now the singers are mostly younger, but there's still one guy, Eddie, who is in his 60s and has the most impressive shock of artificially black hair you'll ever see. But I digress. We got to the bar before 9, but there was a foursome there who was already so drunk you'd have thought it was 2 AM on a Saturday. Then there were the non-singing regulars - a bunch of middle-aged guys including one local newscaster who sit around making fun of the bad singers. That's who I hang out with.
A little later, a younger regular showed up. He is the grandson of a former Cleveland mayor, and I can't decide if he is cool or a douche. I'm leaning toward cool, but I'm not ready to commit. Anyway, he took a message up to the DJ that bin Laden was dead, and the DJ was basically like "Mr. P___ tells me that Osama bin Laden is dead. Karaoke will not stop."

So as people continued to sing, Curt, the owner/bartender turned on a different news channel on each TV in the joint, and we saw that indeed the guy was dead. I started to get a little nervous being in a crowd of drunks that size, hearing news like that (the bar is in a fairly conservative suburb). But everyone reacted about the same. Some cheering, but even that was tempered, and no one said anything offensive, and my faith in drunk Republicans was... well, I don't want to say "restored". Improved?

The music did stop for the President's speech (which happened more than 2 hours after we got there to have "a couple beers", omfg). We all watched, a couple people recorded it on their phones, and then Curt bought everyone in the house a shot of Swamp Water, the house's "specialty" (a secret mix of something that tastes decent enough, but it a muddy green color).

And then? All the singers gathered together for a heartfelt rendition of - you guessed it - "Proud to be an American". OF COURSE THEY DID.

(I fucking hate that song)

And that is how the death of Osama bin Laden led to me going to work with a hangover.

OH! I have to include this. The TV directly across from us was tuned to ABC before we had any sound from any set, and all we could see was whatever footage they had available, and a huge chiron that said "Voice of Dick Clark". This lasted a while - through multiple breaks - and I pointed it out to J and we wondered what the fuck they were asking Dick Clark's opinion for (and feeling bad for the poor chump who had to close caption that conversation). Finally, they corrected themselves. It was actually the voice of Richard Clarke, who worked for the State Department through like 5 administrations and, you know, might have something of value to offer. (But can you dance to it?)

Oh Blessed Day of Rest

2011-04-22T16:31:00.000-04:00

Sunday is the first day since January 31 that I haven't been scheduled to work at either job, and I am so excited I can hardly stand it. It comes at the end of a brutal week, where I've been at the Department Store for over 20 hours, almost missed J's birthday on Wednesday (ended up taking him out for beer after my Store shift, *then* ended up oversleeping by like 90 minutes on Thursday), and when I haven't been working somewhere I have been running around taking care of other shit. Productive things like running to Costco to pick up 1500 packets of Splenda, on the same night that J was running to the same Costco to pick up 1500 packets of Splenda.

But not Sunday. The Store is closed. J doesn't have any games to umpire. We don't have the kids. We are neither hosting nor attending a holiday dinner. We will be spending the day in pajamas, drinking very sweet coffee. It is going to rock.

Happy Easter! Whatever your plans are, I hope you have a wonderful weekend & holiday!

Provisions

2011-04-18T12:38:00.000-04:00

It has been 2 months since J lost his job. We just, this morning, ran out of Splenda.

The Night I Met H.G. Wells

2011-04-07T14:56:00.000-04:00

There is a bar I frequent on the way home from most of my retail shifts. Sometimes J meets me there, but just as often I go alone, and I enjoy it. I almost never strike up conversations with the other patrons, but occasionally someone will make small talk with me. Last Friday was just such an occasion.

I had worked a crazy shift and when I got to the bar I was looking forward to just kind of zoning out. I pulled out my phone so I could check my email and see what I'd missed on twitter. Some guy was standing next to me waiting for his takeout order, and he saw my phone and asked, "Is that an iPad?"

I suppressed my derisive geek laughter, and simply answered "No, it's a Droid X." I smiled and went back to my business.

I have no idea what the fuck he meant by his next comment but I swear he said "A Droid X? I didn't know they came in flavors!"

Really. I've gone over & over that in my head and I don't know what else he possibly could have said, or what he thought he was saying.

So then I started typing a reply to an email, and he saw me typing, and asked "Are you texting?"

"No, I'm actually sending an email."

"An email??!!?!?!?!"

I waved my hand over the phone all magic-like and said "Next I'm going to browse the web."

He grabbed his bag of food, and said "That's awful!"
I yelled after him, "No, it's awe-some!" as I saw him climb into his time machine, apparently to return to the Stone Age.

One Before March Is Over

2011-03-23T14:20:00.000-04:00

Thanks, T, for poking me to get a post in before I let March slip away completely! Not that I have anything interesting to say... but here goes.

First, an update on J. He still isn't working, but he's dealing with it really well. Sometimes I think he's taking it a little too well, but it's nice not to have him beating himself up. This week he received confirmation that he will be getting unemployment benefits, and that child support will be taken out in the correct amount. Both very good developments, especially since the last time he was unemployed, they calculated child support based on what he'd been making at his previous job, and he ended up owing more in back child support than he had even made on unemployment. It took us ages to recover from that.

Also, J just learned that because of some miscalculations (completely separate miscalulations from the unemployment snafu), he overpaid child support for several months after his back payments were caught up. This resulted in a big enough overage that he is FINISHED paying for Junior! Jr. turned 18 in January, but support ends after high school graduation. So it's only a couple months ahead of schedule, but it's a moral victory.

DISCLAIMER: Neither my husband nor I have any objection to his paying child support in the amount deemed appropriate by the state. He has never tried to avoid paying it, nor has he ever made attempts to get the amount he pays lowered for any reason. Any resentment about paying it stems from CB's apparent refusal to use the money she receives to, you know, support the children. It is purely personal, and the "moral victory" is a celebration that CB's monthly revenue from J will be decreased earlier than she was counting on, and is not meant to imply that we don't actually support Junior. Thank you.

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There are some changes happening at work that are making me very uneasy. I'm having a hard time separating what's actually scary from what I'm just being paranoid about. This is mostly due to the fact that the other people affected by the bulk of these changes are CRAZY CONSPIRACY THEORISTS and they won't stop telling me what they think is going on. I have decided to spend this week avoiding them as much as possible to see if I can get my head a little clearer. I hope it helps.

I was going to go into more detail here but then I realized that would bore the shit out of you so I deleted it. You're welcome. But I will note that I have gotten a little more active about seeing what opportunities might be available elsewhere than I've been in a while. And I'm encouraged; it seems like there are more openings for my type of work than there have ever been. So if stuff here does take a turn for the shitty, I may not be completely stuck.

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If you follow me on twitter, you know how delighted I was with the book The Radleys by Matt Haig. I started reading it on Sunday morning and was hooked immediately, and finished it while waiting for my doctor's appointment yesterday. It's about a family of vampires, but it's really more of a family drama than a vampire novel. I am not gifted at describing books without just giving you a Beck's Notes version of the whole plot so I'll leave it at that and you can click on the link to see more info, if you are interested.

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Did you catch that about my doctor's appointment yesterday? Yeah. I fought a cold for several days, and thought I had it beat. Sunday I felt fine all day without having to take anything. But Monday, it came back and completely kicked my ass. I woke up at about 3 Tuesday morning and couldn't get back to sleep because my throat hurt so bad. So I called off work, spent half the day sleeping, and went to the doctor. I always feel like such a loser when my main complaint is a sore throat - like that should be something you can just power through, or something. But my doc is pretty good about not being condescending, he wrote me a prescription for antibiotics (and a refill for my favorite headache-combatting narcotic), and even offered to write me a note to get me out of work the rest of the month. What a sweetie.

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Yeah, that's about a month's worth. See you in April!

The Segue I'll Always Regret Not Using

2011-02-25T10:54:00.000-05:00

So I was standing in the "common area" of my department this morning, talking to Brian, one of our network guys about a douchey lawyer he'd had to deal with yesterday. I said I'd seen part of the email this lawyer had sent Brian, and Brian was like "That guy is a Grade A c0ck."

Enter Ed, our interim CIO and Brian's manager for the last 10 years: "Who's a Grade A c0ck?" Brian told Ed who we were talking about, and Ed said this lawyer had contacted him yesterday & remarked that it's a good thing Brian doesn't deal with clients. Duh.

Meanwhile, I've been wanting to get a minute with Ed to tell him about J losing his job, knowing he'd have some contacts that might be useful. It took ALL MY STRENGTH not to say,

"Speaking of Grade A c0ck, J got let go last week."

Just Call Me Ms. Brightside

2011-02-23T12:45:00.000-05:00

If you follow me on Twitter, you probably know that J lost his job last Thursday. He was in the IT department of a law firm, and he'd been there for 9 years. The whole situation is kind of weird; he never got along with his boss, and in fact had been predicting getting sacked for a while now. And they fired him for cause - even though all the reasons they presented were provably false. (I feel like such a "wifey" saying that - They done my man wrong! - but it's the truth.) But when you're already in the conference room with the HR rep, how much fighting back can you do?

Anyway, the weird part is that even though he was terminated because he was supposedly so bad at his job, he got layoff-like benefits. He will get a severance package once he agrees not to sue the firm; they made his termination date March 2 so we keep our health insurance an additional month; they told him that they won't contest unemployment; and they are sending him referrals to job placement agencies.

So someone must have been on his side somewhere. Right?

Before he got this job, he was unemployed for 11 months. And it was horrible. So over the past several days, we have both been putting a lot of effort into pointing out how this time around, things look better:

He was already working on the side as a basketball/baseball/football official, so the first thing he did when he got home Thursday was to email all the assigners he knows, tell them what had happened, and ask for any available games they can send him. He started getting responses immediately. When baseball season starts, he'll be available to work day games, which will give him something to do, and could bring in a nice amount of cash.
I'm already working 2 jobs, and even at the first one I'm making more than I was then. I can't exactly take on all the bills he normally pays, but I'm hopeful that this won't wreck us like it did the first time around.
We know more people now, especially people who are likely to be able to help him find something new. I've kept in touch with at least a couple former colleagues who left my firm's HR department to take jobs as recruiters elsewhere, and we've both got friends who are recommending networking groups we had no idea existed.
The Cleveland job market is better than it was ten years ago. It's not great, but it's better. We've been put on a few lists of top cities for growth & stuff like that lately, and we have some major development coming up in the next couple years. So hopefully that will make job-hunting easier. Even so, J's told me he's going to be looking in other areas right off the bat, instead of waiting until he's exhausted all local possibilities before seeing what Columbus or Detroit might have. We can't move, but if he has to commute, so be it.
I can put him on my health insurance plan. We weren't married the last time we went through this, and my firm didn't offer domestic partner benefits back then. But now I can get coverage for us both and that is so good for my peace of mind. His too, I'm sure.
He started taking anti-depressants a few months ago. While the side effects of this range from inconvenient to devastating (to me), it's a net plus. He was severely depressed last time, sometimes to the point where I would occasionally come home from work with a sense of dread that when I got to the house I'd find him dead. So if we can prevent that, I'll find a way to deal with not getting laid.

He seems to be dealing with things pretty well right now. We've both been extremely busy for the past week - I've actually only seen him a few minutes each day, even over the weekend. But his mood is good. This time is going to be better than last time.

It has to be.

Yes I Can. But I'm Not Going To.

2011-01-31T16:41:00.000-05:00

Since November I've been working a second job as a cashier at a department store. The company I work for has a pretty nice policy, which empowers employees to do things, like reduce prices or honor out-of-date coupons, without having to check with a manager. It's pretty nice, and I end up using it way more than I ever predicted I would.

So if you come through my line, and your shirt rings up at $19.99, but the rack you got it off of was marked $13.99, just tell me. I will knock 6 bucks off the price of the shirt.

If you forgot to use your StoreBucks and they're expired, bring them in anyway. I can look them up to make sure they haven't already been redeemed, and then I'll give you the discount.

If you thought your $10 coupon, and your 15% savings pass were good starting today, and you go shopping and buy stuff you are obviously only getting because you have the coupon, and you would never pay full price for them, that's OK. Then when you get to my register and I tell you that the coupon & savings pass aren't actually good until tomorrow, I'll go ahead and give you the discount anyway.

However.

If you bring me your $10 coupon that isn't good until tomorrow, and I take it from you and unfold it to show you the effective dates, and then I can't unfold it because YOU HAVE FOLDED CHEWED-UP GUM INTO IT...

Forget it.

Boy Trouble

2011-01-30T11:47:00.000-05:00

We're having problems with Will (formerly known as Billy) right now. I started to write about the whole issue, but it's just too long. It boils down to this:

He doesn't talk to anyone.
He sleeps all fucking day.
He has just been put on academic probation at his school.
He earned an academic scholarship to his school. There is no reason for him to be failing one class and on the verge of failing a second.
He hasn't spoken a word to J in a few weeks - 2 visits ago, when he got dropped off back at his mom's house after the weekend here, he got out of the van without so much as a goodbye. When he got picked up for last weekend's visit, he didn't say a word all the way to our house.
When I made mention of his school troubles, he got so mad that I knew about them that he called his mom to come pick him up, and without telling anyone here, he left.

Here's how bad it is. Crazy Bitch called J to apologize for picking Will up. She had no idea that J didn't know he'd left. Junior actually stopped over there while he was on an errand to try to talk Will into coming back, and Will refused, and claimed that J hadn't talked to him in 4 weeks. Junior told Crazy Bitch that this wasn't true, and she replied "I know. Will doesn't talk to anyone."

You guys. Crazy Bitch said that J was right about something. Sorry if the earth shaking did damage to any of your houses' foundations.

J called Will's guidance counselor on Monday and on Tuesday, met with her in person for about an hour & a half. Crazy Bitch was not invited, and as of Tuesday had never contacted the school There is a chance that Will intercepted the academic probation letter at her house, but still.

The guidance counselor had some observations to share with J - some are just weird but indicative. The school has a rule against wearing hooded sweatshirts (it's a Catholic school with a pretty strict dress code), but Will wears one all day, and even puts the hood up during class - another big no-no. I'm not sure why, if it's such a straightforward rule, no one has asked him to go put the hoodie in his locker, but there you have it. He apparently doesn't talk to anyone at school either. At the beginning of the school year, his Spanish teacher noticed how advanced he was and asked him to test into 10th grade Spanish. He took the test, and threw it. He scored like 25%.

The counselor was going to email Will's teachers and gather whatever other information she could, but it looks like at the very least, he's dealing with some depression. The trick now is to get CB to agree to send him to counseling. This is where she falls back to her old ways. She suggested that J, Will, and I go to a counselor together. Because all the problems have to be coming from here. Probably from me. Whatever. Will has always had problems dealing with anger, back to when he was little, and his mom has always denied there was anything wrong. She refused to even look into it. So this could be a big challenge.

So that's what's going on here. I guess we had something coming - out of 4 kids, it took all the way until the 4th for "major" teenage drama to happen. We had some with Amy, for sure, but never anything that made its way into school. Hopefully this will get turned around quickly - especially if he is clinically depressed; he needs help before he starts self-medicating.

But other than that, things are great! How are all of you doing?

Lost

2011-01-21T18:33:00.000-05:00

I've been losing things lately. Things I can scarcely afford to lose. Worse, things that I really believe I've done a damn good job keeping track of.

I borrowed a book from the library a little while ago. I started reading it, reached a point where I knew it wasn't worth the time to finish, and put it somewhere I would remember to find it later to return. I never saw it again. I'm still in the phase where I can renew it (thankfully the Cleveland library system has very generous renewal periods), but I can't find it at all & I'm likely going to end up paying to replace it. It sucks; the idea of paying for a book I thought was so crappy really burns.

I have this pair of gloves that I bought last year; they're nothing fancy but I have such a hard time finding gloves that fit me that these were important. I've worn them all winter, and stored them in my car where I would be sure not to misplace them. Right? Not so much. J & I went somewhere in my car, so I moved the gloves off the passenger seat so he could sit there, and one of the gloves completely disappeared. In my fucking car. I'm pissed. I ended up buying a pair of mittens, which are very nice, but not the same.

Finally, a couple weeks ago I had a morning hair appointment. I took my beloved Starbucks travel mug full of coffee with me, and remember having it at the reception desk as I was paying & leaving. After the appointment I was in a huge rush because I had to get Junior to a basketball game, and I just can't remember if I had the mug with me when I got into the house. It doesn't seem to be in my car, and I called the salon to see if I had left it there. They didn't have it in the lost & found, so either someone lifted it from there, or I set it down somewhere really out of sight. This is the loss that hurts the worst. That mug was practically unspillable, and kept my coffee hot for HOURS. Oh, and it's going to cost me about 20 bucks to replace it.

We've got J's sister & brother-in-law coming in for an overnight visit tomorrow, so maybe at least one thing will turn up as we're cleaning to get ready for that. But I'm not optimistic.

In other news, I have to share the potato soup recipe I tried this week. This was AWESOME. It's apparently a copycat of Panera's potato cheese soup. All I know is J & I devoured it.

6 c chicken brother
6 c potatoes, peeled & chopped
1/2 tsp seasoning salt
1/4 tsp white pepper
1/4 tsp red pepper
8 oz cream cheese, cut into cubes
4 slices bacon, cooked & crumbled

Put broth, potatoes, and spices into a pot & boil until the potatoes are tender. Turn the heat to low and add the cream cheese. Cook, stirring frequently, until the cheese is all melted. Serve with bacon as garnish.

I used regular cream cheese, since I already had it in the fridge, but I'm going to try it with reduced fat next time & I think it will work pretty well. I'll also play with adding some vegetables. This is very tasty, but maybe not the most nutritionally sound. Oh, that might have something to do with the fact that I just cooked a whole pound of bacon. Seriously, who stops at 4 slices?

Menu Plan Monday!

2011-01-17T19:04:00.000-05:00

So, I didn't make any official new year's resolutions, but I did decide that I have to do a better job of cooking/eating at home. It got to the point where, if the kids weren't at our house, we'd get chicken wings or some other bar food almost every night. So on Monday, 1/3, I planned a week's worth of dinners, and went to the grocery store, and bought everything I would need. And it worked! I made dinner at home, every night, and managed a full 2-week stretch without visiting Herb's, my favorite watering hole (previously, if I stayed away from Herb's for 2 days I started to miss it).

I didn't do a real plan for last week; it seemed like every site I looked to for ideas was featuring stuff I had no interest in. But today, I did it again. I know what we're having for dinner every night, and all the ingredients are on hand, through SUNDAY. Crazy!

So here's what I'll be eating this week:

Monday: Erica's go-to Cashew Chicken, only I'm making it with dry roasted peanuts since I already have those here. Serving over brown rice. The first time I made this, J was out and I assumed he'd be grabbing something to eat, but he came home hungry. I grudgingly told him he could have the leftovers, even though I was planning to take them to work for lunch the next day. He grabbed something else instead, having no freaking idea what he was passing up. I'm making an extra big batch of this tonight.

Tuesday: Spinach Enchiladas. Found the recipe while browsing a few days ago. J will be out Tuesday night working a basketball game, so I will try this myself while he can grab something out if he wants.

Wednesday: Zesty Pork Chops - I don't know where I found this; I have it written down on paper, unattributed. If it turns out good, I'll post the recipe. Bonus: Pork chops are on sale this week buy one get on free, so this meal's only going to cost about 6 bucks.

Thursday: Creamy Potato Soup - came across this on a blog I didn't save - it's the author's attempt to copy Panera's recipe. Sounds like a pretty safe bet to me; if it turns out good, I'll find the source & link it here.

Friday: J will be out again, and I'll have leftovers or pierogies or something else he won't eat.

Saturday: I'm working 4-10 at Job 2, so J will be making spaghetti for the kids and his sister & brother-in-law, who are visiting with us for the night.

Sunday: Roast Sticky Chicken (warning: not actually sticky). Roasting chickens were also buy one get one free, and we haven't had this in a while. And, it will be a rare Sunday in which no one has anywhere to be, so we can have a nice full meal with mashed potatoes & gravy (oh, the gravy this makes!), green beans, and all the other makings of a feast.

I wish I had every Monday off work - I tried to get myself to the grocery store over the weekend & just couldn't swing it. I'm going to have to figure out a plan for these 5-day work weeks, since it doesn't seem like they're going away anytime soon.

Want a great source for dinner ideas? Orgjunkie.com does a Menu Plan Monday post every week, and anyone who wants to can post links to their weekly menus there as well. And TONS of people do - like almost 500. There is no shortage of inspiration there!

One Last Post

2010-12-31T22:00:00.000-05:00

I want to blame my second job for taking up time I normally would have spent posting, but I usually post from my desk at my full-time job, and that hasn't decreased at all. so I guess I've just had nothing to say. I do want to get at least one post in before the end of the year, though; it will be my only one for the whole month of December. Yeesh. So some updates:

Working 2 jobs: I picked up a part-time retail job at the beginning of November, and I found out recently that they want me to stay past the holidays. So that's cool. It's a lot of fun, way more than I would have expected, and even the past couple months of 60-hour weeks have taken very little toll on me. It's even helped me deal a little better with J being out of the house so much when he's officiating. Instead of killing time by myself & then getting all bent out of shape when he goes out after his games instead of rushing home to my arms, I'm just not bothered. So, unexpected positive side-effect. My hours will go way down next week, to about 10/week down from 20-24. So I'll still have something to do but it won't eat my entire schedule. And the weekly paychecks will continue. I tend to drain my checking account between each of my 2-per-month checks from Job 1, so knowing that on Friday, I'll be getting something to tide me over helps. Mostly psychologically, but still.

Christmas: We had a very small Christmas this year. Everyone got just a few, mostly very practical, gifts. No one had more than 3 things to open, and none of it was expensive. And everyone was happy! It was so crazy. My favorite gift was from my mom; she got me some power tools to use next Halloween when I carve pumpkins with my nieces & nephews. First there's the pumpkin gutter. This is going to rock, I just know. I don't mind cleaning pumpkin guts, but scraping the sides thin enough to carve is so tedious, and the kids won't do it on their own because they have a sap for an aunt who will do it for them. But now, we'll be fighting over who gets to do it! Or, they'll let their sap aunt do it much faster than in the past. Once that's finished, I will get to use my Dremel Cordless Pumpkin Carver. Oh, how I wish Halloween weren't so far away.

New Year's Eve: Today was kind of shitty. It was a frustrating day with the kids (Will is in some kind of weird teenage-boy funk and he is completely maddening to deal with). I wanted to take everyone out to breakfast before they went back to Crazy Bitch's house tonight, and I swear it took 2 hours from making the plans to getting out the door, and Will barely even made eye contact through the whole meal. I spent a chunk of the day in kind of a poor-me mood. Nothing really happened; I just got to feeling taken for granted & needed to pout for a while. J & I aren't spending the evening together; I told him to take a late-night basketball gig at a local correctional institute (yeah, for real. I know.) so I could go to a party at my friend's aunt's house. Then I found out my friend isn't going to her aunt's, and it was too late to get a hold of anyone else, so I'm going to end up at the boring neighbors' place watching horrible action movies. Or at home by myself, watching stuff off the DVR. I can't decide which of the two is worse yet. Poor me! Either way, I will be making something with vodka in it soon, so my mood should improve forthwith.

That's basically everything - I've been on vacation from my regular job for the past week & a half, and don't go back until Tuesday. Things there should be ramping up pretty quickly with some new & expanded projects, and my 10th anniversary is toward the end of January. And I think I'm going to be working on a more aggressive job search too. Since my boss died, I am not confident that my position there is safe under whatever new leadership is yet to be installed. So I've got that to look forward to.

Happy New Year! I'm not telling 2010 to go fuck itself like I did 2009, but I'm not all weepy at seeing it leave, either. I'm ready for 2011.

The Drink

2010-11-25T11:08:00.000-05:00

I can't believe I left this out of my Thanksgiving Menu list. It is the crown jewel of our meal! J's family tradition is to serve a special beverage at Thanksgiving, and I am happy to say that my side of the family has enthusiastically adopted it. Here's the recipe:

Step 1. Put a couple scoops of orange sherbet into a glass
Step 2. Pour pineapple juice over the sherbet
Step 3. Enjoy

My sister's kids LOVE this stuff. It is the most highly anticipated item of the holidays. A few years ago, when Rachael told her kids they weren't coming to our house on Thanksgiving (our dinner was going to be a day or two later when we had J's kids), Emily started CRYING because she wanted The Drink. Noah, who has spent the last several days on his first hunting trip at my dad's place, and has gotten 2 deer already, elected to come home earlier than he had to so he could be here for Thanksgiving. My heart explodes from this, but I have a feeling The Drink was as much of a magnet drawing him back up north as anything else about the day.

My chocolate addition turned out to be Pioneer Woman's Chocolate Sheet Cake - which I've made probably half a dozen times, and managed to have a mishap today. Nothing major, but if you ever make it, take the time to sift the powdered sugar for the icing. I never have before, but today I should've. It's pretty clumpy.

Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

What's Cookin'?

2010-11-23T08:05:00.000-05:00

I have been telling myself I need to get a new post up, but then every time I try to write, I feel like I have nothing to say. But then Shelly sent me an email in response to a comment I left her yesterday, and it had a couple simple questions in it, and it was like the floodgates opened. I think it had something to do with my being completely alone all day; I realized I hadn't talked to anyone at all, and so I was making up for it all at once. I ended my reply to her with "Cripe, I've been thinking I need to write a blog post, and I had nothing to say. Don't be surprised if you see this pasted onto my site in the near future." and she was all "Paste away, my friend." I have embellished it - mostly with the stuff I edited out of the message so she wouldn't think I was a rambling idiot.

So here we are at my Thanksgiving post. Thanksgiving is my total, number-one, favorite holiday. It is completely laid-back in my house and always has been. J will go pick up the kids in the morning, and then my mom, my sister & her kids will come over for dinner. My brother is supposed to make an appearance but he'll work a full day first, so he probably won't make it to eat with everyone. But we'll all still be hanging out when he arrives. I'll start cooking the turkey at around 7, and even with all the cooking, I'll be able to take it pretty easy until the last few minutes when everything is coming out at once & the gravy has to be made. At that same time, an assembly line will form from the kitchen to the dining room and place settings, trivets, and serving dishes will be sent out. Then we'll all sit down, say grace, and start feasting. There will be 4 different conversations going on at any given time, until especially loud laughter comes from one spot at the table, at which point everyone else stops to hear what was so funny. I love it. I love having everyone come in and talk about how good everything smells, and ask how long until dinner. I love watching J's kids and Rachael's kids hang out together. I love that J gets a whole load of dishes into the dishwasher before I even knew he was cleaning up.

As far as menu goes, I make the same stuff my grandma always made, and she always kept it really simple (and really good). I do all the cooking; my first Thanksgiving my mom came over to help and that was a huge mistake. Now she brings a side dish or dessert, and maybe I'll ask her to pick up something I forgot to buy, and that's about it. Here's what I'll be making:

Turkey
Stuffing (inside and outside the bird)
Mashed Potatoes - Pioneer Woman's recipe the past couple years
Sweet potatoes, sliced & cooked in an electric skillet with a metric crapload of brown sugar & butter
Canned green beans, cooked on low heat for at least an hour with a couple slices of bacon. They barely resemble vegetables by the time they're through, and I'm sure I cook all the nutrients right out, but that's how my family has always eaten them.
Canned corn
Frozen rolls (one of these years I'll make some myself, but this ain't the year)
Cranberry sauce (maybe. I bought a bag of cranberries but I'm only about 80% sure I'll make it)

Whatever my mom brings, which may be a layered salad? She was talking about needing a trifle bowl. That's all I know.

Pumpkin & apple pie, and something chocolate for dessert. Maybe dirt cake. I need to get that figured out.

What's Thanksgiving like at your house? What's on your menu?

Happy Birthday Carl Sagan

2010-11-09T16:41:00.001-05:00

When J was in college, he was working in one of the university's administrative offices when Carl Sagan walked in. J introduced himself and asked Mr. Sagan, "Are there really billions and billions of stars?'

To which Mr. Sagan replied something to the effect of, "God damnit I never fucking said that!"

I'm paraphrasing but that is the basic sentiment as conveyed by J.

According to his biography (which I found quoted on IMDB.com), he didn't ever say that. He said billions upon billions. Which, apparently, is hugely different.

Anyway, Happy Birthday Carl!

What I've Been Reading

2010-11-02T10:47:00.000-04:00

I've been through several books lately. Most of them are pretty decent, so if you're looking for a recommendation, here are a couple ideas (and one to steer clear of).

But first, I have to take a bit of a detour. Because it is relevant to one of the books. Sort of. In my mind.

15 years ago, GQ Magazine ran an article about a phenomenon called "prescribed culture." I couldn't find the article online, but I did find something of a spinoff here. I was a GQ subscriber at the time, and the article stuck with me. Forever. Prescribed culture is defined as ''pop-culture canon for smart people sharing . . . the patronizing notion that you will become a better (or cooler) person by heeding its recommendations". Think of it as highbrow hype.

I am not a hype follower. I usually run the other way as soon as I get a whiff of hype. But occasionally, I do fall victim to it. Which brings me to Freedom by Jonathan Franzen. I heard all this buzz about it; pieces of my Twitter feed were actually counting down the days until its release. It was just so anticipated.

I tried to read The Corrections when it came out, and made it about halfway through. I didn't hate it; I just kind of put it down & never picked it up again, and never gave it another thought. I wasn't planning to pick up Freedom in the first place. But then my friend Jim recommended it, and personal recommendations win over hype. Or at least they used to. Until now. Jim, you're on notice.

I made it all the way through the book, but I never really cared about it. I mentioned to my mom that I was reading it & wasn't that interested. She said she'd been halfway through The Corrections before it hooked her, and I replied "I'm 15 pages from the end." I guess I missed something, or I am just not wired for Franzen. That's fine with me.

OK - on to the things I've really enoyed.

I don't know how I found out about The House of Tomorrow by Peter Bognanni, but I'm glad I did. It's a coming-of-age novel about a boy who has grown up in a geodesic dome with his grandmother, who was a contemporary (and maybe a lover) of Buckminster Fuller (who invented the geodesic dome). He has been homeschooled by her, and gets to the age of 15 or 16 without ever having been in a "normal" house. He makes friends with a teenager who visits the dome for a tour, and it goes from there. It was a little odd, but interesting.

Joshua Ferris's The Unnamed was devastating, in an awesome way. It's about a man who has this condition where he can't stop himself from walking - his legs just kind of go on their own. It goes in phases, and at the start of the book he's at the beginning of his third go-round with it. I loved the originality of it, and I loved the way that Ferris handled the effects of the situation on the main character's job and relationships.

I just started The Godfather of Kathmandu this morning. It's the 4th in a series by John Burdett, and I just love it. The first book is called Bangkok 8, and it's about a detective in Bangkok who is pretty much the only honest cop in Thailand. The detective is the son of a prostitute; his father is a Westerner who he's never met. Unsurprisingly. He does everything by the book to balance his karma from something bad in the past (I want to say he was partly responsible for a former partner's death but I can't remember). Anyway, corruption is so run-of-the-mill there that he's a bit of a freak for being so straight. Boiled down, the series is a detective series along the lines of any other. Grisly murders & all that. But the setting makes it extra cool- the elements of Buddhism, karma, sex trade, and the East/West juxtaposition are just so cool. I highly recommend.

First Impressions

2010-10-26T10:02:00.000-04:00

Part of my job is to meet with new employees during their orientation, and train them on the software we use here. It's a pain in the ass because of the way it affects my schedule, but it's fun once I'm actually sitting with them. And I get to meet pretty much everyone.

Last week I spent time with a high school student who is here through a vocational school program. She's here every afternoon, and if all goes well she'll start getting paid for her internship & there's even a possibility that we can hire her full-time upon her graduation.

Anyway, last week was also trick-or-treat week here. We had employees' kids come to the office Friday afternoon in costume, and go floor to floor trick or treating. Each floor decorates, and over the past several years it's gotten pretty serious. So throughout the week, people are bringing in new decorations, hanging stuff up, planning and plotting. And on Friday, no real work got done at all. It was all last-minute running around spreading spiderwebs all over everything and finding outlets for the lawn inflatables. When I walked through our Word Processing department, I spotted the new intern at a desk cutting out paper spiders & I couldn't resist going up and asking her "So is this pretty much what you expected of how grownups work?" Can you imagine being 17 and getting ready to go work in a law firm - buying new clothes, meeting hundreds of people your parents' age, freaking out over it all (at least I would have)? And then you get there and your whole first week is spent making the hallways look not unlike they did when you were in 3rd grade.

That was last week. This week I was training a new lawyer, and while we were discussing something she saw an email pop up from our COO, and she said "Excuse me, I just want to look at this message from F really quick."

And the message was about a new "program" - where you can sign up to be laid off, basically. Apparently we have too many staff so they're hoping some old-timers will put themselves on the line, and they'll get a better severance package than they would if they got laid off involuntarily (it had a little bit of an "If no one volunteers, we'll have to draw straws" kind of feel).

She clicked away from the message very quickly and recoiled a little bit. What a nice Welcome to the Firm!!!

Hope you're making better first impressions than we are - maybe we'll get it right one of these days.

Friday!!

2010-09-24T16:44:00.000-04:00

To celebrate the end of the work week, and the completion of my more-depressing-every-year performance review, here's a mish-mosh of the stuff that's been rolling around my head all week but none of it is big enough to warrant a full post:

I saw this tweet from Patton Oswalt the other day and thought it was perfect:

You: “Why me?” The Universe: “And you are…?”

=======================================================

There is this blog written by a local artist, and he’s doing a series of artwork/interviews with geek celebrities. I found out about it because the most recent of his subjects was Weird Al. So I go to the site, and he writes about how he remembers buying Weird Al in 3-D at the now-defunct department store in a southern Cleveland suburb. So I left him a comment that said something to the effect of “Hey! I bought 3-D at the same now-defunct department store in a western Cleveland suburb!” Except the first time I tried to comment the form wasn’t displaying right in my browser, and I actually posted a comment that said only “II bought”. Embarrassing, but in my second, successful attempt, I apologized and explained what had happened.

So I went back to the site the next day hoping that he had taken mercy on me and deleted my bad comment. He had. And he had ALSO DELETED MY GOOD ONE. Dick.

=======================================================

My brother Jeff is staying at my mom’s for a while. Jeff is an addict (currently in recovery), which is not the subject of this anecdote, but it kind of helps to know that when he likes something, he gets as much of it as he possibly can.

Anyway, apparently he was a little “backed-up” for a couple days, so my mom picked up some Fiber One bars to help that situation along. She either didn’t warn him about how effective they are, or he was in the “eh, I’ll be fine” frame of mind. He ate 6 or 8 of them from Tuesday night to Wednesday morning, including one that he crushed up and sprinkled over his high-fiber cereal.

On Wednesday, he had to leave work (he is a roofer) seven times to poop.

=======================================================

I learned an AWESOME cooking tip over the weekend! If you’re going to cook eggs, and you don’t want them to stick in the pan at all, try this: Put some salt into the dry pan and heat it over medium heat. Like you’re toasting the salt. The instructions I found said to keep heating the salt until it browned, but I waited a few minutes & there was no sign of browning so I quit. Anyway, dump the salt & wipe out the pan, then add your butter/oil & cook the eggs. I did this with an omelet and NOTHING STUCK at all. Not even the top edges.

That is all - have a great weekend!

Did I Hear That Right?

2010-09-17T10:35:00.000-04:00

There's this woman in our HR department who is Not. Outgoing. At. All. She's not antisocial or unfriendly; if you see her on a cigarette break or somewhere outside of work you can strike up a conversation with her. But in the office she just doesn't make small talk. I pass her several times a day in the hallway, and she never says hello, rarely even makes eye contact.

But yesterday morning, when I got here, I came in from the elevators and she was in the hallway on her way out of the kitchen. She saw me and said the friendliest "hi" I've ever heard - not just a cursory greeting, since she doesn't bother with those, but a genuinely nice one. Like we were friends or something.

I said hello, and walked to my desk. She passed me on her way back to her office, and as she walked by my cube, she said,

"I'm still thinking about pot and beer."

I was dumbfounded. I was in the middle of putting my bag down and I just kind of froze, trying to figure out what the hell she was talking about. Not that I couldn't relate; I think about beer on a daily basis. But that's not really anything I was prepared to hear at 8 in the morning, upon my arrival at work.

I turned toward her, and she gave me a quick apologetic wave, and explained "I had you confused with someone else."

So that cleared some of it up, but now I can't stop thinking about it. Who did she think I was? What was the conversation or event that had pot & beer stuck in this woman's head while she was still working on her first cup of coffee?

Conspicuous Consumption

2010-08-18T13:43:00.000-04:00

When I first met & got to know J’s kids, I kept a little distance for a while. I knew that I was with J for the long haul, but I was very sensitive about not trying to be a second “mom” to them. I helped with meals and stuff like that, but as far as rearing them, I left it all up to J. There are times now that I regret that and wish I had been more vocal or stood my ground more about certain things. If I had to choose one thing to have gotten more hands-on about, it would be this:
Getting them not to use so much goddamn soap/shampoo/toothpaste/whatever in the bathroom.

Three of the 4 kids were already potty trained by the time I came into the picture, and with Amy & Junior, I might not have been able to have much influence. But if I knew then what I know now, boy, would I have tried harder.

We go through a bottle of hand soap a week when they are at the house. A bottle a WEEK. It’s the foamy stuff, that is supposed to last longer! What the fuck are they doing with it? I often find myself staring at a 3-day old, hald-empty bottle, wondering how Swistle manages with 5 kids in her house all the time. I'm losing my mind and we only have the kids maybe 75 days out of the year (and I just got so depressed calculating that).

Amy is the worst. I’m sure of this despite the fact that I don’t get the opportunity to witness any of their usage habits first-hand. I have deduced before that she uses the handsoap in the basement bathroom as shaving cream. And apparently she either uses a pump per blade-width, or she shaves her legs 5 times in each shower (she’s certainly in there long enough).

In February Shelly and T introduced me to Lush, and since then I’ve used their shampoo bars – solid bars like soap, but you use them in your hair, and they are awesome and they last as long as 3 bottles of shampoo.

Unless Amy happens to be around.

When we had the kids for their annual 2-week stay this year, we finished one bar and went through an entire second one. I mentioned this to J and I wasn’t sure if maybe this new one was just faster-dissolving for some reason (made out of softer stuff? getting mushy because with the extra showers it's not getting a chance to dry out? I am such an overthinker.), or if the kids were going nuts.

The next time they were there for the weekend, the bar reduced in size by HALF during Amy’s shower.

I’m not sure if she deemed this a better shaving aid than hand soap, or what. But it’s ridiculous. These things cost about 10 bucks a piece.

Unfortunately, coupled with being such a hog, she’s also got this crazy sense of entitlement that renders her unable/unwilling to listen to reason or comply with rules or have consideration for anyone else. She’s 20, after all, and hence she doesn’t have to be told what to do, ever. So we’ve come up with a different way of dealing with the situation next time the kids come over.

All soaps and shampoos will be removed from the bathroom and “signed out” to each kid when they are ready to shower. When it is Amy’s turn, she will be handed a bottle of 99-cent White Rain. Unless I can find something cheaper.

Awk. Ward.

2010-08-16T10:51:00.000-04:00

This past weekend, I was invited to two parties, both as kind of a tag-along. My mom has these friends, Deb & Julie, who throw a summer party every year, and I've managed to get onto the list for that. Last year's was awesome. Deb is so freaking great. As soon as you walk up to her to say hi, she lets out a scream and starts laughing like she's so glad you were able to make it, and she gives you a big hug, and how can anything suck after that? Julie is cool too, and last year I ended up sitting with Julie, her mom, and a few other people after we all discovered we shared a love of the Real Housewives. I can't even remember how it started, but it was some kid of down-low thing where one woman mentioned "She by Sheree" to see who picked up on it. And we all did, and it was wonderful.

Anyway. The other party was being thrown by a co-worker of J's, and he decided to go mostly as a political move. Both parties started at the same time, but early enough that if I wanted to I could get to both.

I skipped Deb & Julie's bash because my mom wasn't able to go & I'm not quite comfortable enough to go solo. Next year maybe. J had some stuff to do in the morning, and as he was running errands he texted me to see what he'd have to buy to make dirt cake (that crushed Oreo/vanilla pudding dessert which is neither dirt nor cake. Discuss.). So I send him a list, and a while later he gets home with all the supplies.

He got to our house about half an hour after his party had started. But hey, it's an all-day thing, so there's plenty of time to make the dish, chill it while we get ready to go, and make the 45-minute drive to his co-worker's place. Right? No sweat.

What I wasn't prepared for was the amount of help he needed making the food. I don't know what happened to him; he's a smart guy, a good cook, and knows how to read a recipe, but for some reason I wasn't allowed to leave the kitchen (and I had been deeply engrossed in reading The Hunger Games and wanted to get back to it, so I was more & more annoyed). It was a very trying experience.

So we finish, and I grab a shower, and head upstairs to finish getting ready and wait for J to shower. What I don't know is that J ends up dozing off in the basement before he makes it to the bathroom. Sooo, we're not exactly on schedule, but hey, the party goes all night, and we're just giving the dirt cake extra time to chill & set up!

We leave a little before 7, and get to the address at about 7:30 - perfectly acceptable time to arrive, right? But there is not a single car in the driveway at the house number J has in the directions. Next door we can see a group of people standing around a bonfire, so maybe we just got the address wrong? We pull into that driveway, he gets out & takes a look at the people, and recognizes no one. So we go back to the house with the right number, and he knocks on the door, and it's the right house, all right - but all the guests had left about half an hour ago. It was 7:30, and the party had started at 4, and was supposed to go until 11.

The hosts insisted that we come in, we just missed people by a short time and they were expecting a second wave, and they had all this food and beer and everything. So we went in. And they got the pizza BACK OUT OF THE FRIDGE to serve it to us because they had already started cleaning up. And we sat in the basement for a little while, and they told us all the stuff they had available as far as activities, and the husband tried to get me interested in KARAOKE. In his living room. With 4 people there. Sober. We headed outside to play cornhole instead. And we were the only people there for Over. Three. Hours.

This guy is nice enough, but it's not like he & J are that close, and I'd never met him or his wife before, so it was all small talk, all night. We finally got out of there at 11:00 after 5 games of cornhole. We felt so bad and they just kept begging us not to go, and they felt bad, because the weather pushed people away early and then no one ever showed up again, and it was supposed to be a big fun deal.

Next year, Deb & Julie's party wins whether my mom's available or not.

Miscellaneous T(uesday)

2010-07-13T11:31:00.000-04:00

I still haven't heard a decision on the job I interviewed for THREE AND A HALF WEEKS AGO. I know these things have a way of being drawn-out, but I really thought they were going to be making a decision quickly. Before I jumped into the fray, they were down to their two "final" candidates, and rushed me through because they liked me enough to put those first two on hold. I got really good feedback after every piece of the process, and in the two conversations I've had with the recruiters since my last interview, I've been reminded that I'm the lead candidate (and a decision is expected by the end of "this week"... two week running). So why don't they just make me an offer already??? Or tell me they made someone else an offer already?? I won't be devastated if I don't get the job, but I really want to know. It's affecting the way that I approach things at my current job; do I really need to schedule that thing for next month, or will I even be around by then? I know I need to proceed as if nothing is changing but that voice in the back of my head is a troublemaker.
The kids are in the house for their annual 2-week summer stay. Generally, it's a good time, but I am prone to PMS-level irritation at least a couple times during that stretch (which falls way outside of PMS zone; it's just stress). Like on Sunday, when I got up & saw that no one had cleaned off the table from Saturday night's dinner, so I waited for the kids to get up to have them do it. And waited. And waited. And at 12:20PM I finally got them out of bed & put them to work. Something must have clicked because after Sunday's and Monday's meals, the table was clean. I'm not a stickler about a lot of things, and I'm no great housekeeper myself, but I have a thing about meals. When J and/or I spend however-long getting dinner ready and getting it on the table, one (or more) of the four other people who eat it can handle clearing it afterward. Amiright?
I had my 20-year high school reunion the weekend before last. It was small due to some problems contacting people, but it was fun. One of my favorite people who showed up was Dan, who I hadn't seen since we graduated. Dan is a member of my very favorite category of men, the Hilarious Nerd. He's tall & lanky and has a bad haircut (because in Bangkok, where he's been living for the past few years, he found a place that will cut it for $1.50), and he tells awesome stories. Like about finding $1.50 haircuts in Bangkok. We were in marching band together, and he sat in front of me in government class, where we used to crack each other up all the time. One day he was complaining about how his new shirt was irritating the back of his neck, and I reached up and pulled the cardboard out from under the collar - he had never taken it out when he took the shirt out of its package. He told me last weekend that he still thinks of me every time he gets a new shirt (awww!) and I realized that I think of him every time I unpack a new shirt for J. I love how things stick with you like that.
Work is doing oen of those 10,000 Steps a Day things again this summer. I signed up for it (the only long-term plan I've made lately) and started wearing a pedometer yesterday. I went to the gym after work, figuring the treadmill was a good way to get the count up in a nice air-conditioned environment, and after like half a mile I bumped the pedometer and it flew right off my waistband and under the treadmill and I was all, FML. I was able to retrieve it, but it's fallen off a couple times since. When it doesn't fall off, it apparently gets so secured (lodged?) in my waist that it doesn't even shake to register me walking. So I'll just make up some numbers & plug them into the log. How motivating.

Pride

2010-06-26T20:37:00.000-04:00

I went into the girls' room today to see what they were up to, and they asked me what they best bus route was to get to Voinovich Park downtown. When I asked what was going on there, they said they were going to the Pride Parade. So I helped them figure out what time they could get downtown & how close the bus would get them to the festival, and off they went.

Apparently, they had an awesome time. Nicole texted me to let me know that they had made it, and there was free stuff!!! Then a while later, she let me know that she "just did the Casper Slide with a bunch of drags".

And I was jealous. I wished I had known earlier that they were going so I could have joined them, but I had some stuff I had to stay home & take care of. I'm definitely going next year.

When they came home, I picked them up at the Rapid station, and they were on Cloud 9. It was obvious that they'd had a great day. They were wearing rainbow-colored Mardi Gras beads and wrist bands, and had stickers on their shirts that said "Democrats value all families". And I was proud.

Tonight, I called L at the hospital to see how she was feeling (she is doing great and probably going home tomorrow), and told her that the girls had gone to the Pride Fest. I told her how proud I was of them that they did it completely on their own and they were interested enough to participate. And her response was "Of course, that's just one more amazing thing about them". And she was right.

L Update

2010-06-25T16:34:00.000-04:00

Got a text last night from L's phone (presumably being handled by M or another family member) that the surgery went great and she was doing fine. And they think they got everything! They will know for sure in a week, but they're pretty confident. She's in some pretty serious pain from the operation, but other than that she's great. I'm going to head down to visit her tonight or tomorrow so I'll get the whole scoop & not just what's on facebook or in text messages. Thanks for your comments/prayers/good vibes!

I'm still waiting to hear a decision about the job I interviewed for. The hiring manager was out of town all week this week so that's delaying things a bit, but I was still hoping I would know before the weekend. For something I was going to blow off (took me 2 weeks to return the headhunter's call in the first place) I really really hope I get it now. Waiting 3 more days is going to suck!

On that note, have a great weekend!

L

2010-06-24T12:00:00.000-04:00

My best friend, L, has had more crap thrown at her in the past couple months than most people get hit with in 5 years. In April, her partner M tested positive for the breast cancer gene so she had an elective double mastectomy. She is fine and healthy, but the recovery from that surgery is extremely difficult and painful, and L would normally have been devoting all of her attention to helping M do all the things she couldn't - shower, drive, button her jeans, care for their 1-year-old son, and I can't even imagine how much more.

Normally, that stuff would have taken every bit of time L had. Except the week of M's surgery, L's grandma went into the hospital, and died there after a few days. So L was juggling M with visiting her grandma, and then with funeral arrangements. Luckily they have plenty of support from friends and a big, very close family, but that's a stressful situation any way you slice it.

I hadn't heard from L in a little while but I texted her the day after I had Pal put to sleep to tell her. She didn't even have to ask how old Pal was, she knew exactly how long I'd had her and asked if there was anything she could do. Which, in that situation there's really not, but if I had said anything she would have done it.

A few days after that, I signed onto Facebook and saw a post from L's brother-in-law: Please pray for my sister-in-law she has cancer.

Insert the sound of a needle scratching across a record here.

I checked L's sister's FB page and found out that she has uterine cancer. She has to have a hysterectomy and from there they will determine whether further steps (chemo/radiation) are needed. It will depend on how much of the uterine wall is affected.

I texted L and told her what I'd seen, and asked her if she'd kept it from me because I was already dealing with Pal. Because she would do that. She assured me that was not the case; she was waiting for more info before she told me, and in fact when I texted her she was in the doctor's office.

So. Her surgery is this afternoon. At 4:30 - who does surgery at 4:30 in the afternoon? That seems so crazy to me. Not to mention that L's got to go through a whole freaking day without eating or drinking. Why add that kind of torture to the already-sucky surgery-day stress?

So that's half of what's been preoccupying me for the last week - the other half being in the running for a new job, which I hope to hear something on today or tomorrow - luckily it's an easy week at work.

Send good thoughts & prayers L's way please!

Please, Please Pick Me

2010-06-08T12:03:00.000-04:00

Disclaimer: This entire post is a contest entry.

My husband snores. I know, so does your significant other, and I don't claim to be the only person who has begged for sweet sweet death to rescue her from having to endure the rest of a loud, sleepless night.

When we got a king-sized bed, there was a slight improvement, because at least he wasn't snoring Right. In. My. Ear. But the downside is, I can barely reach him to tap/nudge/kick the ever-loving crap out of him to get him to stop for a few seconds (I think he has the nerve to consider this a plus).

I have tried putting a pillow on top of my head, but I have a thing about not wanting to feel smothered. I have tried sleeping on the couch, but it's a whole floor down from the bedroom and I still have to close our bedroom door because the distance on its own is not sufficient, and then when J gets up before the alarm, I have to run up the stairs at 6 AM to turn it off. It's just totally not fair.

Anyway.

I've tried my earbuds, which are the most effective solution, as long as I'm on my back, but if I roll onto my side they hurt my ears. And the cord drives me crazy.

Which brings me to SleepPhones.

I first heard of SleepPhones on a podcast advertisement, and immediately wanted a pair. They're like headbands with little speakers! You can sleep in any position without things jamming in your ear! The cord just comes out the back of the headband, so you can lay on it, or move it to the front or wherever is comfortable.

The only drawback (for me) is the price - they're in the neighborhood of $65-70. I know that's not a fortune, but on the rare occasion I find myself with 70 disposable dollars, I have too many other things to spend it on. So I'm really, really hoping I win a pair in their giveaway.

Please pick me, SleepPhones!

Love,
Becky

Tweets I Would Have Sent From Mexico

2010-06-03T12:44:00.000-04:00

We've been back from vacation for a week now. I miss it. It was so wonderful, and it was the most relaxed either J or I have ever been. It didn't hurt that my BlackBerry didn't work (well, it worked but was roaming so I just shut it off). So since I couldn't update Twitter live, I kept a little list of things I would have posted if I'd been able. Here are the highlights (I use that term loosely, as you'll soon see):

Day 1

Splurged on private shuttle from airport. Totally worth it. Beat others from our flight to resort by 2+ hours. Quality drinking time!

Don't know if Eduardo the bartender is laughing with or at us, or if it's his way of dealing with language barrier. Also, don't care. Laugh it up, as long as you keep the margaritas flowing.

There are iguanas EVERYWHERE. I love it!

Everything in our room is made of marble or concrete. Including, apparently, the mattress.

Day 2

The swim-up bar is the second-greatest invention in the history of mankind. Right behind the all-inclusive resort.

J has a whole group of ppl from Nottingham hooked on drinking mudslides. He is a true global booze ambassador.

Guess who's sitting nude out on the terrace, just because he can? #balls. Or I guess #cojones.

Taking the collectivo into Playa del Carmen. This is the craziest and most awesome mode of public transportation EVAR.

A guy who works at our resort spotted us in Playa outside the store his mom owns & wrangled us in. We were NOT planning to shop & didn't have much cash. Ended up getting a ring & money clip, started at $230, we paid $80.

Think Hell-Mart is bad? Try Hell-Mart in Mexico. First time in that store in 5 years. Only way to get affordable sunscreen. Blargh.

Day 3

Never understood how anyone could spend a whole day on the beach. Not into sun or heat. Turns out a nice Carribean breeze counters all that. I totally get it now.

J just walked a couple miles of beach, then laid out in the shallow water for a while, without re-upping the sunscreen. What could go wrong?

Everyone here is from Canada or the UK. And everyone from the UK is staying for 15 days. Lucky.

I want to have a kid who grows up with a Scottish accent. Can someone make that happen please?

Who's got 2 thumbs & has to find a creative way to use them since her husband's too sunburned to screw? #thisgal

Day 4

Which buffet should we eat breakfast at? Which pool should we visit today? Decisions, decisions.

What time is it? Oh, never mind, I don't really care.

What day is it? Oh, never mind, I don't really care.

My skin has cleared up since we've been here. Lips aren't chapped. Eczema's gone. I think I have to move here permanently.

Day 5

PSA: If you see a bunch of iguanas all congregate & look off into the distance together, get inside.

Hours of rain today, and if we'd been motivated we'd have spent $200 to spend the day getting soaked at Chichen Itza. Napping in our room is so much better.

Day 6

Finally met some other Americans today. Not that I've been longing to, it's just seemed weird. An actor-turned-lawyer and his wife from LA. Cool people.

Stole a couple rolls at lunch & took them to feed the fish in a little inlet on the beach. Started a frenzy. I was cool until they started bumping into my legs, then I backed off to take pictures of J while he kept feeding.

Day 7

Collectivo to the Tulum Ruins today. Largest of the 3 or 4 ruins in the area, and the only ones on the seaside. Or so we hear.

Whose idea was it to visit the ruins on the hottest day of the week at high noon?????

Turned down guided tour of ruins because couldn't bear the idea of listening to someone talk for 45 minutes in this heat. Will look it up on the internet later.

Met a woman who was here on a tour including more than one busload of people. So glad we came on our own. It's nice not to be herded.

Out of the ruins. Bought Coke Zeros from a store & sat at their bar to drink them. Bartender gave us glasses and ice and made conversation with us the whole time. Super nice guy.

Last night in paradise. Sigh.

Day 8

USA3000 Airlines now considers Exit Row seats "premium" and charges $25 extra to sit there. So no one is sitting there. And somehow this is preferable to just let someone move there for no charge?

Home. The pets are still alive! Pal was even sitting up when she heard me coming downstairs to get her. Yay!

So, that's what you would have been treated to if I'd been carrying my phone. And if you follow me on Twitter. It's good to be back, even if it does mean I had to start wearing shoes again. And dealing with the fallen-tree fallout (more on that to come). Because it also means I know what's going on with all of you again!

Storm Pictures

2010-05-19T11:59:00.000-04:00

I realized this morning that I never posted the pictures of the storm damage here. So, without further ado:

This is taken from the deck, the tree laying across the fence that J & I built plank by plank a few years ago. *sniff* But we suffered the least by far.

This is the house next door. They used to have an attachment off the back of the house, upstairs & downstairs. It was very small but the bottom was used as a little sun/dining room and the top was the baby's room (the baby was in bed with her mom when this happened).

This is the house 2 doors down. They also used to have a small up/down attachment. It's gone. No one was in either part of it when it got hit.

On the left is the house next door; on the right is two doors down. The yellow bricks in the driveway are from the tan house's chimney. They smashed through the basement windows of the white house. The landlord found pieces of the window all the way across the basement. Luckily no one was down there doing laundry or anything.

This is the far side of the house 2 doors down, with the top of the tree peeking over the fence.

Another shot from the deck, of the root bed. Somehow the gazebo is undamaged. The roots are inches away from it but didn't lift it up (it's screwed into stone so it didn't blow anywhere, but still, I thought it would have had something happen to it).

It was really hard to get a picture that showed the scale of all of this inside our yard. Here the roots are as tall as the highest deck rail, which is around 7-8' off the ground. The deck is relatively unharmed, miraculously. There is one support post that was standing on flagstone which got dislodged, so there will be some minor repair needed, but the rest of the posts are set in concrete a couple feet deep. It's stable now, even with the one post pushed out of whack. If we had lost the deck, I think J would have cried for about 6 days.

The neighbors have been getting lots of cleanup done; the guy 2 doors down has everything out of the yard and is working on getting the attachment, deck, and shed rebuilt/replaced. He will also get a new roof, and at least some siding replaced due to hail damaged. The people next door are kind of on their own - no insurance - but they are busting ass so far. They spent last weekend cutting up the tree and clearing out enough debris to fill a dumpster - as soon as they get a new one to fill, they'll continue.

So! That's what we will be leaving behind tomorrow when we set off for Cancun. The standing half of the tree may be down when we return, and if so it will hopefully be the work of the power company and not because it falls in another storm. Then we'll get busy getting our fence rebuilt & seeing what else is getting done.

Until then, I will be drinking by a pool, checking out the ocean, or visiting some Mayan ruins. And not thinking about it.

Catch ya on the flip side!

Miscellany Monday

2010-05-17T15:29:00.000-04:00

Three days til vacation. Over the weekend I told J I was going to be shopping for stuff for the trip, and to let me know if he thought of anything he needed. He replied "I could use some clothes."

...

I was thinking more along the lines of sunscreen, a travel toothbrush, stuff like that. Plus, I have been more than candid about how much of my extra money has been eaten up by recent events, so nice nerve asking me to buy you clothes, dude.
Pal is holding steady. She had a bit of an improvement late last week & hasn't gotten worse again, so it looks like she will live through our vacation after all (or at least she will live until we leave town, and hopefully she won't waste away to nothing while we're gone. Oh god.). I got a set of Pet Steps from my friend Renee - so Pal can get onto the bed by herself now, and yesterday she jumped down on her own too, and stuck the landing. So that's good. We're going to leave her in the basement while we're away so she won't have steps to deal with. She will have food, water, litterbox, and couches so she should be comfortable. Just no windows, and she'll miss those. Our neighbor will be looking in on her for us; I plan to give him very specific instructions (Don't leave the house until you have located Pal and verified that she is alive and responsive).
Fritz is dealing very well with being an indoor dog so far. He's confined to the kitchen, which bothers him a little, but only when he knows we're nearby. He stops whining as soon as we've left the immediate vicinity. Hopefully he will continue to be OK with the situation as it looks like it's going to be weeks before the backyard is enclosed again.
Our fence can't be fixed until the huge tree stump is removed from it. Our fallen tree stump can't be removed until the other, still-standing half of the tree is cut down (the weight of the stump is helping hold the base of the standing tree and removing the stump would cause the standing tree to fall). Our standing tree can't be cut down until the driveway next door is accessible to the tree crew. The driveway next door won't be clear until they are done cleaning out their backyard. They won't be done cleaning out their backyard until they can get a new dumpster dropped off. They can't get a new dumpster dropped off until the one they already filled has been picked up. And so on.
I'm anxious for all the necessary stuff above to happen so we can get an insurance adjuster to the house & see what they will cover. Most of our neighbors are getting new roofs and at least some siding, and one guy is getting much more than that - screens for every window, stuff like that. So I'm cautiously optimistic that maybe they'll see more damage than I expected. But trying not to get my hopes up.

My Stroke of Genius

2010-05-14T14:14:00.000-04:00

First, some background: I work at a law firm (that part's in my little bio over there on the right), as a software trainer. I meet with new employees to teach them about the software we use at the firm, and when we upgrade or add something new, I handle how everyone gets trained on that. Also, I have monthly "refresher" training on topics that have been around a while but there's always someone who needs help with it. Stuff like Excel, PowerPoint, and the like.

So anyway, last fall I was kind of burned out on preparing actual curriculum, so I decided that instead of doing a traditional class, I would have this thing called "The Trainer is IN" (that's not the actual name, but I don't want to get googled or something) where I'd post up in the training room, and anyone who needed help with anything could drop by. And it was a great success. My boss's boss, who is pretty aware of everything I do but doesn't usually get too involved, sent me an email saying how great this was. I got all kinds of good comments, and people showed up who don't usually attend the normal classes. It was awesome.

This year I've been doing my refresher classes at the end of each month, but this month I will not be in the office during that period, so I had to squeeze something in early. So I decided to do another round of The Trainer is IN, only instead of making people come up to the training room, I would get a time slot on each floor where I'd just be in a conference room, closer to everyone & more convenient.

It could not have worked out better. It's been such a slow week. I have not gotten more than 2 people in any given session, and right now I'm halfway through my last one. And no one will show up. And it won't reflect badly on me at all! I get credit for having such a good idea, I get emails from users who say how great it is, but then I end up with all this quiet time away from my desk. The low attendance is just chalked up to bad timing, busy secretaries, etc. I actually got some real work done during a couple of these earlier in the week.

I have had a few people stop in & spend a few minutes each, and it's gone pretty well overall. There was one woman who just cracked me up though. She's been with the firm for years, so I'm pretty familiar with her, and she's always been very careful and quiet, and kind of timid. She came in to see me on Tuesday, carrying a folder with her, and she said "I brought my question file".

Question file?

She apparently keeps a folder full of notes on things she will ask about if she's ever given the chance...? Things she's jotted down in shorthand, screen shots of things that didn't make sense, stuff like that. And it was all just waiting for someone to say "Do you need any help with anything? Anything at all?" Why, yes she does!

We went over like half a dozen things. It was kind of a stroke of genius on her part after all. But what would she have done if I had never done this TTII thing? I only gave people about 3 days' notice that I was doing it, and I don't remember her doing this back in the fall when I did it the first time. And some of these notes were older than that. So was she just prepared for something she had no way of knowing was coming? Or is she a nut?

In other news: Remember how I told you Amy had a job? She has TWO jobs! And she is spending today - her BIRTHDAY - working both of them for a total of 15 hours! And she is not complaining about it! She has something closely resembling a good attitude. I don't even know her anymore.

Updates

2010-05-13T11:33:00.000-04:00

Two pieces of really good news, and one piece of really bad news.

The tree: The tree that fell in the storm was half of a twin oak. The remaining half is still standing but will fall if it's not dealt with. I had called a tree service to get an estimate on cutting it down, and was steeling myself to argue with the insurance company about getting them to cover it, when I received a notice from the power company that they are going to cut the tree down, and it will not cost us a thing. See, if it falls, it will take down a pretty big line - like half the town will black out or something. So they're on it, and I can stop fretting about it. This morning on the way to work I saw crews out dealing with other trees in the neighborhood, so it might be done by the time I get home tonight. Aaahhh...

The dog: I called the animal shelter yesterday and explained that my beagle had gotten away Monday and did they have any beagles come in? The immediate response from the lady who answered the phone was "Yes, why didn't you call Monday or yesterday?" in about the snottiest tone I've ever heard from someone over the age of 14. I just wanted to email her a link to my last post, but instead I told her that we are dealing with many different problems right now and I just hadn't gotten to call on Tuesday (they were closed by the time I discovered he was gone on Monday anyway). Plus, and I didn't say this to her, it's a no-kill shelter. Any strays that come in stay for a few days and then are put up for adoption. I knew I had 24 hours without being in danger of losing him. That probably sounds careless, but I knew that if he was there he was safe, and I called as soon as I could. And everything's fine.

Fritz was home when I got back from work yesterday, and I was SO HAPPY to see him. I know that when he ran away I was just too overwhelmed to deal with it but I really would have missed that doofus. I took him for a short walk, and gave him a bath, and put him in the kitchen where he stayed very well-behaved. He has always been a primarily-outside dog, only coming in to sleep and not even that since last summer when he woke us up at all hours wanting out. But for now, he only gets whiny when he sees us in the room. If we're in the basement, or upstairs in bed, he's been staying very quiet. So that's good, because I don't know how long it'll be before the back fence is fixed & he can be allowed to run around free again.

The cat: Here's where my luck has not turned. Pal is in bad shape. Her hips are shot. They haven't gotten to the point where she can't use the litterbox anymore, but I know that's coming. She has been sleeping with me all night, just staying where I put her (she always did sleep with me but used to get in & out of bed throughout the night). This morning when I woke up & put her on the floor, she couldn't walk without faltering. Eventually it seemed like she got going a little better, but still. She can't get down from the bed on her own, and if she tries she falls, and then she'll stumble over something on the floor & end up on her side. She will get down stairs if she really wants to on her own, but if I'm home I just carry her. I can't bear to watch her stumble down like she does, and I'm afraid that if she does it too many times she's going to end up breaking something. Today I left her in the basement for the day. The door to the kitchen is closed, but I didn't block off the steps. Hopefully she will be too tired or content to try getting anywhere.

The one thing that's kind of cracking me up is that she still musters up plenty of energy for hating the dog. Holy crap she does not like Fritz. Yesterday she stood on the other side of the room divider hissing at him while I was in the kitchen with him. When I gave him a bath, I was in the bathroom with him with the door closed. After we were done I opened t and she was RIGHT THERE hissing and growling - I had left her downstairs, so she climbed up the steps to do this. This morning, I carried her through the kitchen on the way to the basement, and tried turning her head away from him as we passed through. No dice. She is completely docile about everything else - she isn't yelling at me or J anymore (she's always been a loudmouth), she sleeps where I put her at night, nothing is bothering her or at least it's not worth complaining about. But man. She is giving it everything she has to let Fritz know she can't stand him. I think it's kind of awesome.

I know I'm going to have to have her put down, and it's going to have to be before we leave for Mexico. She will not cope well with a week alone in the house, especially with Fritz inside, and there's no one I can really ask to take her for the week. I haven't been able to make the call to the vet yet, but every day as she gets just a little worse I'm at least able to face it more. Or at least I think I am able, until I start crying again.

But, to end on a high note, I'm just going to recap how relieved I am to have the tree issue off my shoulders, and how glad I am that Fritz is home and not giving us grief about staying indoors. And one week from today, I will be getting my exercise in by repeated visit to the SWIM-UP BAR at the resort in Cancun. Where it is 90 degrees and the sky has this thing in it I hear they call a "sun" or something like that.

Where's the Fast Forward Button on This Thing?

2010-05-10T19:42:00.001-04:00

If someone could just make time skip ten days & put me straight into vacation, I'd greatly appreciate it. Here's what my month has been like so far:

Last weekend, I was driving down to get Amy from school, when the alternator on the truck went bad & the battery died as I was driving on the highway. I ended up having to pay a tow service to hook up a battery pack to get me to a hotel, where I had to pay to spend the night. All completely unplanned. I made it home Saturday in time for J's birthday party, which turned out nice enough that it kind of erased the crap from the night before.

This weekend, we were sitting in our basement watching the Cavs game, when we heard someone banging on the door. It was our neighbors telling us our 80-foot oak tree had fallen. It caused major damage to the two houses next to use (well, the one next to us & the one on the other side). The tree was healthy; it got picked up by something the weather service refuses to confirm was a tornado. I'll be putting pictures up in a separate post.

The tree that fell was a twin oak, and the other half is sure to fall now that there's nothing holding it up. We have no idea whether insurance will cover it (the fallen tree's removal is only covered to the extent that it's moved out of the way of repair work, and doesn't include removal from the property). The power company says they might be able to get the remaining tree taken down for their own purposes, in which case it wouldn't cost us anything, but we're still waiting. I'm incredibly sad over losing these trees, and the idea that I might have to pay a fortune for the loss just kills me.

My cat's physical condition has been declining fast. She turned 15 in April, and she hit the wall. She's way too quiet, and her hips seem to be shot. She isn't in pain that we can tell, but she can't get up & down off the furniture, and I'm sure it's just a matter of time before she can't handle steps at all. She is eating way less than I would like her to. I'm really nervous about what she'll be like when we get back from a week away.

My dog got away today, and he isn't wearing his tags. His old collar busted and the new one is the wrong size, and I hadn't gotten to the store to exchange it. With all the other stuff that's going on, I just hope that he comes back on his own. My nosy neighbor has been up everyone's butt so much since the storm, that I'd rather deal with a lost dog in silence than put people on alert and have him get all involved again. I know that sounds awful. But I'm saturated.

With all the emergencies and other expenses we've had come up in the past couple weeks, I am so thankful that our vacation is paid for, and we decided on an all-inclusive resort. We may end up with next to nothing for spending money, but at least we can eat and drink without worrying.

I am so ready to drop out of normal life for a week. Especially if this is the new normal.

Ssshhhhh....

2010-05-07T13:19:00.000-04:00

I don't want to utter this too loudly for fear of jinxing it, but...

Amy got a job!

She started last night at a branch of our local deep-deep-discount chain. It's supposed to be a crappy place to work but she's got a friend who's been there a couple years & is apparently doing pretty well.

I haven't talked to her yet about it, but I did notice the following post she put on Facebook:

Amy F officially hates pudding after stacking and trying to place it for over an hour.

One hour, and pudding is ruined?? And all she was doing was stacking it? There was no slaving over vats of hot milk? She couldn't possibly have loved it that much to begin with.

But! She powered through, and she hasn't quit yet, and she is on her way to making her own money. So for that, I am glad. Quietly glad.

In Which Monday Gets Extended by 12 Hours

2010-04-30T14:08:00.000-04:00

You guys.

Tuesday morning.

It was awful.

It started 5 minutes before the alarm was set to go off, when I was awakened in a Most Heinous Manner. My cat, Pal, walked right across my right boob, and one of her claws sliced my nipple. OH MY GOD. This is exactly what I was trying to avoid with that open letter I wrote her last summer. I yelled OWWWW and made some horrifying gasping noise. You know what J did in response? Kept right on snoring. He never heard a thing.

The pain was so bad (seriously, it was the worst, most concentrated pain ever in my life), and it would not even dull a little bit. I couldn't get back to sleep, so I just headed to the basement to wait for my turn in the shower. This turned out to be quite fortuitous because J just happened to need me to check out something weird on his butt.

People, it was not even 6:30 yet.

He has what appears to be a huge skin tag on his ass. It's the wrong color for a mole but I did tell him to have it looked at by a doctor, and more importantly, get it removed no matter how harmless it is. I know it's going to take me a while to recover from just looking at it.

That's enough trauma for a morning, right? Wrong.

The previous night I had gone to the gym and done quite a lot of work on the weight machines. In all, I lifted 22,000 pounds. This felt really good on Monday night, even when I was dealing with my muscles stiffening up over the course of the evening. But Tuesday, all of the tension from all of my muscles ended up in one spot in the back of my neck. I took all sorts of pills in an attempt to get rid of the pain, but nothing worked. I had a full-blown migraine by the time I got to work. I thought about cancelling my afternoon classes and going home, but it turns out I just cancelled afternoon classes and went home with a headache a few short weeks ago. Plus, I knew I'd be taking half a day off later this week. So I decided to power through.

As a result, I threw up twice that morning. Twice. At the office. Where to get to the restroom I have to cross the elevator bank, going through 2 sets of glass doors, one of which requires a key code to open. Thank God I have a pretty good early warning system.

By about 2, I was feeling better. Not good, but not completely miserable. I didn't get sick again, I finally had something to eat at about 3, and I got through both my afternoon classes without having to run out of the room to barf. The cut on my boob was still visible later that night, but healed pretty well overnight. My psyche, though... that's going to take a while.

Morning Workout: Lessons Learned

2010-04-19T09:03:00.000-04:00

I got up at 5 fricking 30 this morning to get to the gym. Overall, it went well, but I made a couple notes for next time:

First, and this applies regardless of whether I exercise before or after work: I need to quit walking in the door & dumping my bag on the first empty spot I find. This morning I had almost no clean work clothes, because a large majority of them were still dirty from last week, sitting around in various bags just inside household doors. I will be doing laundry tonight.

Second: For a workout which will take place before you're typically even hitting the snooze button, pack your bag the night before. Failure to do so may result in you getting in the shower at the gym, turning the water on, and realizing with dread that you didn't bring any soap or shampoo, and you will be forced to go to work after nothing more than a good rinse-off. On the bright side, I did remember to take a towel.

Other than that, I didn't mind the morning too badly. I have stuff going on after work almost every night this week, so we'll see if I still feel the same way by Friday.

Gym Update

2010-04-16T10:50:00.000-04:00

I'm still in love with my new gym. Today is day 15 since I joined & started working out, and it'll be only the 4th day I have not gone. 3 of the 4 days were planned "skips"; the other one was due to a basketball tournament I had to take Billy to, and I severely underestimated the amount of my day it would eat up.

I don't have a working scale at home, and there's not one at the gym at all, so I don't know if I've lost weight yet. I measured myself a couple days ago & compared it to last August (the only other numbers I had saved anywhere), and am exactly the same in every dimension as I was then. So no results there yet. But here is what I do notice:

My lower back pain went away almost immediately. I've always gotten backaches if I have to stand for too long, and recently I had a whole day where my muscles were actually spasming. So I never miss the lumbar extension machine, regardless of whatever else I do when I go. And within a couple days there was a big improvement. J commented that my posture was better already. I'm not sure if he meant my normal posture was improved, or that I was just not bent over because I was hurting. I guess it doesn't matter too much.

I'm pleased at how easily I've been able to work it into my day. The secret is going straight from work. I pack my bag in the morning, take it with me to the office, and then instead of going home, I stay on the bus a few extra stops and go straight to the gym. I can work out for a good hour or so and get a bus back home by 7. I still need to get some logistics worked out, like I hate the bag I've been using so far, so I need to find a better one. And I need to have something to eat around the end of the work day, and I haven't been good about planning that so I end up getting junk to hold me over until dinner. But other than that, it's not been a drain on my schedule. We eat dinner late anyway, so now instead of sitting around after work until we're ready to eat, I'm doing something.

I feel stronger. I'm not sore, but I can feel my muscles. It's nice not to feel like a total blob; it'll be even nicer not to look like one. All in good time.

I am sleeping like a MOFO. In a good way. We usually watch some TV when we go to bed, and often I can watch a couple shows & then still stay awake to read a while before I nod off. Lately I'm barely able to make it through a half-hour show. If it's an hour long, I just tell J not to delete it and I crash while he's still got the TV on. Crazy.

That's the big stuff so far. I plan to keep up with the go-every-day intention for a good while because it's working, and because we're so close to going on vacation (34 days!!!).

In other news, Junior's school play is tonight. It's Jesus Christ Superstar. I am optimistic about this one. His school always does an impressive job on productions; the misery comes from poor choices in what to perform. JCS is a safe bet for me. I started listening to the soundtrack when I was like 5, and I've seen the touring Brodway show 4 or 5 times. So I'm looking forward to it.

Tomorrow I really really want to take the kids to see Death at a Funeral. We all watched the original over break and the remake opens tonight. Roger Ebert loved it - called it the funniest movie since The Hangover, and said it's better than the original. And I think Amy's home from college for the weekend, and she was the one who got us all to watch it, so I'm crossing my fingers that we can fit it into the schedule.

Have a great weekend!

Wing Night with Noah

2010-04-13T11:03:00.000-04:00

Last Wednesday I took my nephew Noah out for wings. We go a couple times a year, and I always end up wishing I could take him every week. He is so much fun. A lot of kids clam up when you're one-on-one, and it's like pulling teeth trying to get them to make conversation. With Noah, you just sit back & listen. He started the minute he got in the car. A sampling:

He told me, totally unprompted, just out of the blue, about how the Spartans used to throw baby boys off of cliffs to see if they were worthy of becoming Spartans. If they lived, they were worthy, and if they died, obviously they weren't cut out for the life. Noah extrapolated this to theorize that the practice went on for quite a long time because if you get thrown off a cliff as a baby, and you live, then you're probably going to be retarded (his word, and I did take the opportunity to dissuade him from using it anymore), so you're going to grow up and not know any better, so you'll do it to more babies. So the Spartans weren't necessarily tough, you see. They had just been dropped on their heads when they were young & it took them forever to figure out it was a BAD IDEA.

I asked him where he comes up with this stuff, and his response was, "I know all kinds of things. For example, I know that banks are most likely to get robbed on Tuesday mornings between 10 and 12."

Later he was telling me what he wants for his birthday: Xbox points. He wanted to make sure I know what they're used for, and I guessed downloading game extras and updates. He said I was right but you can also change your personal information, such as your user name. He then told me he needs to change his user name. I asked what it was, and he told me that it's really bad, and prefaced it by saying that when he entered it, he thought they were asking for something else. So his user name is "soap and shampoo". (it's scrunched together into one word for an ID, but there you have it). I asked what the heck he thought they were asking for and he said it was his email. His email is soap and shampoo???? He said that strangers make fun of him on Xbox Live, but then he beats them in games, and he's all "Like your name is so much better, KittyKatDancer."

Talk turned to baseball, and he goes to school with some kids of local athletes, so he was telling me about how he knows the daughter of one of the Indians. I was all jealous because I didn't go to school with anyone. And he started telling me about this girls weird name. Apparently it's Bianca, but Noah said it all like "Byonk-ahhh" to emphasize its weirdness. I told him that when you say it like a normal person, it's actually a very pretty French name, but he wasn't buying it.

He recently discovered the movie Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, so we talked about that, which was awesome because he is the same age now that I was when the movie came out, and I loved it then and still love it. He probably has the whole thing memorized by now (his movie-dialogue memory is crazy good), so I know I can just look at him and go "It was the worst accident I ever seen" and get him started.

So that was the highlight of last week for me. Noah's birthday is Thursday, so I have to make sure to get out & get those Xbox points. And maybe a little trial size soap & shampoo.

Fun Fact Monday

2010-04-05T13:08:00.000-04:00

First, a quick update: Amy is not pregnant, at least not according to the two tests she took last week. I found out yesterday that she still hasn't gotten her period; she asked me what I thought she should do so I just told her to take one more test for peace of mind. I think she's going to do that today. Based on what I know, the odds that she actually could be pregnant are slimmer than slim, but of course anything's possible. Still, I think that she's OK. And by OK I mean not pregnant.

Now the fun.

I booked a week at a resort in Cancun for J & me, as his 50th birthday present. We leave May 20. I may just explode with excitement before then. I cannot stop looking at the resort's website, letting him know each & every cool new thing I find out about it. It's our first all-inclusive vacation and we are both really looking forward to lounging around all day with cocktails, and eating awesome food without that last-day-of-vacation feeling that we're bleeding money. And as a bonus, we get back on May 27, a Thursday, and I've taken the following day off work as well, and the next Monday is a holiday, so we'll get home and have FOUR MORE DAYS before returning to the office! I could not have planned it better if I tried.
We had a great Easter yesterday. It was a lot of work, and there was one point where I was ready to cut someone for whatever reason they would give me, but once my family arrived and we sat down to dinner, it was just nice. We were missing 2 kids; Junior is in Rome with a group from school, and he spent Easter at the Vatican, and Connick is away for far less pleasant reasons. Yes, less pleasant than the Vatican. I know. I didn't think it was possible either (sorry, Catholic friends). Anyway, we had 10 people present, and we all laughed our asses off at dinner, then everyone went outside & played afterward. J and the boys all went out to shoot hoops, and Amy & the younger girls borrowed the van to go to the park. Nicole said several times that it was the best family get-together we've ever had. It really felt like J's kids and my sister's kids were really truly cousins, and not just a couple sets of kids who get together a few times a year. If that makes sense.
Our Easter meal cost us $30. THIRTY DOLLARS. We didn't even go bargain-hunting. We bought everything Thursday night when I knew for sure that hams would be on sale, but we weren't concerned about anything else. We fed ten people & have plenty left over. It was awesome not to have to ask anyone to bring anything. Often I end up asking my mom to pick up the turkey/ham/main dish, and we take care of all the sides, and she's more than willing to, but it was nice to tell her we had it all taken care of.
I joined a gym on Friday. I've been planning to for a couple months but this weekend finally brought the convergence of money to join and time to work out on the same day. Plus, the fact that I will have to be in a bathing suit in 45 days is quite a motivator. The place I joined is only $10 a month, and it's really nice. Plenty of equipment, free training classes, convenient hours, and good location. It's even on the bus route I take home so I actually brought a change of clothes with me to work today, and I'm going straight there tonight. My goal is to get there every day until vacation and do something. It's easier for me to plan to go every day, and stick to that, than if I plan to go like 3 times a week or something. If I know I can put it off til tomorrow, I will. So I'm starting with the daily plan & today I'll be 4 for 4 (yep, I even got there yesterday in the middle of all the cooking. I was there less than half an hour, but I was there).

That's all I got. Hope your weekend/holiday was good, or at least homicide-free.

I Am Not Old Enough For This

2010-03-30T16:24:00.000-04:00

I kind of like saying that... too often I'm saying the opposite. But:

J turns 50 in 3 weeks. Five Oh. He's not bothered by it, and neither am I really. I'm more freaked out about how fast it's approaching and all the stuff I have to do for it. We reserved the party room at our favorite sports bar, so I don't have to clean the house for a party. That's good. I just have to get invitations out & then get a head count to the bar so we can figure out food. Oh, and I have to come up with a way to pay for that. No sweat. We're also going on a vacation to Cancun at the end of May. I haven't booked anything yet, but should be making reservations by the end of this week for an all-inclusive week somewhere. Oh holy crap, that means I have to wear a bathing suit in like 8 weeks.

The other thing I should not be dealing with yet is pregnancy scares from my stepchildren. Amy called J on Sunday night & told him she's late. She & her boyfriend broke up at the beginning of this month, and from what I can figure of the timing (plus she's been on the pill & claims to have been really good about taking it every day), she should be OK, but still. So yesterday I found myself in the unenviable position of advising her where to get the best price on a test. What a special moment that was. I've spent the time since then reminding myself to be thankful that ~~she is such an oversharer~~ we have such a good relationship that she knows she can ~~tell me everything whether I like it or not~~ come to me without fearing that I'll judge her or something. There is definitely something satisfying about me & J knowing, and not her mom. Hey, I'll take whatever small victory I can get in that department.

The Unwanted Friend Request

2010-03-24T15:42:00.000-04:00

I've read about this on so many people's blogs, and now it's finally happened to me - I got a Facebook friend request this morning from someone I really had no desire ever to hear from again (and I didn't think I was in that much danger of hearing from him). He is an old friend I spent a lot of time with in high school and college, and we parted ways about 15 years ago. He's popped back into my life a couple times since then, and I realized the last time that he only had an interest in being friends when there was something he needed.

The first time he got back in touch with me, his marriage was in trouble. He & his wife were on the verge of divorce. I think he was also unemployed at the time, and so was J, so we had a lot to commiserate about. We hung out for a while, then he kind of dropped out of the picture. No big deal, we knew where to find each other.

The next time I heard from him, he was running for some local political office, and invited J and me to some small event. I can't remember what that was because we couldn't make it, but we met up with everyone later to go bowling. When we go to the bowling alley, his wife was there. They had apparently reconciled, but I had never heard anything about it. I was happy to see the wife; I always liked her, but it bugged me that after I had listened to all those woes I didn't get an email saying "Hey, we got it all worked out!". My friend kept in touch for a little while, then disappeared again. I didn't sweat it.

I later learned that he & his wife did divorce, they both got into relationships with other people, and he moved across the country. I figured that was it. Until today.

I haven't done anything with the friend request yet. I am probably going to dismiss it, but I'm waiting out of a bit of curiosity. There are a few red flags that are really steering me away from letting him back into my life:

In his Facebook profile, he lists himself by his full name - First, Middle, Last. That is douchey.
I looked through his friend list. We have no mutual friends, and to my knowledge he hasn't sent requests to anyone I am still friends with who was ever also a friend of his.
He only has 18 friends, so maybe his account is new, or maybe he just doesn't have any friends (this is the biggest reason I'm waiting - I want to see whether that number increases or not).
None of his 18 friends are relatives (I know his immediate and a good chunk of his extended family) or people I know were his friends in any previous iteration of our friendship. This will not come as a surprise to anyone who has known him. He tends to "clean house" with every new phase of his life.

I've spent the day trying to figure out what he might need from me... is he going through another divorce? Did he move back to town, and he's bored & looking for someone to hang out with? Is he dying? Why me, and no one else (that I know of, anyway)? Gah.

Maybe I'll Wait a Little While Before Starting the Next Alex Cross Installment

2010-03-19T09:18:00.000-04:00

J is out of town right now; he's spending the first couple days of the NCAA tournament at some guy's house who has like 6 TVs in his basement or some shit. It's a couple hours away from our place so he got a hotel & crashed there last night.

I don't spend the night alone at home often. It doesn't bother me at all; in fact I kind of relish it. I celebrated last night by keeping my bedside lamp on until almost 1 so I could read (I know, right? I'm so crazy). I finally fell asleep & was sleeping pretty soundly until something startled me at about 4:30. I wrote it off as my BlackBerry buzzing with an incoming email or something, and rolled over. Then I started thinking, What if it wasn't my phone? What if I woke up because some creepy killer is standing at the foot of my bed waiting to torture me?

And then I decided I've been reading way too much James Patterson lately, it really must have been my buzzing phone, and I went back to sleep. I figure since I'm here to tell the story this morning, I was probably right.

Erin Go... Blah

2010-03-17T14:41:00.000-04:00

I'm working on St. Patrick's Day for the first time in several years. I went back & forth for a while about whether to take the day off. I knew I wasn't going to be doing much drinking, so it seemed kind of silly to take a vacation day & not go out and celebrate. On the other hand, after working all day, do I want to be the only sober person on a bus home? Not really.

My decision was cemented yesterday when I looked at my calendar and saw that I had agreed to do a training class for our second shift word processing group tonight. It was all arranged verbally last week; their supervisor asked if I could do the class, I said yes, she said "How's next Wednesday?", and I said "Sure." Dang it.

So not only am I working, I'm working late. And J is going out to watch the big high school basketball game (the 2 big Catholic boys' schools, one of which Junior attends but doesn't play ball for, are playing at the local State University). So he'll be gone before I get home. I'll make the best of that by having something for dinner that he hates.

Speaking of J, he got the results of his MRI last week. His broken ankle is healing well on its own; his Achilles tendon is torn, not so much that the orthopedist said he needs surgery off the bat, but too torn to rule out surgery. So he's been referred to a surgeon, who he'll meet with on the 24th. I hate the waiting. We're trying to plan a vacation, so I've been all over the internet finding deals on cruises and resorts, but we can't plan anything until we know if he's going to be recovering from surgery, and how long that rehab will take. Hopefully we'll know next week when travel is going to be feasible. If I have to wait longer than that I just might have to go on vacation alone. And the trip is for J's 50th birthday, so that might not go over so well.

Catching Up

2010-03-08T11:38:00.000-05:00

I have been crazy busy at work the last few weeks, and that's really the only place I post from. I try writing at home & usually just can't. But today I finally have some time to breathe, which means I can get some updates done.

I don't know if I mentioned this here before, but back in December or November, J hurt himself while officiating basketball games. He was running backward and strained his achilles tendon. The doctor told him that he'd like for J to stop officiating until it healed, but the likelihood of it snapping was just as high whether he was walking to the bus stop or working a game, so J continued. He started physical therapy, and over 10 weeks or so he made some improvements but it wasn't healing fst enough so the doc sent him to an orthopedic specialist (known to my neighbor Mike as an "orthopod"). X-rays showed a bone chip floating around and 2 separate fractures. People. My husband officiated 60 games on a broken ankle. His "badass mofo" status is, I believe, set in stone. (same goes for "crazy person"). He had an MRI last week & finds out in a couple days whether he'll need surgery. Right now it's about a 50% chance.
Amy was home for the last week on spring break. She was remarkably un-douchey, which was so refreshing. On Friday, her boyfriend broke up with her, which sucked but wasn't a surprise to anyone, and I thought she dealt with the couple days immediately following very well. She basically refused to be down about it, and spent lots of time with family. She went with the other kids to the Cavs game Friday night, and she & Nicole & I all went to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show on Saturday. She's back at school now, which means a lot of alone time, which she's never really been too good at. So hopefully she'll be OK.
Speaking of Rocky Horror, wow. I went a couple times when I was younger, but the last time I saw it in the theater was probably 1993. Before Nicole was even born. There is a local theater that runs midnight showings of it every month, and a cast acts the whole thing out on the floor right below the screen, and you go throw shit, and yell at the screen, and sing along, and it's really fun. People dress as characters, or just go in underwear, or whatever. Nicole pointed out a very heavyset girl dressed in lingerie & made a comment about how that was probably an unwise wardrobe choice. My reply was "That's kind of what this whole thing is about though", and she got it. There were all kinds of people there, and everyone fit. The minority? People over 30. I was not the oldest in the room, or the only grown-up or anything, but man. We did have a great time, though. It's definitely something I think everyone should go see. But if you're my age, get yourself a time machine & go see it in your 20s.

That's all for now - I don't want to go too crazy my first day back! Hopefully work won't keep me away for so long again. I just hate when my job gets in the way of my life like that!

Isn't It Romantic?

2010-02-12T15:39:00.000-05:00

Valentine's Day is upon us. Here at Chez Gosh, that just means I'll be ramping up my already-persistent attempts to get laid before I die already. If you're in the same boat, let me save you some trouble by telling you what hasn't worked for me recently. Following are transcripts of actual conversations between me & my husband.

The Text Message
B: I got something hot and steamy waiting for you... oh, and the pizza is ready too
J: Cute... Something hot to put on my achy back I hope!
B: If that's where you want it...
J: LOL

(Any text thread that ends in LOL also ends in Not Getting Any.)

The Pragmatic Approach
J: What do you want to do?
B: Screw.
J: My back is sore.
B: Your back's gonna be sore tomorrow either way, so we might as well screw.

The Shopping Trip

B: I'm heading out & will probably be stopping at Costco or BJ's. Anything you want me to pick up?
J: I don't know, what do you want to eat this weekend?
B: Cock.
J: I think you'd get that at BJ's
B: I should have a pretty good supply at home.

The Last Request
B: I'M DYING.
J: You're not dying.

The Transaction
B, handing J a check: You'd better put out.
J: [laughs]

A-land to Z-land

2010-02-08T14:02:00.000-05:00

Saturday night, J and the boys decided to watch Zombieland. I was interested but also afraid it would be too gory (I hate too much blood), so I passed. The next morning, the guys were laughing about it so much that I decided to watch it myself. It was SO MUCH FUN. Felt a little weird watching it on Sunday morning, but I had some crocheting to do so I had to put in some serious couch time, and it helped pass a couple hours.

Anyway, it was a great movie. Gross, but not like a slasher flick. Woody Harrelson was totally fun, and someone else made the best cameo I have ever seen. And it earned points in my house for the main character being a Columbus native, even including a shout-out to the name of the pizza place my husband loved growing up. That could have been a coincidence but it didn't matter. We took it.

So after I finished Zombieland, I decided to watch Adventureland, because how corny would it be to watch two "-land" movies, one starting with A and the other starting with Z? I started Adventureland and immediately noticed it fit my day's theme in another way - the main character was played by the same guy who was in Zombieland - Jesse Eisenberg. Whaaat? So that was cool. Adventureland was fine, nothing great. Eisenberg reminds me of Andy Samberg doing a Michael Cera impression, and two movies in a row of that was... enough.

Then Blazing Saddles was on AMC so I watched that, sang/spoke along with half of it, and laughed my ass off while the kids walked by giving me strange looks (they just discovered Monty Python, but aren't familiar with Mel Brooks yet. That will change soon).

All this was done before dinner. Productive day! Thank goodness we did dinner in the crockpot, or I never would have gotten all that accomplished. All that crochet, I mean, of course. Not all that sitting on my ass. I do plenty of that every day.

Miscellany Monday

2010-02-01T13:33:00.000-05:00

I was crazy busy at work all last week, and try as I might, I just can't seem to get into the mood to post from home, hence my absence. Fortunately, I was busy with good stuff that I enjoy doing, and it made the week fly by. That was nice.

I have a couple larger things rolling around in the hopper that is my brain, but for now just some linktastic bullet points:

Purse update: I received my purse from eBags.com a couple weeks ago, and I love it so far. It's just the right size for my phone, iPod, and wallet, and even holds my nook as long as its cover isn't on. The one drawback I hadn't anticpated is that there is no zipper pocket - there is one zipper that closes the whole purse, but that's it. So, it's only a matter of time before I go to pull my wallet out to pay for something and a tampon flies out onto the counter at Five Guys. The way my luck runs, it will probably fly over the counter and some poor teenage boy will have to pick it up and return it to me. So I'll have to get something in place to prevent that.
Books: I have been reading like a fiend since Christmas. I've read the first two books in the Alex Cross series by James Patterson (Along Came A Spider and Kiss The Girls); The Help; I Am A Genius of Unspeakable Evil And I Want To Be Your Class President; Tears of the Giraffe (#2 in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series); Why Girls Are Weird; and I'm about a third of the way through The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Oh, and I have made good progress on Renegade: The Making of a President by Richard Wolffe. And I have liked them all - weird. That's just a little less than two books a week, a pace I haven't ever really achieved. We'll see how long I can maintain it.
Other: Our local theatre is doing The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee in March/April. I saw it on Broadway a few years ago and LOVED it, so I'm excited to see it coming to within walking distance of my house. I asked Junior if he wanted to go with me and turns out that although he's never seen it, he's very familiar with the soundtrack, and he wants to go see it. It is nice not to have to worry about finding theatre-going companions anymore.
TV: Are you watching Archer on FX? If not, you must start. I initially watched it because the main character is voiced by H. Jon Benjamin, who did the voice of Ben Katz on Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist (one of the greatest shows of all time). Anyway, I love Benjamin's voice, and the new show is frickin' hilarious. It is also pretty filthy, and wrong, but so, so funny. I watch each episode several times before I delete it from the DVR.
More TV: Speaking of TV, Lost is back tomorrow, and while I do plan to watch it, I am just not very excited. I hope it's good, because it used to be, and I look forward to seeing what gets answered. But I've gotten so annoyed at some of the characters that I just want them to go away (I'm looking at you, Jack Shephard).
Money: Because of some maneuvering I did to plan for a trip we're taking for J's birthday later this year, I was somehow able to pay ALL of my February bills with my January 29 paycheck! This is definitely not something I'll be able to sustain, but man, did it feel good! And my next paycheck on 2/15 is completely MINE. And it comes just in time for my trip to Vegas with Shelly, Donna, and Erica. I'll be able to spend the whole weekend not worrying about money. I still won't go crazy; I'm kind of wired not to. But I'll be able to do what I want.

Thank You!

2010-01-15T10:40:00.000-05:00

Thanks to all of you who left me comments on yesterday's post. As of right now, there are 14 - that's like TRIPLE my previous high!

I'm going to assume that if I'd waited a little longer, or tweeted a few more times, 86 more people would have stopped by. I went ahead and made a $100 donation to the Red Cross this morning:

Thanks to all of you for coming to say hello - I met some new people & look forward to reading your blogs! And I know many of you are doing the same thing over on your sites, so thanks. It's really been moving to see how people have responded to this, whether by a donation-per-comment, or texting donations to Yele or the Red Cross, or any of the other methods that have popped up.

Because

2010-01-14T09:37:00.000-05:00

Because it's Delurking Day

Because tomorrow's payday

Because I'm writing this while watching coverage of the tragedy in Haiti

Because I'm getting ready to take a completely frivolous trip to Vegas & a little good karma wouldn't hurt

For every comment I get on this post, I pledge to donate $1 to the Red Cross - up to, let's say 100 comments.

I think I've never gotten more than 5 comments on a single post before, so I don't expect to hit that ceiling, but let's see how close we can get, shall we?

Little Things

2010-01-12T10:25:00.000-05:00

Nothing big today, just some things that have been rattling through my head recently.

I love when people have last names that kind of steer them into certain lines of work. We were watching Extreme Makeover Home Edition on Sunday (my husband turns it on a few times a year, and we both sit and weep for a couple hours, and we never speak of it again), and there was an interview with a guy named Mark Schwinghammer. He was one of the builders. Of COURSE he's a builder! We both noticed it at the same time and we were making jokes like "Mom, I think I'm going to go into astrophysics."/"Oh no you're not, dear." Then we started crying again.
With the exception of eyeglasses, every time I shop for clothes or accessories or anything wearable, I always feel like I'm drawn to "boring" colors like blacks and earth tones, so I look through the stuff I gravitate towards first, then I force myself to pick something with a little more to it - a bright color or a pattern that I don't really think is me. So anyway, I have been looking for a new purse for a while now, and last week I was on ebags.com and found the purse I hope is showing to the right, but could be anywhere in this post (I'm still new at some aspects of this). I showed it to my friend Renee to see what she thought of it, and she said "Oh, it's not something I would pick out but you always go for bold things." So, I guess my efforts are working. I ordered it and it should arrive today. Yay!
Speaking of ebags.com, the last thing I bought from there was a backpack in 2006. 6 months after I had gotten it, they emailed me and asked me to rate the backpack for the benefit of future shoppers who might be considering it. In exchange for my filling out a quick survey, they sent me a link to get 20% off my next purchase. I saved the email until last week, and was very pleasantly surprised that after over 3 years, the discount still worked! Is that awesome or what??
When I got to work yesterday, there was a cooler in my cube containing a 5-liter minikeg of Warsteiner beer! It was from Jerry, my co-worker who once said to me "I spend a lot of money on guns. I could spend just as much money at Bed, Bath, and Beyond." He went into a period of mourning when the BB&B near him closed. Anyway, his son had received 2 of these little kegs, and didn't like the taste of the beer when he opened one, so Jerry brought the other one to me! Also, his wife works for some kind of foodservice broker, and gets metric shitloads of free food, and he has started sharing some of her spoils with me. So today in the fridge there is a 4-pound vat (really, there's no better word) of Land O' Lakes garlic spread for me to split with a couple of the other girls in the department. Jerry is a good, good friend to have.

Happy Palindrome Day!

2010-01-02T18:57:00.000-05:00

I don't usually get too excited about the whole time/date coincidences, but I do like palindromes. Today's 01/02/2010, which reads backward & forward the same way (except in places where they use day/month/year format, when this will occur on 01 Feb, but I digress).

Plus, I love this Weird Al video, and today is a perfect excuse to share it.

And for good measure, here's They Might Be Giants with "I Palindrome I". This is a nice old clip of them performing on Letterman, in the olden days before they were a kids' group. Ah, memories...

New Year's Eve Wrap-up

2010-01-01T16:58:00.000-05:00

New Year's Eve was a lot of low-key fun. We had the kids, plus Amy's boyfriend, Nicole's friend, and the kids' cousin Tim here. J & I cooked up a feast - homemade pizza, chicken wings, cake, chips, shrimp, and more - and everyone grazed all night. Here are the highlights:

Wii Fit was the game of the night. I never really would have pegged that as a party game, but it was what everyone wanted to do. Lex, Amy's bf, had never played it before so he got on the balance board and let everyone choose activities for him. It was quite a show. We were laughing our asses off at him doing the hula hoop game, but he was game for anything they wanted him to do, and he got a lot of points for that.
Billy's big plan for the midnight countdown was to make a 3-point buzzer beater. He ran outside at about 11:55, and listened for us to yell so he'd know when to shoot the basketball. He didn't make the shot. Probably just as well, since no one even went outside with him to watch him make it anyway.
At around 12:15, J noticed 4 cop cars on the street beside our house. There's a pot dealer down that street who seems to attract police quite frequently, but somehow never gets in any trouble for anything. We were standing out on the porch watching to see what was going on , and when the cops left that house, and were walking back to their cars, we all saw fireworks coming from the backyard of the house across the street from us. So the policemen walked up the driveway, knocked on the gate to get the people's attention, and apparently weren't noticed because the next thing we saw was a Roman candle blowing right over the cops' heads. They just entered the back yard on their own at that point.
Billy was HYPER all night, like crazy talkative antsy hyper. He started doing some kind of dance he was calling "the jerk" (he actually said "I'm jerking in the living room" but I just can't bear to word it that way), and right in the middle of a move, he slipped on the hardwoord floor and fell right on his ass. It was nice to get my first good laugh of the new year so promptly.
Jr. went to a party, so we didn't see much of him until he got home at about 1. He's been refusing to play Rock Band with Billy, Nicole, and me, forcing us to start a new band and generally being a pain in the ass about it for the past week or two. Last night out of nowhere, he said to me, "Becky - I will start playing Rock Band with you guys again when they come out with a Broadway edition". I just stared at him dumbfounded, because the only reponse that would come to mind was "Are you gay?" and I had to suppress that. Finally I just said "I don't even know what to say to that." He's not effeminate or anything, but every so often something happens that makes J & me say "Yeah, he might be gay." This was one of those times. But, he also might just be a straight dude who loves show tunes. Time will tell.
Everyone slept in this morning, J took most of the kids back to their mom's at noon, and Amy stayed here to hang out with Lex this afternoon. Football has been on all day, and right now we're just waiting for the Rose Bowl to start. We'll be noshing on leftover munchies the rest of the night, and enjoying the fact that we still have 2 more days off before we go back to work.

I don't want to call anything too early, but so far 2010 is a WAY better year than 2009. Hope it's the same for all of you! Happy New Year!

2010 Is Looking Better Already

2009-12-30T16:41:00.000-05:00

2009 has sucked, and I can't fucking WAIT to kick it to the curb. There are many factors which have contributed to its suckiness, one of which was the climate at work.

In March, 46 people from my firm got laid off. I was lucky enough not to lose my job, but we did have to let someone in my department go, and it just sucked. On the day of the layoffs, it was announced that the 2009 bonus pool had been cut, so we should be prepared for not getting that extra money at the end of the year.

Over the summer and early fall, more positions were cut, but it was done in a different manner. People would just disappear, in clusters of 3 or so, and nothing was ever said. Some genius figured that this would raise less panic, but it just made us more aware of how management was just being secretive about everything. I was never able to relax all year, and even took most of my personal possessions off my desk, so I wouldn't have to leave it to someone else to have to pack them up in the event I got laid off.

During my review, I was told that no raises had been approved for next year, but no announcement had been made that they weren't available, either. But by the time we're getting reviews, raises are typically decided and approved, so it wasn't looking good.

So I scaled way back on Christmas shopping (I usually do it all with my bonus, and instead I just bought sticking stuffers for J & the kids this year). I spent my last 13 dollars on tickets to see Sherlock Holmes on Christmas Day. It was worth it, even though I depleted my checking account to the point that I've been pretty much housebound for the last few days. And that was it. Tomorrow's payday, and I've been making a spectacular grocery list to celebrate.

Then, just about 15 minutes ago, I got an email on my BlackBerry. It was from the firm's managing partner to all employees. He says that because of budget cuts throughout the year, and efforts on all fronts to increase business, we're in better shape now than it looked like we'd be in March. And all full-time employees will get a $500 bonus with their paychecks tomorrow! AND, small raises will be given, effective January 1! I read the message to J, and I got all choked up. $500 is less than we usually get, but it's FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS* more than I was told to expect! Bonus, indeed!

Our at-home-with-the-kids New Year's Eve is going to ROCK. We're having a feast!!!

Take that, 2009, you piece of shit year!!!

*minus tax, 401(k), other withholdings, etc.

Merry Effing Christmas

2009-12-27T13:08:00.000-05:00

It was shaping up to be a genuinely shitty holiday here at the OMG pad. On Christmas Eve, Amy & Nicole got into a pretty ugly territorial dispute over their bedroom; Amy wanted use of the room for privacy with her boyfriend, and Nicole wanted to use the computer/TV located in there. I sat in the livingroom listening to them snipe at each other, Amy intentionally bouncing on the top bunk so that the squeaking would annoy Nicole down below. Suddenly, I heard what I thought was Amy throwing something of Nicole's out of the room so that when N left the room to retrieve it, A would shut the door & not let her back in. (Here might be a good place to remind you that Amy is an "adult", an almost-20-year-old college sophomore). Nicole started screaming, Lex (Amy's bf) had to intervene, so I sent J up to see what was going on. I had a feeling that if I got involved I would have just made Amy leave the house altogether so I handed things over to him.

It turned out that when Nicole wouldn't leave the room just because she was ordered to, Amy jumped down from the top bunk, grabbed Nicole BY THE HAIR, and dragged her out of the room.

This happened 3 minutes before dinner was ready.

Nicole pulled herself together - she was more upset than I have ever seen her in the 11 years I've known her - and came to the table. J gave Amy a few minutes to calm down then went up to talk to her. Lex was still here through this whole thing; he had to sit between the girls at the table. We had a very tense meal, then everyone went their separate ways for a while. Including Lex - he was apparently (suitably) appalled at what he saw Amy do, and left our house by 8:30. He usually stays into the wee hours.

So in the interest of not ruining the whole holiday, and making peace between sisters who have to share a room, J & I and the girls had a talk. J asked what the root of the problem is, and A took the opportunity to make the most remarkable Airing of Grievances I have ever heard. It included things like "The family doesn't spend any time together - no one leaves their rooms". "There is stuff in my bed that doesn't belong to me." "Nicole touches my laptop when I tell her not to." TWENTY YEARS OLD. I reminded her of the fact that she herself doesn't get out of bed until mealtime, and doesn't leave her room ever all day, and while her statement about "family time" has some validity, she's not exactly doing jack shit to change anything.

Basically, it all boils down to the fact that Amy doesn't have a roommate at school, and Nicole gets very used to having the bedroom to herself most of the year. So when they come home and are both forced to share space, they can't handle it.

We negotiated an uneasy peace, Amy apologized for her disgusting behavior, and we all just spent the rest of the night trying not to think about it.

Christmas morning, we all opened our stuff. J went totally overboard this year - new TVs for the kids' rooms, and laptops for the 3 who didn't have them already. I got a nook (B&N's new e-reader) and a new iPod. He expected a big reaction from the kids, and he didn't really get one, and he was disappointed. Their gift to him was a $50 restaurant gift card. I didn't buy him anything because I'm combining his Christmas & birthday presents this year & we're going on a vacation. So he was let down.

He dropped the kids off at their mom's for the day, came back, and went straight to bed. I went up to see what was going on and he complained about the kids not putting any thought into his gift after he worked so hard on Christmas. That may or may not be true - there's a good chance that Crazy Bitch asked them not "What do you want to get your dad for Christmas?" but "Where do you want to get your dad a gift card to for Christmas?" He was determined to pout for a while; I advised him not to let it ruin his day, but he had decided it already had.

He wallowed for like 3 hours, which just pissed me off. I didn't expect I'd be spending the day alone while he felt sorry for himself. We finally agreed to go to the movies, and were both very tense until the opening minutes of the show (Sherlock Holmes, which fucking ROCKED). We both felt better by the time we left the theater, but still, overall this was one of our worst Christmases together.

The kids got back to our house late that night, and I missed it, but apparently Billy brought along a gift for J to open. It was what is typically the kind of thing you'd buy for someone you don't know very well, or for a generic exchange or something: a 6-pack of flavored coffees, each enough to make one pot, and each flavored with a different kind of liquor (Frangelico, Southern Comfort, stuff like that). But here, it brought tears to J's eyes, and it really was a personal, fitting present. We love coffee, and we have a huge liquor collection in our basement, and Billy obviously had that in mind. It was perfect. It turned the whole shitty day around completely.

The excitement J was hoping for when the kids opened their presents finally came yesterday, when they had finished all the initial setup/installation/updates, and started using the computers in earnest. They've also been playing video games together, watching movies with us, and just general togetherness stuff. Amy & Nicole seem to be getting along for reals now, so I think things are good there until at least Spring Break.

All in all, I'm still glad the holiday is over. We got things straightened out with a couple days to spare before the kids go back to Crazy Bitch for the rest of their break, which was good, but this was the most stressing, whining, pouting holiday I can remember. I was seconds away from offering to take ALL of your 3-year-olds and let you just pass around our college student.

Now, my attention is honed on New Year's Eve - I'm so ready to be done with 2009.

Bah Humbug!

2009-12-21T10:11:00.000-05:00

I am totally not in the Christmas spirit this year. I was going to write about why, but that just puts me in a worse mood so I'm doing this Christmas meme instead. I am not a meme person - this is the first one I've ever done, and probably the last. So take that as evidence of how hard I'm working to at least look like I'm looking forward to the holiday. So here goes:

Eggnog or hot chocolate? Hot chocolate. I try eggnog every year, and every year I'm like "Yeah, still not crazy about that."

Does Santa wrap the presents or leave them open under the tree? Everything gets wrapped, but we're kind of done with Santa around here. He used to bring one gift for the whole family, and everything else was from J & me (largely because of the way Christmas is done on Crazy Bitch's side of the family - we couldn't compete, so we deliberately downscaled). We still do a family gift but there's very little Santa pretense anymore.

Colored lights on a tree or white? When I was single it was all white - now we're down to one strand of white and a shitload of colored, and I've grown to like it.
Do you hang mistletoe? No.

When do you put your decorations up? Whenever our schedule allows us to. This year we're doing it now - tree and stockings went up last night and whatever else gets done will be done today. Last year, I think we cut our tree on like the 22. We've done it as early as the first week of December, though, too.
What is your favorite holiday dish? Buckeyes (peanut butter balls), I guess. There's not really any dish I associate with Christmas.
Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Not usually.

How do you decorate your Christmas tree? We put lights up, then the kids do the ornaments. This year we had the kids help pass the lights around the tree, which was maybe not such a good idea. The cords are all wrapped around the outside of the branches, so every time I walk by I try to shove them back toward the trunk a little.

Snow: love it or hate it? Love it. Even when I have to walk through it to get to work.
Can you ice skate? Last time I tried, I was able to get around a rink. I think that was about 25 years ago.
What is your favorite holiday dessert? Whatever's there. Anything homemade.
What is your favorite holiday tradition? Heading out to the tree farm to cut our tree. And remembering the first tree J and I bought together - it was about 5 feet wide and we had to drive it home on the top of my Nissan Sentra. We couldn't get it through the front door without cutting several branches off the bottom, and just as we were getting it home, my stepmom called to say she was going to drop in. She had to help us shove the tree into the house, then rearrange the furniture in the living room to accomodate it. It was massive.

Candy canes: yum or yuck? I can take them or leave them. I like the traditional ones, and I like to try flavored ones every year, but those are such a gamble, and the bad ones are SO bad.
Favorite Christmas show? A Christmas Story. The first time we saw it, my grandparents were at our house, and it turns out that Ralphie is a SPITTING IMAGE of my dad when he was that age, so my grandma was peeing herself laughing at him. So I always have good memories when I watch it. Also: filmed in Cleveland.

OK, that helped a little. Merry Christmas.

English-Pottymouth Dictionary

2009-12-18T10:13:00.000-05:00

In less than an hour, I will be turning on my Out of Office assistant with the following message:

I am on vacation and will return Monday, January 4th. For assistance while I am gone, please contact ext. 7500.

Happy Holidays!
Becky

Translation:

ADIOS, MOTHERFUCKERS!!!!

Crabbytown

2009-12-16T13:01:00.000-05:00

Everyone around here is SO CRABBY today! I was doing some training this morning with people in our other offices; we are piloting some new software and we need people to test it, so I was giving the testers a demo. Our Dayton IS Guy sat in on the training, and he had SO MUCH STUFF HE HATED. Why are we doing this? I thought best practice was this? This is not going to be well-received. Blah blah blah. So I had to answer him as calmly as I could while a Partner was watching me, so I couldn't even roll my eyes or flip off the phone. Which in turn made ME crabby.

Then, we all got the email that comes out periodically letting us know it's time to sign up for weeks to carry the department pager. Technically, each person in the department is supposed to carry it for a week, but there are a few who cover most weeks for other people, so they can get some extra money in their paychecks. So this one guy in Cincinatti somehow managed to grab a bunch of weeks before anyone else could even sign up, and the guys here had a total Shit Fit. How is he doing this? This is all supposed to go through Boss! He is on vacation, for Pete's sake! This is an outrage!

The Senior guy of the group - you know, the most professional one, who is 30 years older than everyone else and conducts himself with more decorum than others - wrote an email to Boss saying "Since everyone is making up their own rules for this, then my new rule is I'm not going to have to carry the pager anymore." Then something about taking his ball and going home. Meanwhile, he is actively ignoring messages from ME regarding the fairly urgent technical issues I am having with software he is supposed to fix, so I'm even more crabby.

At 11 AM Friday, I am done working for the year. And today, I am counting down every crabby minute.

Oh HA!!! The admin assistant just yelled over to the Senior guy "You sound like you're twelve". See? It's not just me.

Revisionist History

2009-12-09T10:09:00.000-05:00

Um, wow. When I signed in just now I saw that my last post was on Nov. 20. I keep thinking of things I intend to write about, so I guess that makes it feel like I've done something, and I end up losing track.

Anyway, here's my latest goings-on.

My neighbor Jan, married to Mike the Mafia Wars freak, has this weird way of embellishing her memory of things over time, so each retelling gets more and more... I was going to say "interesting" but that's definitely not the case. Dramatic? Something like that. We've all heard these stories over and over and can track the progression over time, but there have been things she's said where Mike stopped her and said "That never happened." It doesn't stop her from anything, but it helps me to know I'm not the only one who thinks what she's saying is implausible.

So I was over at their house last night returning a couple things I'd borrowed, and we started talking about Christmas baking. She wanted to know when we would have the kids for their Christmas break, so she could deliver some cookies for them. Then she went into this weird story she tells me every December, where she took cookies over to my house for my family, and J ate them all. Except this year, it has gone from something I don't believe but I can't prove it didn't happen, around the bend into a full-on tall tale. This year, she claims that she delivered 6 dozen cookies to our house while I wasn't there, and later that same night J called her to say how much he had enjoyed them and could she spare some more for the kids? She was flabbergasted because she meant those 6 dozen to be shared among the whole family, but she took some more cookies over and would never say anything to J about it because it's too embarassing.

I just stared at her in disbelief. I checked Mike to see if he had any reaction, but he had kind of glazed over. Here's the thing:

Jan has never given me 6 dozen of anything. She is very generous, but in smaller batches. Usually I get a plate of something. Not 72.
J can put away cookies like no one I've ever seen. But even he stops before he hits 6 dozen.
J would never polish off all of something Jan had brought over before at least I had a chance to have some. He considers that type of thing between Jan and me, and he only takes stuff after I've let him know it's fair game & not reserved for something.
J would also never call Jan to tell her he had eaten all of something she brought over and did she have any more? There is no fucking way.

There's not even any point in telling her this, because she'll just insist it's true, even though it doesn't even match the version of the story she told me last year. I can't wait to hear what happens next December. Will J have finished off all the cookies and then just used his key to her house and eaten everything in her fridge? Or gone door-to-door asking our other neighbors if they had any extra cookies? Will he have grown big googly eyes and blue fur? There is no telling.

"J" stands for "Jailbird"

2009-11-20T14:37:00.000-05:00

This is really long, but it's a story I like & never get to tell. So get comfy.

This weekend, the weekend before Thanksgiving, is always significant in our neck of the woods. It marks the Big Game, the annual faceoff between The Ohio State University and the university of michigan. The Game happens on Saturday, and for some reason, Friday is on my husband's List of Party Nights (other Party Nights include: the night before Thanksgiving and the night Daylight Savings Time ends - the fall-back one, not the spring ahead one. He SWEARS these are popular nights to go out and drink. I don't know if he's correct or not, or where he gets this information. Even if he's right, the List has got to be from when he was in college. 25 years ago.).

Anyway.

Three years ago, on the Friday night of this Big Game weekend, J let me know he was going out for a few beers with some co-workers. I wasn't interested, so I just went straight home from work. I ended up going to bed pretty early, and was just drifting off to sleep at 9:15 when the phone rang. It was J. Calling to tell me he had been arrested and was spending the night in jail.

He wasn't making much sense; he had apparently taken Party Night pretty seriously, and all he could tell me was that he got arrested for kicking someone's car. He expected to be released the next morning at around 9, but would call me in the morning when he knew for sure. I told him I'd pick him up whenever he was able to leave, and I would talk to him the next day.

Just as a quick disclaimer, while he was definitely drunk, he was not driving and had no plans to drive. He was drinking downtown near work, and would have taken the bus home from the bar.

15 minutes later, the phone rang again. J again, calling to ask me to record the Big Game just in case he wasn't set free in time.

In my head I said, "What kind of jail are you in that you're allowed to call home & ask me to record the game?"

Out loud I said, "Of course I will record the game. But don't worry, you'll be home by then. I'll see you tomorrow."

The next morning, he called to say he was being let out and I could come get him. This happened to be our weekend with the kids, so we'd end up going straight from the jail to pick them up (I know, right?). So I got in the van & drove downtown and went inside to get him.

The guard at the desk: "Can I help you?"
Becky: "I'm here to pick up my husband."
Guard: "Where is he?"
Becky: "He, um, spent the night here, if you know what I mean."
Guard: "And he's been released?"
Becky: "That's what he said when he called me."
Guard: "Why isn't he down here waiting?"
Becky: "I don't know. I've never done this sort of thing before. Should he be waiting?"
Guard: "Usually they're down here in the lobby. Let me call upstairs and see what's going on."

So he calls upstairs, and when he hangs up, he's all "I don't know what's going on but they said you have to go upstairs to get him. This is really weird. Go up to the 6th floor to pick him up."

I head up to the 6th floor, use a phone to let someone know I'm there, and another guard comes out with a piece of paper for me to sign. I start signing my name and he just says "You have no idea what you're signing, do you?"

What the fuck, man? What's the worst it could be? Am I trading my husband's freedom for my own? I kind of doubt it. What is up with you guys going out of your way to stress me out?

I looked at the form I was signing and all it was was a bond agreement; if J didn't show up for his court date I would be held responsible. Fine, whatever, give me my husband back.

They go to get J, and when he comes down the hall towards me he looks AWFUL. He has only re-laced one of his shoes, his hair is all matted, his eyes have huge bags under them. I've never seen him look so horrible before or since.

We get in the van and he starts fretting about how getting arrested is going to result in him losing his job, which in turn is going to mean he can't buy Christmas presents, which in turn will mean that all his children will hate him.

He obviously didn't get a very good night's sleep. I convince him to just take it one step at a time, and for now we'll just concentrate on resting. We get the kids, get everyone home, and J posts up on the couch for the Game.

Later, I finally get the full story:

After Happy Hour festivities had come to an end, J made his way to the bus stop to get a ride home. While he was standing there, a guy pulled up and parked his car right in front of the bus shelter - a no-parking zone. J said something to the guy, who basically just flipped him off and walked away. J may or may not have (he probably did) kicked the car's rear fender. Not hard, just making a statement. No damage.

By the way, this particular bus stop is basically right across the street from the justice center/police station/jail.

Within minutes, a bus pulled up, couldn't get all they way to the curb because of the car, so J stepped into the street to board. He had one foot on the bus, and suddenly felt himself getting pulled backwards by several cops. He was arrested & taken in for the night.

(Our theory is that the guy who parked there was an off-duty officer who just ran in and sent his buddies out to get J for kicking his car.)

J was never given a copy of his police report, but got one look at it. It stated that he was resisting arrest, taunting a police officer, wouldn't stop yelling after being asked to stop. None of this is true or even believable. He'd been drinking, but wasn't wasted. This happened before 9 PM. He isn't a belligerent drunk. None of the accusations made sense at all.

He showed up for his court date, and hired a lawyer who pretty much agreed with our off-duty officer theory. He helped J get into a first-time-offenders program, which involved a few months of probation, and then his record got expunged.

5 months and several hundred dollars later, the whole thing was over. But J was left with a bad impression of police officers for a while. The best part was when the end of his probation kind of dovetailed with the Duke lacrosse team being exonerated of rape charges, and J had this to say about the news:

"I can sympathize with them. I know what it's like to be falsely accused of something."

With a straight face.

My Awesome Nephew

2009-11-13T14:32:00.001-05:00

Wednesday afternoon, I was sitting at work contemplating the evening ahead of me. J was going to be officiating some basketball games, so I didn't expect to see him. My biggest decision was which hated-by-him, loved-by-me meal was I going to prepare for dinner? I have some pierogies in the freezer, but I also have a meatloaf recipe that's been calling my name.

At 3:30, I got a call on my cell phone from my nephew Noah. His class was having a bake sale, and he wanted some help baking a cake. The sale was scheduled for today and tomorrow, so he had to bake last night. The proceeds were going to the family of a student at his school, whose brother has cancer. The fundraising effort was named "Pennies for P_____" with P_______ being the kid's last name (I never did find that out; Noah couldn't remember it or find it in a directory).

I asked what he wanted to make & was surprised at how ready he was with an answer. His idea: A half-white, half-chocolate cake, frosted in chocolate. White writing spelling out "Pennies for P_____", and coins drawn in yellow icing. At this point he was still pretty confident he could get the kid's name.

So I cancelled my dinner-alone plans and kept my pants on when I got home from work, and headed out to help Noah. I wasn't really sure what to get to decorate the cake with - I wanted to be able to use some kind of decoration so we wouldn't have to do hand-drawn coins. I started at Target, went through their grocery, party, scrapbooking, and other departments, and found nothing to do with money. I came up with the awesome idea of chocolate coins, but was faced with the not-awesome absence of them in the candy aisle.

I headed to Michael's. They have a whole cake-decorating section. I was able to get some sparkly gold & green icing to write with, so at least we'd be able to make some shiny coins and dollar signs if worse came to worse. I went through stamps, stickers, beads, felt, toys, and no coins anywhere in the store! Noah called me while I was there; it was getting late and he was worried that I wasn't coming. I assured him I was just looking for one last thing and I'd be there. When I checked out I asked the cashier if they had chocolate coins. They don't. She said they're seasonal. I was like, yeah, they're a Christmas/Hanukkah item... we were standing right next to all the Christmas candy. She didn't seem to make the connection.

BUT. There is a World Market in the same shopping center. I have bought chocolate coins there for stocking stuffers before. It's worth a shot, right? I went in, headed back to the candy aisle, and was just about to give up when there, on the bottom shelf, I spotted gold. And then I spotted COPPER. They had entire bags of chocolate PENNIES. When the cashier asked me if I found everything I needed, it was all I could do just to say yes, and not kiss him full on the lips.

I got to Steve's at about 7:30 & got straight to work. Noah mixed up the chocolate cake and Darby mixed up the white. We poured the half & half batter into both pans and started baking (did you know that to bake a half & half cake you just pour the two kinds of batter into the pan at the same time? They meet in the middle but don't mix). There was much fidgeting while we waitied for them to bake, and then even more as they got cool enough to frost. But finally, we did it.

Noah handled the writing on one cake; he wrote in big letters "Help a Friend" and stuck 2 pennies into each piece. Emily wrote on the other cake. She included the "Help a Friend" text but wrote smaller so she could add "Make a Change" (geddit? pennies? change? Noah's idea, but Em liked it because it's also a Michael Jackson lyric) and some other doodles. Noah added the coins to that cake and we took some pictures.

I stuck around to watch the end of Glee with the kids, then headed home happy.

Thursday afternoon I got another call from Noah. The cakes sold out FAST. He said he raised $30 on his own, and his class raised over $200. There's still another day of the sale, and the rest of the school is doing other fundraising for the same family.

I am so proud of this kid. When the bake sale was planned, he had no interest in plain old brownies or cookies. He came up with this whole above-and-beyond design, and was genuinely excited about it. Rachael said he was really proud to take those cakes into school this morning. And he was so happy to have sold out he was talking about making two more cakes to sell today. He is so freaking awesome.

In other news, Darby & I are heading down to visit my dad in the southern part of the state. He has dial-up Internet access, and is lucky to achieve a 28.8kpbs connection. So I will be tweeting from my phone but will have to catch up on reading blogs when I get back to the Big City Sunday night.

Have a great weekend!

Oh, hi

2009-10-27T20:08:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the absence; I know you've all been just dying to know what I've been up to. Here's one update:

The job interview I tweeted about a couple weeks ago went pretty well, but the more I talked with them, the more I realized I really don't want to leave where I work now. The position I was interviewing for would have been a straight lateral move to a smaller firm, so it really wouldn't have been worth giving up my seniority, vacation time, and ability to travel. Plus, the recruiter who arranged it all was HORRIBLE. Here are some of the highlights of my dealings with her:

She left me 2 initial voicemails before I called her back. In neither of these voicemails did she state the name of her company or even tell me she was a headhunter. She said she was calling about a "job opportunity". I Googled her phone number and it came up as a private residence. I called her back on a Saturday, sure I was about to get some side work. Her outgoing message also didn't say anything about the name of her business. I spoke very informally, as I do when I'm setting up time to work on someone's home PC.
When she told me about the firm she was trying to place me at, she said they have about 300 lawyers, and named 3 in-state cities where they have offices. She gave me their URL so I could do my own research.
The URL was outdated, from before they went to a single name (several years ago, the trend for law firms was to use 3 and 4 names, then they all dropped to 1 or 2. My firm did it in 2002.).
Their website only listed 2 of the 3 cities she had mentioned, and about 140 lawyers.
When I met with her in person, she asked what my impression of the firm was from their website. I remarked that it seemed much smaller than where I am now - it's a little less than half the size - and while that wasn't a negative, per se, it would be an adjustment.
She stood by her 300 lawyers claim, and when I said that one city she had named wasn't listed, she insisted I look again, because she was sure.
She also suggested I "put a little lipstick on" for my interview.
I looked again. I googled {firm name} {city name} just to be sure I got them both together. My search results told me that the firm used to have an office in that city, but the WHOLE OFFICE defected to a competitior.
In 2000.
Nine (9) years ago.
After my interview, I called her to check in, and I hadn't been able to talk with one of the 3 people I was supposed to. We were going to reschedule, so I let her know that. She asked me why the 3rd person was unavailable, in a tone that implied that I had any reason to know this. (I have no reason to know that.) She hadn't spoken to anyone at the frm by that time, and told me she would call when she had a date for the second interview.
She didn't call me until 8 days later.
I didn't even return the call.

By that point, I was so appalled at all of the stuff I listed plus so much more, that I would have turned down my dream job with a 6-figure salary just to keep her from profiting from it.

Heading South

2009-10-08T15:41:00.000-04:00

I'm taking tomorrow & Monday off work to fly down to Charleston, SC for the weekend. My best friend's cousin is getting married there, and so I'm flying down for that. It sounds kind of weird to go out of state for a friend's cousin, but this entire family - 3 generations - came to my wedding. They're like my extended family. And they are the most fun people I know, and I can't fucking WAIT to get down there.

Making it even better is that I'm flying down for free - cashed in all my frequent flier miles - and when I talked to the bride about looking for someplace to stay, she was all "Stay at my house! I won't be there!" So it's like a free weekend - even a few meals are covered. Sweet! I just have to get all my available cash together for a suitable gift.

Oh, and it's like 40 degrees warmer there than it is at home. J will be refereeing football in this miserable weather and I will wearing SHORTS!

The Smell

2009-10-06T09:22:00.000-04:00

Once upon a time, I'm guessing at least a couple of months ago, there was a jar of peanut butter. That jar of peanut butter got finished off, and set to soak on the counter so that it could be added to the recycling bag.

Except it didn't get added to the recycling bag. No one will ever be sure exactly what happened or when, but my best guess is that when one of the kids was straightening up the kitchen, they picked up the peanut butter jar and put it away, in the pantry.

Until last night.

J got home from a meeting and decided to make a couple PB&J sandwiches for himself. Except instead of grabbing a peanut butter jar with actual peanut butter in it, he picked up a peanut butter jar with many-weeks-old water in it.

The smell. Oh good lord, the smell.

I came down to say hi while he was in the kitchen and starting checking the floor because I was sure the cat had shit somewhere. When I couldn't find anything, I asked him what it was, and he explained that he had opened this stagnant jar and immediately started gagging. And in the process had spilled some of the water onto the floor or something. He had already cleaned up whatever spilled by the time I got to the scene. But the smell remained.

And it remained on J, and came with him up to bed. And filled the room. Even after several hand-washings.

The smell stayed in the house all night. It is worse than rotten potatoes. It is worse than a pile of dead mice. I don't even know where it is anymore; the towels he used have been thrown out or put in the laundry, the garbage has been changed, the counters & floor have been wiped down. But this morning, as I was getting my coffee ready, it was still strong enough to make me retch.

Part of that is psychosomatic, I know now, since as I write this I am fighting not to gag.

J is going straight from work to Nicole's volleyball game, and from there to an officiating class. He won't be back in the house until after 10 tonight. I get to deal with The Smell this evening.

The worst part? It was a jar of crunchy peanut butter. I eat creamy. There is no way that any of this was my doing. And I am the one who will be scouring the kitchen with my shirt pulled up over my nose all night. So not fair.

Fun Fact Friday

2009-10-02T10:47:00.000-04:00

I have a headache for I think the 6th consecutive day. Wait, that's no fun. Moving on...
We have a Melitta Mill & Brew coffee maker at home. It grinds coffee beans inside a steel filter, then brews through same filter. Our old filter had some tears in it and it took me MONTHS to find replacements. Last week I found them... on the Melitta website (I am convinced that they did not offer them for a time, and them made them available. Seriously, the Internet is full of comments about how hard these are to find, and someone is even selling them on eBay for about 17 dollars). Anyway, the replacements arrived this week, and this morning I poured the end of a pot into my mug and there were NO GROUNDS in it. You know how when you get used to something kind of sucking, and then all of a sudden it is right and you don't know how to handle it? That's how I felt.
On a related note, I broke a tooth a couple weeks ago, one which had been giving me problems for quite a while. It took me at least 3 days to even try chewing on that side of my mouth again, and even now, I have to consciously do it. And I still expect to feel pain. And there is none. And it rocks.
On the day I first tried chewing on the fixed side of my mouth, I told J, "I chewed on the left side of my mouth today!" His answer was "Oh, is the inside of your cheek all raw?" I was like "No, I chewed FOOD with the TEETH on the left side of my mouth." Weirdo.
I got to go toe-to-toe with the HR director of my firm this week over something, and I was right, and he backed down. We were on the phone with each other, each of us finding & forwarding archived emails to prove our sides, and I not only got him to concede his point, but also promise to handle the same situation a little more efficiently in the future. Aww yeah.
My dog slept through the night for the first time in ages last night. He is totally seasonally affected. All spring & summer, he wants to be outside all the time and will wake us up in the wee hours, needing to go out RIGHT AWAY. Now that fall is here, he will sleep as late as we'll let him before we send him outside for the day. I love fall. As soon as the spring equinox hits, he'll be all antsy again.
J and I decided this week that we're going to start trying in earnest to have a kid. While parts of this are definitely fun, there is a high level of difficulty involved. I'll leave it at that.

My head is killing me. That is all the fun I can come up with. Have a good weekend.

Is it me?

2009-09-29T12:05:00.000-04:00

Part of my job involves maintaining an Outlook file which people can use to import Firm holidays to their personal calendars - it includes days the office is closed, religious & federal holidays where we remain open but are worth noting, stuff like that. The list gets updated in November for the following year, and available for import from that point forward.

This year's list contained errors on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve. I had the offices closed on 12/24 and open on 12/31, when in fact we're open half of each day. This just got caught yesterday. I was so close to getting away with it!

I let me boss know what happened, drafted an announcement explaining how to correct the calendar entries (i.e., Go to Date 1, fix it. Go to Date 2, fix it. Done.), and sent the corrected import file to Mark, our desktop guy, to deploy to users' computers. The corrected import file is only necessary for anyone who elects to add holidays to their calendars between now & the end of the year. Most people will not need to use it. Simple, right?

Mark just came over to my desk with a "proposal". He wanted to make a brand-new import file containing only the 2 dates which were wrong in the original file. We would send out instructions for importing this "Correction" list, adding 2 appointments to their calendars without removing anything already there, and then tell people to delete the bad items. The instructions for that would look something like there:

Import this new file. A full page of instructions for that exist in this linked document, and it's very possible and likely that you'll accidentally duplicate a whole list of holidays in your calendar, and you'll need help removing them.
Go to Date 1. Delete the old entry. Please make sure you delete the old entry and not the new entry. They will be very similarly named and therefore easily confused.
Go to Date 2. Delete the old entry. Please make sure you delete the old entry and not the new entry. They will be very similarly named and therefore easily confused.

My initial response was that Mark's idea basically doubled (or more) the work involved to make the corrections, and resulted in people performing a whole set of extra steps, and then going through another set of steps nearly identical to my original instructions. He was like "I don't see how it's more work".

Whuh???

After I bit a hole in my tongue, I managed to say in a very controlled tone, "I just don't see how that's better". I sent Mark the draft set of instructions that I plan to send out for him to review, EVEN THOUGH IT IS NONE OF HIS GODDAMN BUSINESS AND THE ONLY ROLE HE PLAYS IN THIS IS TO COPY A GODDAMN FILE TO USER MACHINES. He read it and responded that the file would be in place for everyone's next login. We are doing it my way.

Venting

2009-09-19T15:38:00.000-04:00

I am so pissed right now I could punch someone, but I don't even know who to be upset at. That is making it WAY WORSE.

Today is one of those super-crazy schedule days. We have the kids, and J is officiating 5 football games. He had to pick the boys up extra early so he could get to the first game, but Nicole had a morning volleyball thing so she didn't come with Junior & Billy. The volleyball meet (or whatever it was called) was way east of us - about 45 miles away. J's ex-wife, Crazy Bitch, lives about 18 miles east of us. J tried to see if Nicole could ride with someone back from the competition to CB's house, so I wouldn't have to go as far to pick her up. CB said that no one was available - she was busy, the usual other relatives weren't able to go. So J told me that I'd have to do it. No big deal, just a long way to drive our gas-hog pickup truck.

So I get out to this school 10 minutes before I've been told Nicole would be done. And the school is locked up. I drive around the building, and no entrances are open, and no parking lots are full. I text Nicole asking where she is. Her response is "I'm at home because Dad told me I had to find my own way back."

I call J. His phone is downstairs on the charger, and he is upstairs watching football. I can't reach him and I know he will have left for his second set of games by the time I get home, and I won't see him until about 9 tonight. I try about 4 times, and I send Junior a text asking him to have his dad call me right away, and my phone is very close to dying. I text Nicole that I'm on my way, and I have to take a very long way back because I don't have the battery power left to look up the most direct route.

J finally calls me, and I tell him Nicole's at CB's house, and she said she had been told by J that she was on her own. He tells me that he told CB this morning that we'd get to the school.

So did SC misunderstand, or just not deliver the message, or did she lie, intentionally sending me to the wrong place (or maybe forcing J to miss a game he was planning to work)?

When I picked up Nicole, I told her that her mom was supposed to have known we'd go get her, and she said her mom said she had to find her own way back. So the message was delivered, making it either a misunderstanding or a deliberate dickhead move.

Junior wasn't in the car during J and CB's conversation; I haven't asked Billy yet if he knows who is right. I think I have to settle for being angry at CB, but I can't even let her know that because she'd only get satisfaction out of it.

So anyway, I was in the truck for 2 hours picking Nicole up 18 miles from our house, and now I'm home, and have to plan, buy, and prepare dinner when all I want to do is have a tantrum.

Balls!

Not Exactly the Restful Slumber I Was After

2009-09-16T16:36:00.000-04:00

This morning I woke up, looked at the clock, and had the following stream of thoughts:

OMG it's 20 til! Why is J still in bed? He should have gotten up half an hour ago! Why didn't I hear the alarm? Why isn't the snooze alarm going off? What the heck? I should wake J up and tell him we're late. He's going to be pissed. Dammit!!

Wait, it's 20 til two. I can go back to sleep, right? For like 5 hours or something? Right? Is that right? Math is hard.

In Which I Lose My Shit About A TV Commercial. Again.

2009-09-09T15:21:00.000-04:00

I've got a couple new commercials that I just totally HATE. The one on my mind today is for Hefty Odor Block trash bags. I tried finding it on YouTube, but it was removed for copyright reasons or something, so I'll just describe it.

A couple is in their kitchen. The husband is sitting at the table, reading the funnies: an activity that really should never be interrupted for any reason, ever. Besides, so many comics have been cut from newspapers anymore that how long could he possilby be busy, another minute?

Anyway. The wife is standing next to the table. She is holding a partially filled garbage bag at arm's length, and asks her husband to take it out. He balks, because taking out a garbage bag that hasn't been filled yet is a waste of money, but she insists because it smells too bad to keep in the kitchen.

I am not sure how the rest of the commercial goes, because this is usually how things sounds at my house:

Wife: Honey, can you take this out?
Husband: It's not full yet. That's a waste of a bag.
Wife: But it smells.

Becky: Bitch, take it out yourself! The door's right there - I can see it from my living room! What the fuck is wrong with you? You stand in the middle of the kitchen waving around a bag of smelly trash and expect your husband to drop everything and carry it outside? Are you kidding me??

By the time I'm done, my show has usually come back on and I have to rewind it a few seconds to see what I missed while my head was exploding.

Redecorating

2009-09-03T13:17:00.003-04:00

I'm trying to find a new template I like, so if you're not reading this in an RSS reader, pardon the changes. I'll try to keep most of it offline until I settle on something awesome.

Thirty-Six

2009-09-01T10:27:00.002-04:00

So, as most of you know, yesterday was my birthday. I turned 36. The past year has definitely had its ups and downs - while 35 treated me okay, there are a couple parts of that year I'm glad to close the door on.

I had planned for a very low-key day, and while I didn't really spend any time at home doing absolutely nothing, I did have a great time, and didn't feel harried in spite of the large amount of running-around I did.

I started the day at The Original Pancake House, one of those breakfast/lunch-only places. I had wanted to go to a new bakery in my neighborhood but it's closed on Mondays, so this was Plan B. And it was delish. After I ate I went over to the license bureau to renew my plates (every year, I tell myself I'm going to do it online from now on, and every year, I end up standing in line). That wasn't even bad, and the registrar even wished me a happy birthday. Then, after realizing a bridal shower I had thought was on Sep 19 is actually THIS COMING SUNDAY, I did some shopping.

My sister needed some help moving some stuff out of her house, so I went home, swapped the van for the truck, and headed out to her place. I hadn't really included heavy lifting in my plan for the day, but it wasn't awful, and I got to see my nieces & nephews for a while. Always fun.

When J got home from work, he told me he had made reservations at Johnny's, a Very Nice Restaurant. I was all "I don't need anything fancy, we can go out for pizza" on the outside, but on the inside I was like "SQUEEEEEE!" It was one of the best meals we've ever had, and we went all out. I had martinis, he had a few beers, we did appetizers AND dessert. We ordered the chef's specials without a clue as to how much they would cost (he had a gift certificate for part of the meal, so we pretended that we didn't have a financial care in the world for one night).

We ate so much we could barely move the rest of the night. We both spent the evening in a constant worry that we were going to throw up, and what a shame it would be to purge food that he paid that much money for. "That would be so Roman", J summed it up at one point. But we both made it through, and this morning we felt much better. Still kind of full, but better.

OH - before he made reservations, J had asked me if I'd prefer a nice gift or a nice meal. I chose meal, obv. Later I found out that the "nice gift" would have been a Wii Fit. WTF? What's next, a vacuum cleaner?

Friday!!

2009-08-28T11:17:00.003-04:00

When I leave work today, I will be starting the first of 2 consecutive 3-day weekends. So I'm having a little difficulty concentrating at the moment.

My birthday is Monday, and I always take the day off work. Not to do anything special; I just like to not be at work. The only thing I have planned is a leisurely breakfast at a new bakery that just opened up within walking distance of my house. And probably a shit-ton of TV watching.

Last night, I got to see a preview of a new independent movie called Humpday. I won passes to it from the local indie theatre, so I took my mom. She picked me up straight from work, we drove across town, and had dinner at Dewey's Pizza. Yum. I've been there a couple times before, alone and with J, but this was her first visit. You really can't go wrong at Dewey's, so I told her to pick whatever she thought looked good, but I steered her toward stuff that I'd have a hard time getting J to eat. We ended up ordering "Socrates' Revenge": Olive oil instead of sauce, minced garlic, spinach, mozzarella & fontina cheese, black and green olives, feta cheese, tomatoes, and red onions (I had my half minus the onions). Holy crap, was it good.

We headed across the street to the movie theatre, and I have to admit I was a bit nervous. I've been in hyped-up movies before where the theatre was packed and everyone seemed to be enjoying it, and I couldn't figure out what everyone thought was so great about such crap. So I made sure we sat close to the aisle, in case it really sucked and we decided to leave.

Humpday did not suck. It was really very good. One of the lowest-budget movies I've seen in a long time; everything was filmed with a handheld camera, the cast was tiny, and there didn't seem to be much expense put into the locations. The dialogue was largely improvised, and the actors really did it well. The plot was simple, but lent itself to some very hilariously uncomfortable moments. Here's a rundown:

Two old friends, one a free-spirited, wandering artist, and the other a married, 9-to-5 homeowning, working guy, reunite after a few years' separation. They get wasted together at a house party, and start discussing the upcoming Humpfest - basically an amateur porn festival where they show all the submissions & then destroy the tapes. In their altered state, they decide to make a film... together. They're both straight. The rest of the movie deals with them sobering up, realizing what they've decided to do, determining not to chicken out, explaining it to the one guy's wife, and, um, so on.

It's probably not for everyone. But it's not for as narrow an audience as the description might lead you to believe either.

As a bonus, before the movie started, they had a quick trivia contest. I answered one question and won another pair of passes to see next weekend's screening of Fast Times at Ridgemont High. They're showing it as part of their Cult Movie series. I haven't seen that movie since it was practically new, so I'm looking forward to it. I might even take the kids and have a nice "In my day" moment with them.

Making Changes

2009-08-21T13:36:00.002-04:00

I’ve been making some changes in a few areas of my life lately. Some are voluntary, some are not. They’re all connected in one way or another, and hopefully when it’s all said & done, it will all have been significant and positive.

J & I have been having severe money problems lately. Things have never been easy, but recently it kind of went off the rails. We’re both trying to get second jobs to dig ourselves out a little faster. I believe we’ll at least be on an even keel soon enough; we’re not about to lose the house or anything, but progress is going to be slow.

Anyway, in an effort not to completely freak out, I’m focusing on the good things coming out of the spending cuts we’ve had to make. And it’s actually working. This is new for me; I’m not used to optimism. So I’m going to get it all written out because it’s all so weird I can barely believe it.

Improvement #1: We’re eating at home more, and doing it cheaply. We are not what you’d call “planners” – well, I am, especially when it comes to what’s for dinner. J has some kind of negative, visceral reaction to talking about anything ahead of time. Like, if I come home from work at 5:30 and ask what he wants for dinner, it’s too early to talk about that. I’m totally serious. So we end up not even thinking about supper until 8, when even if we make up our minds, there’s no way I’m cooking anything more time-consuming than jarred spaghetti sauce. So we go out, and wherever we go serves beer, and we spend 40 bucks.

That has come to a halt. We are still not planning, but we keep a nice supply of jarred spaghetti sauce in the pantry.

Improvement #2: J’s taking a football officiating class. This started from a suggestion of a nice way of making extra money, and it has turned out to be one of the best things ever. Twice a week all this month, J goes to a 3-hour class to prepare for a referee certification test. When he passes, he will be able to ref school & community football games up to Junior Varsity level (Varsity requires 2 years of JV experience and one more test). That, in and of itself, is pretty cool. When he starts working games next month, he’ll be able to do up to 4 games in a single day, and he’ll bring home $20-$30 per game. Cash. If he keeps busy enough, that covers tuition at one of the kids’ schools.

Here’s the real bonus – he is having a blast. And he is making friends, which he’s always kind of lacked. He is excited to go to class, and after they get out, they all go to a sports bar together and hang out. They made a point of getting together to watch a pre-season football game so they could study the officiating. I know, it sounds positively geeky, but J is positively a geek. He comes home SO HAPPY. Every time. He hasn’t felt this good this consistently in a long time, so it’s really awesome.

Improvement #3: I’m exercising. My car’s been out of commission for a while, so when J goes to ref class, I’m left home with the unreliable truck to drive. So I usually just stay home. This week, I dusted off my 30 Day Shred DVD and started working out. Last night was my 4th consecutive day on the workout – a record. Last time I tried it, I missed the third day and quit after the fifth. I’m already doing better, and I’m looking forward to doing it again tonight. I can guarantee, this would never have happened if I wasn’t completely stuck at home alone.

So. We’re eating better, J’s found a really fun way to bring more money in, and I’m getting in shape. And none of this would have happened if we weren’t completely broke. Maybe these “silver lining” people are onto something.

Roll Me Up And Smoke Me

2009-08-11T15:22:00.003-04:00

A couple weeks ago J & I walked over to a neighborhood bar we don't frequent, but the July beer of the month was Leinenkugel, for $1 a pint. So we made an exception.

When we got there, the place was full of older men, all listening to a guy singing & playing acoustic guitar. This was early on a Monday evening, so it seemed kind of weird, but we took a seat & listened. The guy's name is Jim Tigue, and apparently he's been playing at this bar every Monday for 4 years. He starts at 6, and at 7:30 he has someone join him (the added musician is different every week). It turned out to be really fun. That night, the second guitarist was a guy named Duane Dickman, and aside from the fact that I was stuck thinking about Dobie Gillis all night (Dobie was played by Dwayne Hickman), he was awesome.

Even more fun than the music was the crowd. There were all these cute old people, and it's obvious they all go every week. There's one guy who brings little baggies of cashews, tied up with twist ties, and leaves them for the musicians as tips. When I saw him do that my heart just melted. Then there was another guy who was so absorbed in the guitar solos - he would just study these guys' hands, and air guitar as they played. He had to be 70. He got tipsy & started telling everyone who would listen that he used to be a roadie, and worked with Duane a few times. And then he would just yell out "Roll me up and smoke me!", which I am still laughing about.

We ended up staying until the music was over at 9, and on our way out Jim Tigue was like "You guys have never been her before, have you?" So, apparently it's a small crowd of regulars. We promised we'd be back.

We did return last night, when Jim was joined by Colin Dussault, who is an amazing blues man. He usually plays with a band, but last night it was just him & his harmonicas & Jim. Most of the old people were back; Cashew Guy was there with his baggies, the ex-roadie was missing, but in his place was this old lady who was knocking back liquor and dancing right up in front of the stage, trying to get young men to join her (she was the only one who danced at all). So, again, awesome music coupled with great people-watching.

I can't believe this has been going on for 4 years, a block from my house, and I just found out about it. But I'm glad I did, and I'm going to keep going back - even though Leinie's not on special anymore.

An Open Letter To My Cat

2009-08-07T09:24:00.003-04:00

Dear Pal,

Our early morning routine is very dear to me. When the first alarm goes off and J gets out of bed to shower, you move from my feet, where you've spent the night, to the head of the bed to try and rouse me to feed you. I grab you and hold you, and we snooze together for a while. This half-hour is almost the only time you allow yourself to be cuddled, and I wouldn't change a thing about it.

Well, maybe one thing.

Could you please keep your claws away from my nipples?

Seriously. Every fricking morning, you manage to stab me with one of your rear claws. I have tried getting you to face away from me, but you flip over. I have tried shifting you up or down, but you stretch or bend. I have tried building a little barrier with the sheets, but sheets really don't put up much of a resistance to cat claws.

It is very hard to get another 10 minutes of restful sleep when all I can think about is the fact that I'm about to contract some awful strain of mastitis brought about by that horrible infectious stuff that's in cat litter. That's a sick day I don't want to have to explain. Where I work, I would never ever live it down.

What do I have to do? Unlimited Fancy Feast? Your own couch upholstered in corduroy? Want me to get rid of the dog? Well, that last one is a little too much but we can talk.

And lest you think you're the one with the upper hand in these negotiations, let me direct your attention to the new file I just picked up. I'm not afraid to use it. These are my tits we're talking about.

Love,
Becky

Becky's Shuttle Service

2009-08-04T15:42:00.004-04:00

The kids are with us for their 2-week summer vacation visit. Tonight, since J will be at his referee certification class, my schedule is:

Leave work an hour early
Get Junior, Nicole, and Billy out the door by 5
Drop Junior off at work
Take Billy across town to football practice
Pick up Nicole's friend, who's spending the night at our house
~~Leave the kids at football field and sneak off for a beer?~~ Sit in the bleachers reading for the duration of the 2-hour football practice
Take Billy, Nicole, and Friend back home
Cook dinner, hoping just to get something on the table before 9 PM
Die, hoping J is able to pick Junior up when his shift is over.

I don't know how you real moms do it. Hats off to you.

The Balls Heard 'Round the World

2009-07-29T12:37:00.002-04:00

I was going to do a BlogHer recap, but so many people have already done it so well, I’m just going to point you in their directions with a “What she said”. Instead, I thought I’d explain all those #balls tweets you may have seen in the later hours of Saturday night.

A few months ago, I got together with some old friends from high school. My friend Chuck brought his son Z, who was a few days shy of his 10th birthday. We were at Dave & Busters playing pool, and as is bound to happen, someone picked up on a mention of the word “Balls” and decided to exploit it. That person was Z.

One of the guys said something totally benign while racking the balls, like “Are there any more balls?”, and Z looked right at me, did a little scuffle thing with his feet, and said totally deadpan, “Balls”.

I responded in the manner of any awesome aunt/friend-of-parent, and BUSTED OUT LAUGHING. Z explained that they say that a lot in their family. I told him I like his family.

Later Z asked me if I wanted to hear a joke. Sure, why not?
Z: Do you like fish sticks?

B: Yes
Z: Do you like to put them in your mouth?
B: I’m not sure I want to answer that… (if you say it out loud, “fish sticks” sounds very close to “fish dicks”, so I thought I saw where this was going).
Z: Go ahead, just answer.
B: OK, yes.
Z: You’re a gay fish!
B: I’m a girl.
Z: You’re a lesbian fish!
B: …

Chuck walked over at that point & I said “Chuck, your son just called me a lesbian fish for saying I like to put fish sticks in my mouth”. Chuck looked down at Z & said, “That’s not how it works, son.”

So I told this story to Shelly, Erica, and Donna over dinner Saturday, and that was that. For the next several hours & even into the following days, everything was Balls. We went drinking at a bar where it happened to be Karaoke night, and both times we heard “Sweet Caroline” (yes, twice. Kill me), we sang out “Balls balls balls”. We toasted with “Balls” instead of “Cheers”. Each of our husbands got a balls text message from Erica.

So, if you were reading my tweets, or God forbid if you were following two or more of us, thinking “What the hell?”, that’s what that was. It really was funny from where we were.

Which reminds me, I think I still have to fix my Facebook status…

Overheard on the Megabus

2009-07-23T10:29:00.002-04:00

Two young guys are sitting near me on my bus from Cleveland to Chicago, and I caught the following snippet of their conversation:

Guy 1: "Any other C-Towners there?"

Guy 2: "You mean Chicago?"

Guy 1: "No. C-Town. C-Town."

Guy 2: "Cleveland?"

Guy 1: "Yeah."

Dude, if people don't know which city your douchey nickname refers to, maybe you should retire it.

F My Life Friday

2009-07-17T08:36:00.002-04:00

This morning, I found myself ready for work a full 20 minutes earlier than usual. Early enough to get the bus I always want to catch, but almost never can. So I fixed my travel mug of coffee, packed my tote bag, and queued up a podcast on my iPod.

Then I dropped my iPod. I picked it up, started a podcast, and after a few minutes it seized up. This might be it. At best, I'll have to reformat it, which is a collosal pain. At worst, I need a new iPod & it will be months before that can happen.

I realized about halfway to work that I had left my coffee at home. It's all sealed up in my thermal mug, so don't think for a second that I won't be drinking it after work tonight, just for the principle of it.

I got off the bus downtown, and it was raining. Lightly, thank the Baby Jesus, because my umbrella was at home.

I am currently drowning my sorrows in a triple grande mocha (full fat, thank you very much), and yes, I did accept the treat receipt, because if things continue on this path the rest of the morning I'm going to need a smoothie.

Book Update

2009-07-16T13:17:00.002-04:00

Just so you are not all left hanging, wondering what I thought of all those books I took out of the library a couple weeks ago:

I finished Soon I Will Be Invincible. Loved it. I have really never been much into comic books, but I like superhero stories, and this was very entertaining and fun.

I also finished A Disorder Peculiar to Our Country. This was just so-so. I liked it enough to finish it, but I think the summaries I read about it beforehand had me expecting a slightly different timeline than it turned out to be.

I started The Sunday Philosophy Club, and I doubt I will finish it. It's not bad, it's just not holding my interest. Have not started the other two McCall Smith books I checked out yet.

I am about halfway through A Well Paid Slave, and it's very good. It's very readable, but it demands a little more concentration than the novels require, so it's not something I can read just any time. J won't be home tonight, so I should be able to put a couple hours in on it.

I'm also roughly halfway done with The Big Girls, and I'm really liking it. It's written from the point of view of 4 different people, and the narrator changes every few paragraphs, so it moves very quickly.

I think that's all of them. The second "Ladies' Detective Agency" book is ready for me to pick up, so I'll be getting that in the next day or two to read over this weekend.

Proofreading

2009-07-15T09:13:00.003-04:00

A while back I was helping a co-worker with some documentation. She has a history of marking up hard copies of documents and leaving them on my chair (note: if you & I ever work together, please do not ever put anything on my chair. Ever. Anything. Well, except maybe a cushion.), so when I finally got her to email me her revisions, I thought I was making progress. Turns out that while she apparently knows every proofreading mark there is (I have had to Google editing marks before to figure out what she wanted me to do), she does not know how to use Word's Track Changes or Comments feature. In her electronic review, she typed all of her thoughts right into the text, in brackets, and highlighted them in yellow. Including the following:

Dude, just correct it. It's not like I'm going to be offended or something. She made more work for both of us by doing that, and if asked, she''ll give a passive-aggressive excuse like "I didn't want to step on any toes". Ugh.

The Deck

2009-07-11T16:17:00.004-04:00

The deck is finished and broken in! Here are some pictures:

Old & busted... Literally. This didn't fall of the house on its own, but we were within probably a week of someone's foot going through it.

Stage One. It really wasn't supposed to get any bigger than this, but then J went a little crazy.

This toad came out to see what was going on one morning. He was pretty big... I didn't get close enough to compare, but he seems like he'd be bigger than the palm of my hand.

The boys helping set posts. I love Junior's work outfit.

Not quite done, but it did quite nicely for morning coffee.

Fritz.

Not the deck, but I love this view. This was our project last year. That whole area was full of crappy-looking plants that wouldn't grow, so we tore them out & made usable space. It increased the amount of yard we can use by about a third.

View from the perch outside the girls' room.

New hotness! The part that wraps around the pantry. Also known as the budget-doubler (or maybe tripler - I can't think too much about it or my blood pressure goes up). We sit at that table every night & will be roasting marshmallows there with the kids tonight (it's got a fire bowl in it).

King of the Yard.

That's my summer so far! I hope the rest is much less productive.

2 days with no boss and no meetings

2009-07-01T14:02:00.003-04:00

It's like my holiday weekend has started early!

We have no plans for the weekend. We won't have the kids. We'll grill most of our meals, go see fireworks, and relax. Our new deck is almost finished; we'll probably get the railings up tonight. I'll post pictures when it's all ready. Here's one of the view when you lean back in your chair at about 9 AM:

I went to the library today to stock up for the weekend; I should have no shortage of reading material. Here's what I picked up:

3 books by Alexander McCall Smith - the first of each of 3 series: 44 Scotland Street, The Sunday Philosophy Club, and Portugese Irregular Verbs. I am enjoying the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency but the next book in that series wasn't available today, so I grabbed one of everything else.

Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman - I got this because the description reminded me very much of Dr. Horrible. So it will rock, right? I'll let you know.

A Disorder Peculiar to the Country by Ken Kalfus - The story of a couple going through a nasty divorce when 9/11 occurs, and each one thinks the other was killed in the attack, and celebrates a little too soon. I read the first couple pages of this at lunch, and the reaction of the wife as she stands in her Manhattan office watching the second tower fall, trying so hard not to smile because her husband works on the 86th floor & she was sure she was watching his demise, got me hooked.

The Big Girls by Susanna Moore - About 4 women whose lives intersect in a prison in upstate New York. The clincher for me was this line from a review: "Reading this heartbreaker is like watching a train wreck while dialing for help on your cellphone. You can't turn away." Who can resist that? Actually I like a good depressing book now & then. I balance it out with Lisa Lutz.

A Well-Paid Slave: Curt Flood's Fight for Free Agency in Professional Sports by Brad Snyder - A rare non-fiction choice for me, but it sounds like a very interesting story. Curt Flood was a baseball player who got traded against his will, and so refused to show up for work for his new team. He took the fight to the Supreme Court. He lost, in a 5-4 decision, but the case influenced professional baseball forever.

So, that should get me through 3 days. What's everyone else doing?

New Comfort Food Recipe!

2009-06-26T21:32:00.003-04:00

I work with this guy Jerry, who is the biggest curmudgeonly teddy bear you could ever meet. He comes off as very gruff when you first meet him, and many people take a while to get comfortable even talking to him. But once you get to know him he's really awesome. He is a Vietnam vet with a gravelly voice and a repertoire of hillbilly sayings I haven't heard since my maternal grandmother was alive. He calls everybody "bub". And he loves to cook, and loves to tell you what he's planning to make this week.

A while ago he started talking about this pierogie casserole he had discovered. The recipe was on the back of a certain flavor of frozen pierogies, and once he tried it, he started making it every week or two.

I love pierogies, but somehow I managed to marry a man who won't take one bite of one. So I've been waiting to try this new dish out until J was out for the night. I finally got my chance tonight, and it was worth the wait. Here it is:

Take a box of Mrs. T's Potato & 4-Cheese pierogies.
Lay them in a single layer in the bottom of a baking dish *
Add a 14.5-oz can of Italian-style diced tomatoes, and an 8-oz can of tomato sauce
Add some sliced pepperoni, diced green pepper and shredded mozzarella cheese (amounts not given on the box; I used a layer of pepperoni, half a pepper and a couple handfuls of cheese)

Jerry suggested adding hot Italian sausage. I picked up zesty breakfast sausage instead, browned it, and added it before the pepper/cheese.

Bake at 350 until it's hot & bubbly - like 30-40 minutes.

*The box says to use a 9x13 dish. One box of pierogies isn't quite enough to cover this size. Jerry adds part of a second box. I used a smaller dish but still used a full pound of sausage. I'd use less sausage next time - this was too much.

Anyway, that's it. Almost no prep time, especially if you aren't adding the meat. Another co-worker made it for his kids, and they devoured it. I won't be making if for my freakishly non-pierogie-eating family but I would make it to take to someone's house or something. And it was a nice therapeutic meal to start my weekend.

Pitch Perfect

2009-06-19T13:50:00.004-04:00

This ad came out early this year, and it quickly became one of my all-time favorites. I was at a bar the other night where I saw part of a Phillies game, and it got me thinking about the commercial again... to the point where J asked me a question & I was so engrossed in remembering Jimmy Rollins taking a pitching machine to the chest that I had to have him repeat it.

Here's the ad; I'll rave about it after you've had a chance to watch it.

OK, here I go.

A), the first shot is such a complete surprise that even if you weren't paying attention to the first seconds of the commercial, you're immediately drawn in.

Secontively, there's the move he makes with his hands like he's somehow absorbing power from the force of the pitch. The deep sniffs, the puffed chest, the unbroken eye contact.

(I'm out of Arrested-Development-inspired list counting, so I'll just switch to bullets.)

The long pause between the last two pitches is the best. He never stops staring these guys right in the eye, but you can see him trying to anticipate the next hit. If you didn't catch it the first time, go ahead & rewatch about a hundred more, LIKE I HAVE. When the last pitch finally comes, the slow "Yeahhhh" is awesome.

At the very end, behind the Dick's logo, one of the guys gets nailed in the crotch by a pitch. When he doubles over in pain, Rollins SLAPS HIM ON THE ASS.

There is nothing about that commercial that isn't completely wonderful. The whole thing is amazingly well-executed. I didn't know who Jimmy Rollins was before I saw this (I'm in an American League town, and not in Philly's market). Now, I am in love with him.

Newt Gingrich Eyebrows?

2009-06-11T12:03:00.003-04:00

So I started this new book on the bus this morning. It's called The Godmother, by Carrie Adams. I picked it up in the library last week because the cover looked good. So anyway, it's set in England. The opening scene is the main character getting picked up at Heathrow Airport, and she's talking about her best married friends who met "at university", and there are all kinds of other obvious indicators that this is an English story. So that's established.

So 8 pages in, there's this sentence that says "He knitted his Newt Gingrich eyebrows."

Newt Gingrich eyebrows? His eyebrows are internationally renowned? I don't remember ever seeing him on TV and saying "Wow, he's got some serious brows" or anything like that. When I see someone on the street I don't think "Jeez, that dude's got some Gingriches growing on his face."

In fact, I just looked up a picture of Newt, and his brows are big, but they're nothing remarkable. They're groomed, anyway. Certainly not chick-lit-reference-worthy.

The only thing I can figure is that in the British edition of the book, some other public figure is used, but then they changed the name for the US publication. That makes some sense, I guess, but I would rather read a name I don't recognize and think, eh, must be some Brit with big brows.

The Newt thing just jarred me. And now I probably won't read the rest of the book.

I did just finish a book I enjoyed, though. Monster by A. Lee Martinez. If you like Christopher Moore, or if, like me, you liked Christopher Moore the first time or two but then he got to be a little annoying and when you picked up his newest book you had to quit 5 pages in, then this is worth a shot. It's about a guy who makes a living as a Crypobiological Containment specialist. Kind of like Animal Control for yetis and trolls, which dwell among us, but most humans aren't aware of them. It's pretty cool.

Fun Fact Friday

2009-06-05T11:22:00.002-04:00

It's been quite a while since my last post - I didn't realize how long. I must have started & abandoned a post or two in the last week to make myself think I was being all productive but nothing was getting published. So, a quick bullet-point wrap-up of what's going on.

Despite the presence of a cat, my house is apparently a lovely habitat for many mice. Pal is 14 years old and has killed one mouse. She is much more likely to play with them than kill them. Mice die of old age in our house. They seem to be well-fed, warm, and obviously very safe there. Last night I was looking for something in the basement and found an alarming amount of evidence that the spring weather has not drawn them outside, so traps will be ~~lain~~ ~~laid~~ set.
That was the first time I'd used strikethrough font on my blog! I kept forgetting to look up the html code for it until now.
We have several small fruit trees in our yard. We bought them 4 years ago or so, and they produce dwarf varieties of the fruit - one peach, one pear, and one apple. The peach tree has been the most productive by far, and I eat a few pieces every summer, but the pit-to-flesh ratio is a bit frustrating. The squirrels LOVE them, though, so at least it's not all going to waste. The pear tree gave us one pear last year. One dwarf pear. And it grew at the very tippy-top of the tree so we had to wait for it to fall on its own. We should have more this year since we didn't have a late frost to kill all the blossoms. The apple tree has apples on it for the first time this year and I am so excited! It looks like we'll have a lot of them too, so I am looking forward to making dwarf apple pie, or something like that.
Amy is still not speaking to J. The other kids haven't really been affected, but Nicole has a definite lean towards Amy's side. I know J's ex-wife is probably encouraging the cold shoulder, but even if it lasts all summer, I'm confident that some kind of detante will happen by fall. When I repossess the fridge I bought for her dorm room.
I don't have any time off work scheduled until BlogHer. That's coming up soon, but I need a mental health day. I might have to get sick sometime next week.
We have had a real, honest-to-God Spring this year! We NEVER have a Spring! We haven't run the furnace OR the AC in 6 weeks, and we expect to get at least another week of good open-window weather. This is awesome.

That's all for now. I have NO plans for the weekend. Was supposed to go to a baby shower for a college friend tomorrow, but I found out last night that the only other college friend who would have been there can't go, and it's going to be a bunch of old ladies, and it's like 2 hours from my house, and my car's not running. So that's scrapped. Which frees up my day for The Sims 3! And maybe some time spent outside.

What a waste of lost sleep

2009-05-27T14:13:00.003-04:00

We stayed up to watch the Cavs game last night. It sucked. Unless you're reading from Florida, in which case I imagine it rocked. Or you don't give a shit about basketball, in which case it sits right smack in the middle of the Sucks/Rocks Continuum. I believe that area is called "Meh."

Anyway, the game ended just before midnight, and I was so upset there was no way I was going to be able to fall asleep, so I turned on an episode of Medium that's been sitting on the DVR for a while. I don't know what time I went to sleep, maybe around 1:45.

Today, my eyes feel like two piss-holes in a snowbank (I don't know how I would ever convey that feeling so accurately if I didn't have hillbilly ancestors). I've been dragging ass at work all day, and for what? A fricking loss.

Next game is tomorrow, and by the time the game starts, I'll have been drinking for about 3 hours (we're having a farewell Happy Hour outing for a co-worker who's heading down to work in our Atlanta office). So staying awake for the entire game is going to be rough, but I'll give it the old college try. And I will feel exactly like this again on Friday.

I need to post something I'm happy about to push Amy down off the top of the page.

2009-05-26T09:42:00.003-04:00

I'm crabby. 2 days of my 3-day weekend were shitty, and even the non-shitty day had an air of stress over it. On top of that, I couldn't sleep last night; I must have had one too many Coke Zeros too late in the evening. I need to get myself in a better mood, so I'm going to write a quick post about something that makes me happy: my new bed.

Last weekend we were outside when a neighbor walked by the house, carrying a rolled-up rug over her shoulder. She told us that a couple around the corner was having a garage sale & we should go check it out. She said they had lots of good stuff they had to get rid of because they were moving. It was a nice day so we decided to head over just to see what they had.

When we got to the sale, one of the guys there was my co-worker Kevin. His brother was half of the couple who was moving. We looked around, but there wasn't really much we were interested in (plus neither of us had any money). J bought some resin lawn chairs for a couple bucks. They told us they had a king-sized bed they needed to sell. It was used for a short time in the woman's previous house, but had been in storage for a while. Very comfortable, still in good shape. They were asking $150 for the whole thing - mattresses, frame, and cherry headboard.

We looked at it - we sat on it. We really really wanted it but at the time I had about $6 to my name and J wasn't too much better off. So we went back to tell them we really liked the bed but couldn't do it, and she knocked $25 off the price. We explained that we just didn't have the money. She checked with Kevin to make sure he trusted me, and then told me I could just give him the money on payday.

Done.

We spent the next 6 hours moving furniture. The houses in our neighborhood were apparently built before the invention of double beds, so getting the mattress up the stairs was a considerable effort requiring 4 adults pushing, pulling, folding, and cramming. But we got it up there. Thank God for split box springs. Then we had to move our queen-size pillow-top mattress into the attic. Our attic door is tiny, as most are, so it was another 4-person job, but it's done.

Our old bedroom furniture is obnoxiously large. The headboard is taller than I am - I'm 5'6". And it's bulky. In switching from the old queen bed to the new king bed, getting rid of the footbard and slimming down the headboard, we gained a foot of floor space between the door & the bottom of the bed. The last major effort was getting the headboard downstairs. We scraped the wall a couple times but we got it down with no injury or sniping. It's currently on our front porch - KLASSY, right? - while we decide how to get rid of it and the rest of the suite.

We went to Kohl's for some sheets, came home & washed them, then laid in our new huge bed watching basketball. We slept so fricking good that night. We still haven't gotten over how awesome the bed is. The best part is that J's snoring does not bother me anymore! Because it's not right in my ear! If he is facing away from me and we have the fan going, I can barely hear it at all. The night before last, I did hear him and I went to nudge his leg, and I couldn't even reach him. Which means he's not being kept awake by me anymore either. Awesome!

On a final note, I want to make it clear that I do not endorse buying used beds from garage sales, especially when the asking price is ridiculously low. I only even considered this because I knew the brother of the fiance of the girl who was selling it (actually I'd met her sister a few times before too), so I figured I could trust its cleanliness. And I haven't been waking up with any strange itches, so I think we'll be OK.

Growing Pains

2009-05-25T20:55:00.003-04:00

Amy has been home from her first year of college for about a month now. She is technically supposed to be living at her mom's (her mother pledged that she would pay for 100% of Amy's school on the one condition that Amy is not to live with us). But last weekend, when we had the kids for our regular every-other-weekend thing, Amy came with them and didn't go back home. This isn't generally a problem for us; her boyfriend is on our side of town & neither of them owns a car, so it's easier if she's here. She stays out late but is quet when she comes home, and she doesn't get into trouble. She said she'd be here for a couple days, but then she just never left.

She is supposed to be looking for a job, and we had told her last week that if she gets a job on our side of town, we will set up a bedroom for her in the attic. If she gets a job.

She got home from school almost a month before most other college students, and used almost none of that time job-seeking. She spent a lot of that time talking about how she really really wanted to get a job, but then when she would go out "job-hunting", she would come home discouraged, saying "Oh, they only take applications online".

(Side note: How is that a con? Doesn't that make it easier than ever to apply for a job? If you don't know how to answer a question, you can leave it up on the screen for days while you consult with people or the Internet to find out how to respond. You don't have to get dressed. You can apply at 3 in the morning. You don't have to talk to anyone in person. And you're pretty much always sitting in front of your computer anyway, so it's not like you have to even remember to sign on to anything)

At one point, maybe over Easter break or something, J told her she had better get her ass in gear and start applying for jobs. That day she finally applied at about half a dozen places. And never spent another day applying for more. She got an interview at Einstein Brothers bagels, but never heard back from them and refuses to call and inquire about it. They still have the Now Hiring sign in their window, so she may have screwed up, but it's good practice to learn how to make that call.

So anyway, back to this past week.

J gets home from work at about 4:30. Every single day this week, when he got home, Amy was in her room. She claimed to have gone out for the afternoon one one or a couple days, but she was back home & in her room by 4:30. And it's not like she was up & out before noon. Sometimes her boyfriend was here, sometimes he wasn't. She did not leave the house - she did not even leave her room - unless it was with Lex. She didn't socialize with us at all. She didn't do anything around the house except a couple loads of her own laundry - we don't keep things pristine; I wouldn't have expected much - just maybe if she had wiped her hair out of the sink, that would have been nice.

She spent no time looking for jobs or following up on jobs that she had applied for already. J finally got fed up and told her on Saturday that she had to leave. She gave him some bullshit about how we don't realize how hard she is trying (but offered no evidence of any effort). She gave him some more bullshit about how you can't get a job without connections. He responded that you can't get a job sitting in your room al day.

She called her mom for a ride home, and sat in her room for 4 hours, not speaking to J. When he went in to tell her we were going out for a while, she let loose with a speech she had obviously been preparing for those 4 hours. She accused him of "not being able to handle" having his children in the house for more than 4 days a month. She claims that she is an adult and she can do whatever she wants.

(one more side note: Since her 18th birthday, Amy has refused to acknowledge that there are still rules and obligations she has. She is an adult, so she will not be told what she can and cannot do. She does not seem to connect this to the idea that since she is an adult, no one is obligated to provide her with anything anymore. She uses our (and her family on her mom's side) house, electricity, internet service, food, hot water, etc. but won't be told what time to be home at night.)

She has always been disrespectful, but she has never been "bad". She's never gotten in trouble for anything major. But she's also never gotten in trouble for the way she talks to people. So a lot of this is the fruit of the lack of discipline her whole life.

So back to Saturday, the blowup between her & J ended with her telling J to fuck off. She told her father to fuck off. And when he said she can't talk to him like that, she said "I'm an adult, and I can say whatever the fuck I want."

And he did not kick her out right that second, and he did not start throwing her shit out the window. I think he should have done both.

So she's gone, and claims she is never coming back. We'll see how long that lasts. She will need something soon enough. Even if she makes it through the summer (highly unlikely), she will need a ride to or from school very early in the fall. So we're throwing around ideas for the conversation we're going to force her to sit down and have before she's allowed back in our house. This should be fun.

So that was Saturday. On Sunday we had shitty family drama on my side. I was ready to go back to work today just to escape it all. Today turned out to be fine (kids came over, minus Amy, and we had a nice relaxing day). But boy was this a crappy holiday weekend.

This is out of control

2009-05-21T10:58:00.002-04:00

Last night, at about 8:15, I was getting pizza out of the oven when the phone rang. J answered & called down that it was for me, and it was Jan. She has a knack for calling at inconvenient times - I figured she was calling to invite me over for a drink, & since the Cavs game was about to start (and I was just slicing up dinner), I had an easy out. But that's not why she was calling.

She was trying to set up a Facebook account. For the sole purpose of joining Mike's mafia/pirate crews. And Facebook was not signing Mike's account off so she could create her own. I told her she should be able to log it off, and she said she tried & that didn't work. I think she probably logged Mike's Windows account off, and not his FB account, but I wasn't about to go over to verify it.

Then I heard Mike in the fucking background! I figured he must have been out or something, but he was sitting right there. Telling Jan to tell me that I took a bullet for him earlier. Someone, please kill me now. I will take a real bullet to end this shit.

So we go back & forth, I make it clear that I'm in for the night but I will help within the next couple days, and then Mike gets on the phone. He tells me that people aren't getting his requests, and that when he tries to update his status message to recruit, it's not working.

I was like, "You clicked this button and it didn't work? Then I don't know." And I was shoving pizza in my mouth while I said it. J was standing there laughing at me.

When I finally got off the phone, I walked upstairs shaking my head, went to my computer, opened up my blog, and made J read the post I had written not 7 hours earlier (he doesn't typically read my site). He laughed his ass off. I am still shaking my head.

When this is the most exciting thing you have to talk about...

2009-05-20T13:10:00.004-04:00

So we have these neighbors, Mike and Jan. I have mentioned them before. They are great neighbors, good friends, the whole bit. Every weekend, I head across the street to have drinks with them, and we usually talk a few other times a week, especially during the summer.

And occasionally I feel the need to vent a little about them, and I find myself here.

Mike is 60; Jan's a couple years younger. That's not relevant to this story, really, but if you're trying to compose a picture in your head or something, don't make them my contemporaries. Mike is 20 days older than my father.

Mike recently joined Facebook. I am on Facebook. So Mike & I are FB friends now.

Mike started playing Mafia Wars and Pirates on Facebook. I play both of those games. So Mike & I are in each other's mafia/crew. Just as a side note, Jan is a complete Luddite.

Mike WILL NOT STOP TALKING ABOUT THESE GAMES. He comes over to say hi, and tells me that I took a bullet for him. He asks me how to get more crew members. He tells me how he finally picked up the pistol he had been needing. He asks me if his name ever comes up as having helped me out on a job or in a fight.

I don't know how to break it to him that I really don't pay attention to who "helps" me do what. It is a randomly generated message, that basically puts up any name from your group, and then puts up a random feat (Took a bullet for you - picked up some loot - I can't even come up with more examples because I don't read them!!). I didn't check a box that says "Sure, I'll help Mike out" or anything like that.

The last time I went over to visit, Jan & I started to make small talk, and Mike totally derailed our conversation to talk about these games. These games where you just click buttons. There is no strategy. There is really even no luck. There is button clicking. And Mike is cognizant of that, and mentions it every time we talk. Every. Fucking. Time.

OK, I'm done. Thanks for letting me get that off my chest.

Scare

2009-05-13T14:27:00.002-04:00

Monday night I had a dream that our phone rang, and J picked it up. It was my stepmother calling, and he spoke to her on the phone in the girls' room, while I sat across the hall in our bedroom. He talked to her for about 3 minutes, then he hung up & called to me "Your dad died. He had a coronary."

And that was all he did. He carried on with whatever he had been doing. I was completely distraught, bawling uncontrollably, barely able to walk, and J was like putting laundry away or something.

That was basically the whole dream. I woke up a little worried, but everything in real life was OK.

Then today, I was doing a training class, and at the end of it I checked my BlackBerry. I saw that I had missed one call - weird, but I have been getting a lot of wrong numbers. Then I noticed there was a voicemail. So I checked the call log and the call had come from MY DAD'S NUMBER.

I was talking to someone as I was checking my phone, and it was all I could do to keep my cool while I finished that conversation and rushed downstairs to check my voicemail.

Things are fine - in fact my dad's message said something about the possibility of money coming our way... definitely better than a coronary. Whew!

Bullet Point Monday

2009-05-11T12:36:00.005-04:00

Funny Overheard Conversation: We were out to dinner at a deli the other night, and there was a family at the table next to us - a mom & her two pre-teen sons. One of the sons was very talkative, and I picked up snippets here & there of what he was saying to his mother. At one point, he started talking about a girl in his class (he was probably in 8th grade or so), who is very annoying, and there's no one in his class that likes her. He said that she talks & talks, and nobody ever cares what she has to say, but she still keeps talking.

The boy's mother's response to this:

"If you have spent the last ten years of your life with this girl, from pre-K through 8th grade, and you don't care about what she has to say, then you have some kind of attachment problem."

HA!

The mom had an accent, I think Lebanese, and the boys did not. So I'm assuming she was drawing on the culture she grew up in, and her son was being a very typical American kid. But it was hilarious.

Mother's Day I had the quietest Mother's Day ever yesterday. We don't usually have the kids, as they're at their mother's house, but we also didn't see or hear from anyone else all day. I'll see my mom tonight & give her her present from my sister & me. My dad called last evening to say hi. The neighbor stopped over for a few minutes when he saw we were hanging out in the backyard. And that was it. I spent most of the day in bed watching TV, while J did some light yardwork. It was GREAT.

Books & TV updates I have heard all kinds of good things about the book series "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency", but have never had any interest in reading it. I pick it up in stores or at the library now & then, but always put it back down. Until recently, when I was watching HBO & saw they had made a series based on the books, and Idris Elba was in the first episode. That was enough to get me to watch, even though he ended up having little more than a cameo in a 2-hour pilot. Anyway, I was hooked. The show is SO GOOD. The characters are darling, and the stories are really cute. I finally read the first book, and liked it too. Go figure.

I just read "Skeletons at the Feast" by Chris Bohjalian. If you're looking for something to remind you how good you've got it, boy do I recommend this. The story takes place during the last part of World War II, and follows two groups of people - a German family who has to leave their home and travel west to evade the Russians, and a group of Jewish women prisoners who are marched from camp to camp. I picked it up because I have always liked Bohjalian, and it proved to be just the thing to balance out all the Sookie Stackhouse I've been reading.

Health scares 3 people in my department have been hospitalized in the last 10 days. All for different reasons, but the most recent was my boss, who was admitted because she has some kind of viral infection. Someone please pass the Purell.