Ramblings of a Literary Mind

Done, Finished, Over

2007-05-15T10:37:00.000-04:00

I have decided to retire this blog. Don't worry, all 3 of you who ever read it, I have started a new one. I just felt like I needed a fresh start, a clean slate. So, head on over to the new blog and join me on my new adventures as a Boston intellectual trapped in a Mainer's body.

The first time I post in months, and it's this?

2006-12-06T13:22:00.000-05:00

Christmas Elf Name

My Christmas Elf Name is

Get your Christmas Elf Name at JokesUnlimited.com

I am having new business cards made up immediately.

2006-10-20T16:10:00.000-04:00

The Halloween Party is upon me and I am as excited as I get every year. This is game 7 of the my-team-just-won-the World Series, Christmas, first kiss, found a $1000 as you spent your last $1, best day of the year time for me. The decorations are up, the food is ready, costumes have been sewn, and the haunted house quietly awaits its first scaree.

Rock On!

2006-10-20T10:26:00.000-04:00

I apologize for the second post in a row in which my title ends with an exclamation point, but this one just didn't look right without it.

My morning drive is generally accompanied by the soothing tones of some actor reading the words of some writer to me as I manuever my car to stay just 8 inches behind the car in front of me so no other car can cut in front of me as we sit in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

This morning, I switched to the radio accidentally and the first song I heard was a classic from the 80s, followed by another and another. Instead of listening the end of my mystery book, I sang at the top of my lungs and rocked out all the way to Watertown. The culminating song, as I arrived in Watertown square was "Ice, Ice, Baby," which I'm strangely proud to say I still know every word of (insert the sound of Bryan weeping here as he reads this post). Will it ever stop? Yo! I don't know. Turn off the lights and I glow. Hell yeah.

Historical Fiction!

2006-10-19T23:35:00.000-04:00

Held the first meeting of the PS Book Group tonight and it went swimmingly. Every one of my 12 participants showed up and we had a lively discussion about the first book, Our Lives are the Rivers by Jaime Manrique. The theme of this year's Book Group is historical fiction and I was really nervous about the meeting because we usually have a guest facilitator who moves the discussion along and adds historical background to the text we're reading. Since the Latin American scholar I had originally scheduled to come cancelled 2 weeks ago, and I didn't have time to get anyone else, I had to take the lead. I crammed for 3 days, reading as many books as I could about the push for independence at the turn of the 19th century in the Spanish-ruled South American countries so that I could provide some context for the group. The book explores the connection between Simon Bolivar and his lover of 8 years, Manuela Saenz. Not much is known about her, but Manrique channels her spirit to write one of the most engaging and, well, perfect books that I have read in a long time. It was fun and made me sad that I will miss the rest of the meetings. However, when I got home I received a call from one of the libraries to which I applied for a job and I have a real interview next week. Maine!

The life of a single married girl

2006-10-13T20:03:00.000-04:00

Here I am on a Friday night, alone, in a house on which I have given up but which is in my possession until the 3rd week in November. [That's right, the P&S is signed and we have a closing date!] Due to the upcoming Halloween festivities, I chose to stay in Framingham this weekend rather than going to visit my stuff, and hubby, in Portland. Due to playoff games, said hubby chose to stay in Portland and enjoy an evening of solid baseball games without his channel-surfing wife before joining me tomorrow in my endeavor to build this year's haunted house.

This is my 8th year hosting a Halloween party and every year I feel the same party anxiety: will people come, will they mingle, will my party be fun? And every year, people come and wow me with their creativity and Halloween spirit, and they mingle, and after a visit to the ice luge, they certainly seem to have fun. This year, with all that has been going on in my life (marriage, new job search, move to Portland, selling my house), it has been tough to get motivated about the party, yet now that it is upon me, I feel that familiar thrill as I concoct new ways to spook guests. I still worry that no one will come and that it won't be fun, but I am drinking vodka so that fear will fade away with my second drink.

I really love Halloween with a child-like fervor. I am not sure from where this comes, but just the thought of a group of people in a room, all dressed up and surrounded by severed body parts and skulls and oozing vampire heads, I love it. I had a very normal childhood - I wasn't allowed to watch scary movies and my first encounter with a Nightmare on Elm St. movie in sixth grade sent me spiraling into nightmares for days. So much so, that my parents, in an effort to stop the nighttime terrors, one night put nylons over their heads and crawled into my bedroom. I sensed that someone was in the room and when I said, "who's there?", they popped up in front of me, all squishy-faced and laughing their asses off and said, "we're Freddy Krueger". Yup, completely normal childhood. No emotional scarring at all.

This week has been a weird one, starting with a day off on Monday (happy birthday to the Schroeckionnes), to the crash of a Satans pitcher into the side of a Manhattan building, to listening to the former ambassador to Iraq speak about the complete fuck-up of a job America is performing in the Middle East, to a blizzard in NY, just weird.

I'm off to a bar, with my mom, where my brother bartends. Seriously.

It's only Tuesday

2006-10-03T15:10:00.000-04:00

Marjane Satrapi is an author of graphic novels, the most famous of which is Persepolis. She was born in Iran and now lives in France and she is just one of those people who fascinates me. As part of my Book Group last year at work, we read Persepolis and had an excellent discussion; I also had the chance to hear Satrapi speak about her novels, particularly Embroideries, which tells of the lives of women in Iran. She is intelligent, well-spoken and fearless. Today, I read an amazing interview with Satrapi in The Independent, a British paper. She gives her views on the war in Iraq and its effect on U.S. perceptions of Iran and discusses her new book, Chicken with Plums, which tells the story of her uncle who was a musician in Iran and who took to his bed to die when his beloved instrument is shattered. Her illustrations are so simple yet they evoke a ton of emotion and you find yourself learning about the history and culture of Iran without even trying. Great interview. Amazing books. Fearless author. Wow.
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I had a tune-up on my car last Friday which has led to a front-end alignment on Tuesday (yes, that's today). If I don't find a job to which I can walk in the city in which I have moved my furniture and my husband in the near future, I might have to sleep in my car in the parking lot of my current job and dream about Portland & Bryan.
______________________________________________________________

The home inspector found the following problems which are a concern to our potential buyers:
*Some bad spots on our roof (which we had disclosed);
*A rotted section of a water pipe in the basement that has a small leak; and
*An exposed and torn electrical wire leading to a junction box on the side of the house which could lead to "serious damage to the electrical wiring inside the house"

The buyers are going to get estimates for each of these problems before deciding whether or not to officially purchase our house. Despite the advice of our realtor to sit tight and wait to see what those estimates yield (sitting tight is not exactly in my nature), we have asked a plumber and an electrician to give us our own estimates. The roof is a non-negotiable problem that they are going to have to absorb since we A) don't have the funds to fix it and B) have not actually had any problems with it despite its ratty appearance. Meanwhile, we turned over the contact info of our potential renters of the 1st floor apartment to this potential buyer and she promptly scared away the tenants who had agreed to move in on Sunday the 1st (she wanted to raise their rent and they weren't having that). Now, she has not called any of the other potential renters because she's probably not even sure she will buy the house. And we haven't called any of them because we're not sure we'll own the house for much longer.
Ah, the joys of home selling.

8:30 AM

2006-10-01T22:02:00.000-04:00

That's what time the home inspector showed up on Saturday morning to scrutinize my house. We'll find out if we still have a deal this week. The buyer has until Thursday. Think good thoughts.

That time of year again

2006-10-01T21:32:00.000-04:00

I forgot to mention that we "listers" have struck again and thanks to Bryan have come up with the 2006 Songs List. This year we added Nick to the mix so there were 8 of us each contributing 20 songs from which we had to pick the top 50. I felt that my list this year was a more solid offering than last and as a result I had a 3 more of my songs selected this year than last (when a mere 2 of my songs made the list). I do think that I was robbed a little, but them's the breaks.

My nominees:

Lose Yourself, Eminem
Respect, Aretha Franklin
Mercedez Benz, Janis Joplin
Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes, Paul Simon
It's My Life, Talk Talk
Trouble, Ray LaMontagne
What Can I Say, Brandi Carlile
Coin-Operated Boy, Dresden Dolls
Billie Jean, Michael Jackson
Hit the Road Jack, Ray Charles
Extraordinary Machine, Fiona Apple
Fever, Peggy Lee
I've Got Rhythm, Gene Kelly
Take on Me, A-Ha
When Doves Cry, Prince
Rainbow Connection, Kermit the Frog
Life's a Bitch, Nappy Roots
Float On, Modest Mouse
Soul Meets Body, Death Cab for Cutie
Angel From Montgomery, Bonnie Raitt

My songs that made the list:
Take on Me
Lose Yourself
Respect
Billie Jean
Float On

Listing songs is really fun and I have already started thinking about what songs I might add to next year's list when we might each add a few more and then try to rank the "best of" from the 2 lists we've already created. Next up, is the 2006 Albums list this winter.

And it's only 11:20 AM

2006-09-28T11:29:00.000-04:00

In addition to the usual morning fare, so far today I've:
Learned that there’s a new human in the world
Had stitches removed from my shoulder
Had blood drawn
Read 2 chapters from Saving Fish from Drowning (new Amy Tan book)
Left my car at the mechanic's for a tune-up
Ate an English muffin
Applied for a health club rebate from my hmo
Applied for a job
Checked my hotmail a dozen times to see if my realtor has a time to sign a P&S for my house

Congrats to the Thomases on the birth of Cooper Dean - he arrived 2 weeks early after only 4 pushes. Seems like he was in quite a rush to enter into this world. If only he knew about adjustable mortgages, carbon monoxide detector regulations, moving trucks, and midgets - I bet he'd dive right back into that warm, safe place to cook for a little longer. Seriously, babies are cool and I'm glad that this one is here in top condition. As one of my co-workers said earlier, "one day, some extra weight, the next, another whole human." Wow.

Crap

2006-09-27T17:27:00.000-04:00

Yeah, that last post was drivel. I left off writing about China and then, due to a limited number of computers with Internet access on the latter part of our tour, I just left off.

China was amazing. I took A LOT of pictures. Here is a link to the first gazillion: China Pictures - I used snapfish to upload them so you might have to register to view them, but they don't spam ya' so it's worth it. The hour of your life spent looking at someone else's travel pictures? I leave that up to you to decide if that was time well spent.

I loved being in China. Loved learning more about this culture that is so ancient and yet so open to embracing the future and so in tune with the technological innovations flying at us a mile a minute. I revelled in the chance to walk down a street and feel like the "other", be the one surrounded by faces that didn't all look like mine. I think that all of the teachers on the tour were deeply moved and greatly humbled by the opportunity to immerse themselves in another culture for 17 days.

However, I was quite glad to come home. Home to my dashingly handsome new hubby who never let me check my email and find nothing in my inbox. Home to a house that was refusing to sell despite its "great features". Home to food that didn't consist of bits of meat & vegetable in sauce with rice. I ate A LOT of rice. It was determined while we were in China that while Americans eat a lot of the same foods, we do like to vary it up and therefore can feel like we're eating an assortment of foods: Mexican one night, Indian the next, followed by pizza. In China, they eat food. It's Chinese. It got repetitive and I was glad to come home to a burger and caesar salad and tacos and lasagna. And, home to the fact that Bryan had taken a job in Portland, Maine and that we would be moving there come hell or highwater (read: whether or not we sold the house).

I'm happy to report today that Bryan did move to Portland - we have rented a great apartment in an awesome location. There is a spare bedroom - EVERYONE is invited to visit. Maybe not all at once.

I gave my notice at work, which was difficult since this has been a great experience and I really enjoy working with my colleagues and the amazing teachers who use the library. To date, I have not found another job. I see some bartending in my future and it's not that pretty. But I'll be in Portland which is beautiful.

As of today, we actually have an offer that doesn't make me want to weep. Keep your fingers crossed (and anything else that is practical) that this works out.

Pathetic

2006-09-27T14:29:00.000-04:00

Yes, that's what I am. I have been incited to blog again by a comment made by Bryan last night - "you're officially a Schroeck". He was referring, of course, to Eric and Shayna and their staunch, red-necked refusal to share their experience with the rest of us via the world wide web. Thanks guys.

So, I'm blogging again.

And now I have so much going on and have experienced so many things that I feel overwhelmed with the task of beginning to update everyone that I have begun hyperventilating and must go and find a paper bag to breathe into. Thanks, Schroecks.

2006-08-10T11:21:00.000-04:00

Xi'an is one of the most culturally-rich cities in the world, and we've experienced a lot of it. We went to the Hu County peasant painting village today and saw one of the masters of this art create paintings right in front of us. She is a master papercutter and a beautiful painter. Peasant painting came out of the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 70s when Mao wanted to celebrate the people. The colors are bold and bright and the subject matter is humble and simple. It was incredible to stand in a room surrounded by so many colorful images of people's daily lives.

We also visited the Great Mosque, which was extensive and impressive, though not something I was really interested. There is a Muslim market attached to this, which was fun as we got to buy see new things for sale. My roomie Jen bought a few of the shadow puppets that are famous in this area.

Dinner was on our own and while I won't say where we predictable Americans ended up, I will say that french fries are delicious. After dinner, we visited the Bell Tower in the center of the old city and rang the bell (which you can do 3 times for 5 yuan, about 80 cents), then we walked to the South Gate. We saw hundreds of people in a large square fan dancing. Not a company or an organized group, just people, out after dinner, fan dancing for exercise and community. Incredible.

Tomorrow we are off to Chengdu where will see pandas on Saturday. Yay pandas.

Gambe!

2006-08-09T05:56:00.000-04:00

Since I last wrote:
I saw four of the master artists in China create art RIGHT in front of me. Our amazing tour guide, Huajing, got us into an artist's studio - he is very famous in China as a painter, poet and calligrapher. He both painted and calligraphied a poem for us. Then another master painter painted exquisite peonies, another painted a harvest of grapes, and the last calligraphied on fans. SOOO moving to watch artists work and to watch the artists as they watched one another (they don't usually get to do that so it was an experience for them, too).

Ate duck. That's right, my poultry-hating ass ate Daffy and it was delicious!!! Huajing invited 2 of the artists to dinner with us and I sat at the table with them. The owner of the restaurant recognized them and sent over bottles of Chinese liquor.He poured shots all around and then yelled Gambe, which is the Chinese equivalent of Salud! or Cheers! BUT, it means "empty your glass", not "to your health". Empty our glasses we did - again and again. Thirty minutes later I was not only eating duck but posing for pictures with a huge plate of it in front of me and an empty bottle of liquor on my head. I LOVE China.

Saw the Terracotta Warriors today. An emperor in 221 BC decided to bury over 8000 soldiers near his tomb, each one hand-crafted and painted. They weren't discovered until the 1970s and today there is a beautiful museum where you can go and see the soldiers that have been excavated. The scale is breathtaking.

Now, I am off to wash my face before dinner, which will consist of course after course of Jiaozi dumplings to celebrate the Lunar New Year.

Wow!

2006-08-06T20:55:00.000-04:00

So, I'm here in the Taiwan Hotel Business Center on the Internet, which is so cool. This really is the international language. The trip so far has been amazing and I don't even have time before breakfast to tell about everything, but here are few things we've done/seen:

The Great Wall - the first day. Holy cow! My calves are still sore from climbing some really steep parts - it's all steps. About 5 of us went "to the left" with hundreds of other people instead of "to the right" with thousands of others. We kind of booked it and made it past a lot of people and got to a point where you can't go any further because the Wall is in disrepair - this was great because we were some of the only people here (except for the vendors, who are EVERYWHERE). THere are really no words to describe this wonder. Amazing.

Also went to a Cloisonne Factory and saw how the technique is done (and, of course, bought stuff), then to the Ming Tombs where we walked the Sacred Way - which only the emperor would walk to visit the tombs of his ancestors, and finally to a Jade Factory, where again we saw the technique and parted with our American dollars. We ended the day at the Summer Palace, made famous by the Empress Dowager Cixi, where we were the ONLY ones in the place - we ate dinner in an Imperial dining hall, right next to the dining hall that Nixon was entertained while he was President. The servers wore elaborate costumes and the food was exquisite.

Yesterday, we started off at the Temple of Heaven, the place where the emperor would commune with the gods, then went to a Pearl Market - I am now in possession of a great many pieces of pearl jewelry - Great fun haggling with the different stalls for the creation of necklaces and earrings. Lunch was in a famous Noodle restaurant - my favorite food yet, must be the Italian in me. We then went to the Lama Temple and learned about Chinese Buddhism and then for a light dinner at the Golden Bowl. Most of the group opted to go to a Peking Opera but 5 of us went back to the hotel for foot massages - if I could take my foot masseuse home in my suitcase, I would!

Off to breakfast now, more when I can.

Itinerary

2006-08-02T20:49:00.000-04:00

Everything that can be shoved into my suitcase has been. I have snacks and books on CD and lots of underwear. I am ready.

For any interested parties, here is my basic itinerary for the next 17 days:

Aug 3: Fly from Boston to Chicago (4 hours) then to Beijing (13 hours) where it will be tomorrow when we land.

Aug 4: Stay in Beijing for 4 days and do touristy things like skip on the Great Wall, visit the great Hong Qiao Market (Red Bridge Market) to ogle at the pearls, and experience the history of Tiananmen Square.

Aug 8: Fly to Xi'an, home to the mausoleum of the first emporer Liu Qi, who buried himself with a vast terracotta army which was uncovered in the 1970s. We will also see the Great Mosque and visit the Muslim market and eat a banquet to celebrate the Lunar New Year.

Aug 10: Day trip to the Hu County Peasant Painting Village, where we will visit different artists' studios. Peasant painting has only been around since the time of Mao so this will be a great opportunity to see some of the masters of this craft.

Aug 11: Fly to Chengdu where we will see PANDAS on a preserve (we've been told that if there is a baby, we will be able to hold it), and a Sichuan Opera which, as a great fan of Western opera, really intrigues me.

Aug 13: Before flying south to Kunming, we will visit the Leshan Giant Buddha, the biggest in the world after the Buddhas in Afghanistan were blown to bits in 2001 by the Taliban. Once in Kunming, we will visit the Yunnan Stone Forest (literally trees made of sone), partake of a tea ceremony at a tea house, and relax in a Hot Spring, where it is reported that foot massages can be had that could make a stoic weep with joy.

Aug. 16: We fly northeast to Shanghai, but get on a bus immediately and head to Suzhou (pronounced Su jo). I plan on stocking up on comforters and tablecloths at the Suzhou #1 Silk Factory and then contemplating the twilight at the Lingering Garden.

Aug 17: We drive back to Shanghai, where we spend our last 2 days watching an Acrobat show, eating dim sum, and prowling about the Shanghai Museum. Our last dinner will be at teh Peace Hotel at the Dragon and Phoenix Restaurant, which overlooks the Bund, a famous part of the city resplendent with European architecture.

Aug 19: Home again, home again. We leave at 6:00 PM from Shanghai and arrive at Logan at 11:56 PM the same night - what a mind fuck.

Don't worry, I'll take lots of pictures, which I'll eventually post on my blog. I will also attempt to blog while in China, but no promises.

In the meantime, my songs have been selected for this year's QHS Songs List (only 5 from the 80s, 8 from the 2000s, 3 each from the 70s and 60s, and 1 from the 1950s); everyone will miss me terribly at the QHS Annual Summit to discuss this upcoming list; people will make sure that my husband is eating something besides Wendy's SuperMelts; and, oh yeah, my house will sell. For asking price.

Packing Dreams

2006-07-31T21:57:00.000-04:00

7AM on a hazy street in a small-ish (albeit overcrowded) town in Massachusetts, the Logan Express bus drives up to a well-kept two-family. Inside, a petite woman frantically tosses extra underwear and bottles of Tylenol PM into an enormous suitcase while trying to fasten the velcro on her Teva and pin her hair up with one hand. Hearing the squealing brakes of the bus, the woman snatches up the case, zipping up whatever happened to make it in, and runs down the stairs and across the lawn as the bus begins to move again, having given up on whatever passenger thought she'd actually make it into a gray seat with the festive yellow, red and orange stripes. Woman attempts to howl in fury as exhaust fills her lungs.

I woke up at this point and decided that sleep was futile. I was at my desk 42 minutes later at a record 7:50. AM.

Squeal like a pig

2006-07-28T16:08:00.000-04:00

So, last night, during a house meeting in which my brother, Joe, Bryan and I were to discuss what to do should someone make an offer on the house while I'm in China, the conversation took a rather odd turn:

Joe: You're not having an Open House this weekend are you?
Me: Yes.
Joe: But I told you that I'm having Mike's bachelor party here, right?
Me: Yes, but that will be Saturday night.
Joe: I'm pretty sure I wrote in the email it would be a day/night affair.
Me: Well, it will have to be an after 4/night affair.
Joe: But the pig is coming at 10:30.
Me: We listed the house on MLS on Tuesday and have to keep the momentum going and have Open Houses this weeke...did you say pig? What do you mean pig?
Joe: A pig and it's being set up at 10:30.
Me: In the morning?
A pig?

Me: You can't have a pig here.
Joe: Well, I can't undo it, it's done.
Me: You have to cancel the pig (a pig! in my backyard!)
Joe: No, it's a done deal.
Me: Are they going to have to dig a hole in which to roast this pig?
Joe: I wouldn't think they do.
Me: Wouldn't think? Or No? Biiiig difference.
At this time Joe calls the organizer of the pig (!) to see if a hole will have to be dug in my beautiful, landscaped backyard, the yard that Bryan and I sweat over and have lovingly (albeit somewhat painfully) weeded, mulched, mowed, seeded, weeded again, mowed again, etc. ALL FUCKING SPRING/SUMMER!

Joe: Hi, B-, do you know if they are gonna dig a hole for the pig?
Conversation continues and when it's over, Joe looks confident.
Joe: No hole. The guy comes with a setup and just needs a plug for the spit. We can put it in the back of the yard.
Bryan: Or better yet, between the garage and the shed, where there's no grass.
Bryan: It will smell good for the Open House.

So, there will be a pig roasting on a spit during our Open House on Saturday. Here's hoping to vegetarians or Jews look at the place and run screaming at the sight of a large slab of pig meat sizzling in front of the shed.

I have read A LOT of homeselling books, but none have mentioned the joys of attempting to sell your house with a brother who thinks that roasting a large slab of meat in your back yard while you are trying to sell that house is a fabulous idea.

I'm ba-aack

2006-07-27T17:06:00.000-04:00

I'm still not sure that I have anything to say, but here I am. These past 5 weeks have been filled with house-selling angst and China excitement.
After several Open Houses and no buyers (lots of interest, but no one with actual money), we decided to list the house on MLS, which is the big site that buyers and brokers use to find potential matches - we REALLY hope that our match is out there and makes his/her/their move soon. We will have two more Open Houses this Sat. & Sun. and then I leave for China.

China. I am going for 2 1/2 weeks, along with 20 teachers. I will try to blog while I'm in China, but I don't know how often I'll have an Internet connection.

And our "President" wants to give people tax cuts. Oh, and then there's that little war overseas...

2006-06-14T16:31:00.000-04:00

From the Mass Library news listserv:
Town Meeting has voted to fund Medway Library $107,342. (Far below the current budget of $284,784.) With this funding, combined with a revolving fund and a trust fund, the library will be open 20 hours per week and retain 3 staff members. The library will not be replacing the Director, not replacing the custodian and will not be purchasing books or other materials.

Tragedy.

Happy Flag Day.

Home Alone

2006-06-11T13:11:00.000-04:00

Well, the rain has passed, leaving in its path some baseball havoc and a lot of puddles on my driveway. We had tickets to last night's game, which was postponed due to the rain and the playing of the make-up day game. The day game was supposed to start at 1:20, but didn't actually begin until 6:10. So, ever valiant, Bryan, and I and the Moynihans 2 drove to Boston to get tickets to that game figuring that there would be a lot of empty seats.

We bought standing room tickets for $20 from the box office and sat first in section 28 on the 3rd-base line, then stood in section 21 behind home plate, before finally finding our spot in section 11, row 1, about 40 rows up from first base. It's the first time I've ever watched a game from all three vantage points at Fenway, and for the bargain price of 20 bucks. Then, our game was postponed until today at noon so Bryan, Pat and Rob are off at that game whilst I sit and wait for the throngs of people eager to buy my house...ok, I'm actually sitting here alone, reading Brighton Rock by Graham Greene, listening to smooth jazz, breathing in the soft scent of the Cookies & Cream Yankee candle and the candied pecans I have baking (I read that you want the house to smell really good, and my god, it does). I would buy my house - hahahaha.

I just found out that the town's Flag Day Parade was cancelled in lieu of a "Celebration Festival" and that there are some pretty big World Cup games on today, so I'm competing with some heavy stuff. But all it takes is one offer...

Wanna buy a vowel?

2006-06-08T22:31:00.000-04:00

How 'bout this house?

We have officially decided to put the house on the market and are having an Open House this Sunday from 1-4. This decision has brought with it a flurry of home improvements: porch painting, mulching, room de-cluttering. As a result, I have some sweet calluses on my hands and the smell of mulch pervades my dreams. But our rooms are knickknack-free and as spacious as they can be.

Aside from the terrifying prospect of selling my house this weekend (we have no actual plan in place to move, just an idea about where we would like to move), we also have tix to the Sox on Saturday, at which time we get the pleasure of showing off Fenway Park to the cutest twins I know (well, the only twins I know, but they're still pretty cute, 'specially when they shake their bootys). We might get to see Beckett pitch, which would be pretty cool. Speaking of baseball, pretty great to see He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named doubled up on a bad base-running decision tonight in the very decisive and satisfying Sox win against the Satans. Dingers!

In fish news, 3 more of our fish went to the great fishbowl in the sky. RIP fishies.

Oh, to be a guy

2006-06-05T14:46:00.000-04:00

Apparently, 2 guys made a video of the effects of Mentos on Diet Coke. It's pretty cool.

Then, to top that, 3 or 4 guys made a video to show some other, um, attributes of a 2-liter bottle of soda. Hilarious! Makes me want to launch that bottle of Sprite sitting in the fridge at work.

There's a new book about what an ass Bill O'Reilly is and it has one of the best titles I've ever heard. Here's a review of Sweet Jesus, I Hate Bill O'Reilly.

"What kind of a world do we live in where a man dressed up as a President gets all of my press"

2006-06-05T14:16:00.000-04:00

As if this needed to be said...

Poll of Voters: Bush Worst President Since World War II
By E&P Staff

Published: June 01, 2006 10:30 AM ET
NEW YORK A new Quinnipiac Poll finds American voters selecting George W. Bush as easily the worst American president in the past 61 years, with fellow Republican Ronald Reagan picked as the best.

Bush was named by 34% of voters, followed by Richard Nixon at 17% and Bill Clinton at 16%, according to the Quinnipiac University national poll of over 1,500 voters released today. Leading the list for best President since 1945 is Ronald Reagan with 28%, and Clinton with 25%.

While Democrats and Republicans split widely on the "worst" choice, 35% independent voters picked Bush.

Among young voters, 42% listed Bush as worst, while Clinton "won" for worst among white Protestants.

The main reason cited by voters who disapprove of Bush is the war in Iraq -- listed by 43%. By 56% to 39% they say that that going to war in Iraq was the wrong thing to do. Nearly 6 in 10 want withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

From May 23 - 30, Quinnipiac University surveyed 1,534 registered voters nationwide. The survey has a margin of error of +/- 2.5 percentage points.

Postscript

2006-05-25T11:26:00.000-04:00

Since the wedding, which has been defining my life for months now and after this post will cease to do so, I have done the following:

*Received A LOT of pictures. Thank you, to those who've forwarded them on to us, we love them. We will eventually sort through them and make an album.
*Watched more hours of television than ever thanks to several 2-hour season and series finales, and The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, a seriously long western. Now, it's just all dingers, all the time.
*Changed my name on many, many documents and cards; how did my name get on so many things?
*Continued to drink too much wine then, in a pact with my hubby, decided to give up drinking for a week, just to see if we can. Sad.
*Worked like crazy to catch up with all of the boxes, mail, voicemails and piles that accrued while I was away for over 2 weeks. Yikes. I'm still kind of doing that, but it all feels pretty-well organized at this point.
*Went to traffic court to fight a somewhat justified speeding ticket. Lost. Decided to appeal. Look forward to losing that, too, but at least I won't go down without a fight.
*Resumed regular, weekly gym outings, which I call "outings" to mitigate the torture of lifting, running, stretching and sweating that occurs when I walk into the gym.
and
*Attended my China tour orientation - this is the next thing that I am excitedly looking forward to. I am going with a group of teachers on a work trip in August for 17 days. Yay China!

I missed some birthdays in all of the hubbub. Happiest birthdays to Kati (if you actually still read this, please write or call), Lauren "the-best-flowergirl-in-the-East" Carey, my lovely mother, LJ2, and Aunt Sue. And Happy 1-year Anniversary to Nic and Brian - time flies!

GOING HOME

2006-05-19T15:14:00.001-04:00

This is the last of 12 entries starting below with "ESCAPE" and then passed back and forth between Bryan and me.

Thursday, May 11

Bryan woke up before his alarm at 6:40 AM and jumped in the shower. Is someone excited to see Framingham again?

I groggily rolled out of bed and started gathering our belongings. While in the shower, Bryan realized that we only had $10 left and that we still had to tip the maid and pay for the cab ride to the airport. He left me to stuff the bags while he went in search of an ATM. I shoved, squished and finagled all the newly acquired alcohol, along with our clothes, into the 5 bags we'd brought. By the time Bryan returned, I had showered and was zipping the final bag closed.

We hailed a cab and settled in for the 10 minute ride to the airport, made a little more torturous by the country music blaring from the radio of our Middle Eastern cab driver. With my identity in my pocket this time, we breezed through security and had time to eat some breakfast before our very crowded flight was boarded. The guy in the seat in front of Bryan only knocked into his knees 22 times, and we had the pleasure of watching one of the most overwrought and cheesy movies, "Last Holiday" with Queen Latifah (don't worry, we only vomited in our mouths once).

We landed smoothly, got a ride from the Logan Express, where I did not forget anything, then from my brother, who made a pit-stop at McDonald's for us since we'd skipped dinner, and arrived home to our large pile of mail and happy fishies.

Thank you to everyone who bought us something from our Honeymoon Registry - we toasted each of you as we ate, visited, cheered and played in San Diego.

UP, UP, and AWAY

2006-05-19T14:07:00.000-04:00

Tuesday, May 9

The alarm went off way too early.

By 4:20 we were up, dressed & on our way back to Temecula in our hot, little Ford Focus; we had to meet the balloon company at 5:30. There was little traffic and the directions were good, so we pulled into a parking spot at 5:31. The place was a B&B/vineyard with a house on a hill and a beautiful view of the valley immediately in front of it (where the grapes were being watered at this ungodly hour). There were 5 of us present, 2 couples and one older woman in addition to us, with 2 more expected - they got lost and showed up 10 minutes late. When they did pull up, we may as well have been on the set of "A Golden Girl Special: the girls do a balloon ride before Sophia kicks it." Two more elderly women joined us in the van to raise the total age of balloon riders to close to 375. We stopped for a pee break and then went off in search of the perfect easterly wind on which to lift our balloon.

By the time we found that wind, it was 6:45. The van was driven into a field so the inflation process could begin. This involved a lot of standing around for the riders and a lot of work for the crew. First, a plastic tarp was placed on the ground so the basket could put on the ground, on its side (easier to attach the balloon). Then, a huge nylon tarp was spread out and the balloon was unfurled. Large fans were put on either side of the basket to push air into the balloon. Once it was nearly inflated, the crew decided to load the "ladies." This involved getting them horizontal so they could crawl into the basket; then, when the basket was pulled upright by the balloon, they would already be in it. Ever seen 3 80+ women crawl into something? I recommend it.

The rest of us climbed into the basket using foot cutouts. This involved jumping down onto the floor of the basket, which the collective knees of the GG wouldn't have borne too well. The pilot then heated the air (elicited some extra twittering from the GGs) and we were gently lifted into the air. I have to mention, that one of the GGs was a substitute for another whose knees & hip were so bad she couldn't even get into the van. The subsitute's name was Ann and she was there because her friend's daughter had bought them a ride; she was not thrilled to be in a hot air balloon.

It was an amazing ride - you just drift over rooftops and trees and roads. It's pretty quiet and the gas kept us warm though it was a damp, overcast morning. The only tense part, for me, came when the pilot lifted us about 200 feet in the air - the ground looked very far away and the clouds/fog started closing in around us, obscuring everything, and we ceased to move. I got pretty nervous, which fed Ann's already frazzled nerves as she had also realized that we weren't moving. She looked at Bryan and with supreme seriousness said, "I smell gas." I guess Ann hadn't noticed that gas was what powered a balloon. B couldn't contain his chuckle and Ann ducked down into the basket, sure we were doomed. The other guy in the balloon, Stan, checked with the pilot and found out that he was looking for a southern wind to carry us across the vineyards. He found something because we started moving again and we floated closer to the ground. I liked being closer to the ground. The pilot was able to show off a bit as we passed over fields, just brushing the tops of grasses and mustardseed, then when it seemed that we would crash into the side of a hill, lifting us just over. Very cool.

We finally found a good field in which to land, and we did so with barely a bump; we touched down and stopped. We had to wait for the ground crew to find us and then had to wait, in the balloon, as they collapsed the balloon (our weight kept the basket anchored). When we could get out, 4 of us did so easily. The Golden Girls needed some help and it was Bryan to the rescue, 'cause he's so tall ("and strong and handsome.") He practically lifted 2 of them out of the basket causing them to gush about his brawniness. When we all had our feet on the ground, there was champagne all around and a van ride back to our starting point. Turns out the B&B/vineyard belonged to our pilot, David, and his wife had prepared breakfast for us. David turned on the charm teling us about his grapes and the property and how long he'd been flying balloons and bi-planes. He bought the land from an older woman with whom he'd become friends because he would land his balloons in her driveway.

After singing Happy Birthday to the Golden Girls, thanking David for the ride and the bottle of wine he gave us in honor of our nuptials, we got back in our beatmobile and headed to toward the coast. Time check: 9:30 AM. We navigated our way to Oceanside (just north of Carlsbad, where we were meeting Joe & Jan for lunch at 1:30), took an hour nap on the beach, walked a long pier eating a morning snack of McDonald's french fries, watched people fishing off said pier (they catch perch), then headed to lunch. Now: 12:15 PM.

We made it to Carlsbad in 15 minutes, found Joe's condo from memory (he had shown us the way the Tues before but that was after 4 beers - not bad), and realized we were too early. So, we stopped at the Carlsbad Outlets, ate a fish taco at Rubio's (holy delicious), bought some pistachios, then went for our "real" lunch at an Italian restaurant. We also got the speed tour through the San Luis Rey Mission and finished the afternoon with a pint at an Irish tavern. We arrived back at the car rental office five minutes before they closed and relinquished our sweet ride.

A nap before dinner, which we ate at Dakota's, the restaurant at the Gaslamp Plaza Suites. The food was uninspired but filling and gave us just enough strength to visit the Hustler store around the corner. The (wo)man at the 1st floor counter was intimidating, but we pressed on through all 3 floors of Larry Flintified merchandise, and made it out without buying one adult video. We returned to the room to sleep off our 19 hour day.

Visit Bryan's blog to find out how we spent our last day in SD on Wednesday, May 10th...

WINE!

2006-05-19T13:28:00.000-04:00

Sunday the second, May 7

As Bryan would write this entry: wine, wine, wine, wine, puke, pass out.

My version:
Waking to an alarm for the first time in 10 days, we got ready for our Temecula wine-tasting tour, making sure to grab a quick breakfast so as not to get hammered after the first tasting. The van was due at 9:15 AM and were there to meet it. We did learn as we got out on the street that many of the downtown roads were closed due to a road race and we were starting to wonder if the van would ever show. Just as I was about to call, an elderly black gentleman stuck his head out of a large, white van window and said, "Don't look so worried, Jill." This was Ray, our driver and host for the day. We also picked up 5 other people at the Old Town tram station; they were our age and looked pretty tired. After introducing ourselves (us: Bryan & Jill, them: Stacey, Loren, Caroline, Jorge & Kim), we all fell into a stupor for the hour drive. As we approached Temecula, Ray said, "welcome to wine country," and he had to say that because all that we could see was urban sprawl and chain-infested strip malls.

We arrived at our first stop, Callaway Winery, where we got a short tour of the wine-making process before heading to the bar for our first "tasting." We got a souvenir class and 4 tastes. I had 2 whites and 2 reds; Bryan had 3 reds and a dessert wine. We weren't blown away by anything. When we were finished, we met Ray outside and learned that lunch wasn't until 3 PM (it was noon). Luckily, Bryan had snagged an extra muffin at breakfast so we shared that. I'd guess that it helped to absorb .09 litres of wine.

Feeling a little buzzed and a whole lot chattier, we made our way to the next winery, Wilson Creek, home of the famous (at least to people in Southern Cal.) almond champagne. We had a lot of time at this winery and no tour, so we bellied up to the bar, this time for 5 tastes in our new souvenir glass, with our other tour participants and commenced tasting. We were impressed by the Syrah and Zin, mildly impressed by the almond champagne and I was quite blown away by the chocolate Zinfande port. We decided to send some wine to Bryan's parents, to buy a bottle of Zin for my cousin, and to drink a bottle ourselves, outside in the gazebo with our new friends. We had a grand time trading stories and glasses of wine until Mr. Grape (Ray) came to collect us for our next stop.

Still too early for lunch, we detoured to an outdoor spot on a hill overlooking most of the valley where Ray pulled out a bottle of Kendall Jackson chardonnay and poured a round. Because what we needed now was more wine.

We went to the last winery, Ponte Family Estate Winery, for our final tasting and lunch. Ponte Winery allowed 6 tastings plus the glass, of which I managed to get in 3 before being seated for lunch - Bryan got in 4. Ray assured us that we could get the rest after lunch, which pacified our raging wine lust. However, we ordered 3 bottles with lunch, all of which were pretty tasty from what I remember. After lunch, Bryan actually went for his 5th taste, a port that partially ended up dribbling down the front of his shirt whether from an unsteady drinking hand or the jostling of another drinker, we'll never know. I skipped additional wine to save room for the essential amount of blood needed in my veins to run the major organs, and we all piled into the van for the return trip. This ride involved a lot of laughing, yelling and some email trading.

We weren't sorry to see our new buds go (they were flying back to Virginia on the red eye and had to work the next day), but we were really glad that they had turned out to be so fun. Ray dropped us off at our door and we unsteadily made our way to our room. There was initial dozing, followed by a good suggestion to have food delivered to our room, the eating of a slice of pizza each, some puking (I'll never tell which of us couldn't hold his wine), watching of Sunday night tv and finally blissful sleep of the deeply hung over.

Having been to Napa and now Temecula, the two don't really compare in grandiosity or breadth, Napa easily winning those claims, but Temecula was much more affordable and the wine was certainly tasty enough for those of us from the Carlo Rossi set.

See Bryan for our Monday, May 8th adventures at the zoo.

OFF TO THE CITY

2006-05-19T11:29:00.000-04:00

Friday, May 5 aka Cinco de Mayo

For our final morning at the Bahia, we chose to get room service. The order:
1 American breakfast (scrambled eggs, sausage, hash browns & toast) w/grapefruit juice
1 American breakfast (same as above but w/bacon and oj)
1 Belgian waffle
1 Order French toast
Decaf coffee
Tea
What was eaten:
Bryan - 1 sausagey American breakfast, everything but 2 pieces of toast
1 Belgian waffle
Entire glass of grapefruit juice and 1/2 a cup of tea
Jill - 2 pieces of bacon, 2 of the 4 pieces of French toast, some of the hash browns, 1 piece of toast, most of the oj and 1/2 a cup of coffee. I know, I know, there are starving children everywhere. Score one for Bryan.

Gluttony aside, we moved into the sloth period, laying around reading and watching old Cosby reruns (2 different episodes on 2 different channels). We had to check out by noon and we didn't intend to leave the room until 11:58.

After packing (why does one always end up with more crap than she came with?), we accomplished our goal, arriving in the lobby at noon. I got a chance to thank the nice concierge who had given us directions to the library on the 1st day. He said that I was one of the happiest people he'd seen to which I replied that I had a lot to be happy about.

We got a cab to the Gaslamp Plaza Suites where we were going to spend the next leg of our trip. We were able to check in early, but our hints about being on our honeymoon were less impressive to the desk clerk here who simply handed us the key to our intended room and wished us a pleasant day. Our room was pretty nice and as it was on the 9th floor we had a great view of the city and part of the bay. All of the rooms are named after authors and we were in the Flaubert room down the hall from the cummings, Dostoevski and Hardy rooms.

Our first order of business upon getting settled in our new digs was to take a nap. Somewhere on this honeymoon, we morphed into an 80-year-old couple who can't seem to go 3 hours without a little "time-out" rest. Around 3 PM, we made our way out of the hotel, mailed some post cards at a shady post office, after walking through the shadiest open mall in Southern Cal. We had heard that SD had a lot of homeless people, but there were also a fair share of people talking to themselves, wearing strange, or better yet no, shirts, and just generally existing in their own realities. I tried not to get touched or grabbed as we walked away from the mall toward the Gaslamp trolley stop.

We bought 2 round-trip tickets so we could get to Old Town. No one ever checked or asked for our tix (either way) so we figured that only tourists like us buy them - everyone else has a commuter card.

Old Town was just that - a replica of SD before it grew into a thriving metropolis. We walked through the town, stopping at the Wells Fargo office, the old courthouse, the dentist's office (creepy), theh candle shop, tin maker's, general store, candy shoppe and gem shop. We realized that SD really isn't that old. Most of the history starts in the 1850s and the people involved in a lot of the stories that we read lived into the 1930s. Coming from New England, this all felt like a fresh story. We visited the Thomas Whaley House, which is considered THE most haunted house in America. It was both the first 2-story house built in the area and the first brick one. We didn't see any ghosts or feel any presences, but it was interesting to see that the house had a theater on the 2nd floor, in addition to bedrooms, and a large courtroom. Since it was the biggest house around, it was used by the community. Being hungrier than we were historically-inclined, we quickly made our way through the rest of the house and then got our butts across the street to the Old Town Mexican Cafe (another Wally recommendation).

OTMC was delicious - smooth margaritas and yummy salsa, but since the bar area was so crowded due to Cinco de Mayo, after we ate we headed back to the Gaslamp district. We also needed a nap. Seriously.

We watched some baseball, leaving when the Mets/Braves game was in the 14th inning and the Padres/Cubs game was in the 7th. We made our way across the street to the Gaslamp Tavern, where we scored prime seats at the outside bar. We were drinking our beers and watching the Padres when the night took an unexpected, and devastatingly awkward, turn. A guy sitting next to me decided to strike up a conversation. His name was Paul and he was a little drunk, which we didn't realize until we really got talking to him. Normally, we like drunk people, and when Paul bought us a shot, we were ready to be his friend. Then, he moved a little closer to me, like, if he got any closer, he would've been in my lap, closer. And he started asking us a ton of questions abot why we'd decided to get married, how we knew it was right, how much money we made. All of this was due to the fact that he claimed to be crazy about his girlfriend, who apparently lived in Key West, and we was trying to figure out their future. Seemed nice, but at this point, he pulled out his cell phone and started showing us pictures of her, some a little less appropriate than others (which he winkingly told Bryan he'd show him later). Then he put out his hand and said that his name was Paul and we knew it was time to get rid of him. We mentioned that we were going to head to the next bar, an Irish pub of some sort. Paul declared that he would come WITH US and that we could hang with him all night. Luckily, he also decided that he had to go to the bathroom first. When the bathroom door closed on him, my normally non-plussed husband looked at me, panic in his eyes, and said, "Let's go. Right now. Otherwise, we're never going to lose this guy." I was convinced. We tore out of the bar looking for another in which we could hide. Since we'd mentioned wanting to go to an Irish pub, we knew we couldn't go to one, so we turned down a street and came across a very friendly looking bar, one in which we could see that the Padres game was still on. Hilariously, this bar was a Hooters. So, that's how I went to my first Hooters.

It turned out well. Bryan and I compared waitress butt as we drank a beer and watched the extra innings of the 0-0 game. The Padres won in the 11th adn Hooters erupted. We decided to make our way to another establishment. I had realized when we sat down at the Hooters bar that I had left my credit card at the Gaslamp Tavern to hold our tab, so we had to swing by there again. We did and without incident; Paul was gone. At this point, it was past 10 and the bars were filled to capacity with long lines at the doors and covers for the privilege of buying a $6 beer. We had lost our cushy seat and now wandered the streets looking for an adequate substitute. We ended up at Xavier's, a faux-mod bar with a Hollywood movie theme (film reels on the wall and Hollywood stars in the floor tiles presumably with staff names, all superstars, I'm sure), bought some overpriced drinks and watched the people walk by. Across from Xavier's was a TGIFriday's with some kind of club above it and an Ole Cafe with a 2nd floor. About 1/2 way through our drinks we noticed that the TGIF club had live women dancing in the windows, beautiful women with long, lithe bodies and form-hugging white outfits. We sat mesmerized. Then Cafe Ole pulled a screen over its 2nd floor windows and had the form of a woman dancing suggestively. All of this made me want to dance myself; Bryan said that it just made him tired (at the thought of so much dancing - it had been several hours since our last nap). We left Xavier's and moved next door to a little Mexican cafe, Alambre's, where we ordered the House Huge margarita, which was truly bigger than my head. I had to use a token to pee, Bryan watched a woman get thrown out and after determinedly drinking 3/4 of that limey deliciousness, we took our buzz back to the hotel for some shut eye.

Back to Bryan for our Saturday, May 6th adventures in Balboa and Petco Parks...

HOW NOT TO REMEMBER A WEDNESDAY

2006-05-17T22:44:00.000-04:00

Wednesday, May 3

Woke up, once again to a cloudy morning, and decided to walk to "The Mission" on Mission Blvd for breakfast. I should mention here that when we were researching this trip, I found a great web site called Local Wally's Guide to San Diego. I read everything that he suggested and note a few notes so that we had some recommendations with us; his site helped us plan our honeymoon registry. Well, Wally had recommended "The Mission" but we thought that it was a really long walk, but on the prior day, the Georgian bus driver pointed it out and said that we had to eat breakfast there and we noticed that it wasn't all that far (actually, Bryan noticed, I was just excited that both Wally and G. b. d. agreed and we were going to see if they were right).

I digress. Anyway, we made it to the restaurant, ordered mimosas and ate one of the most delicious breakfasts ever. We returned to the resort, read and napped in preparation for our "date" with my cousin Joe at 2 PM.

A note about Joe: when I was a kid, I heard about this cousin who lived in California, but I had never met or seen him. He was the only son of my grandmother's eldest sister, the only cousin older than my mom, and had lived in CA since the mid-50s. All I really knew of him was that we was a wealthy business man who never married or had children and who couldn't be bothered to visit his family on the East Coast. But, according to my grandmother, his mother, my great aunt, was kind of strange about family ties and didn't want him to get involved with the "relatives". When this aunt died in in the late '90s, my mom sent him an invitation to our annual cousin party and he accepted. Thus, Joe entered our lives. He brought with him cases of wine, a repertoire of Italian songs (and a keyboard on which to sing them) and lots of stories about his father, my great uncle Sal, and the other colorful family members no one really talked about. Everyone in my family was enchanted and my grandmother began visiting Joe in Carlsbad and he would stop in to my mom's anytime his business took him to Boston. My younger brother stayed with him when he visited San Diego a few year ago, and Bryan & I were heartily encouraged to contact him while in the area. So, we did and our plan was to drink a few cocktails with him, get a tour of the coast on the way to Carlsbad, have dinner at his condo with his partner Jan and then return to our resort. The best laid plans...

Joe arrived, looking every inch the Italian host - shiny Oldsmobile Aurora, hair combed back, arms open. Our first stop was the Soledad Monument, which gave an amazing view of SD and the bay. Then we wet our whistle at Rockbottom Brewery in La Jolla (Bryan recognized the place 'cause there is one in Cambridge). One of Joe's business partners, Andy, met up with us and had a cuppa. Andy was a bit of a cartoon character come to life - a salesman extraordinaire filled with stories about his and Joe's notorious business adventures and stuffed with opinions about religion (good catholic mexican american), baseball (spoke highly of the Satans which caused a second's lull in the conversation before Bryan shrugged it off) and white people (doesn't particularly care for them and by white people meant WASPS - don't worry Kate, we love you). It was a thoroughly entertaining 3-beer stop though B & I agreed that we couldn't imagine spending more than an hour with Andy.

We got the guided tour through Torrey Pines, Cardiff-by-the-Sea, Del Mar, Encinitas and, finally, Carlsbad, where the Flower Fields were in full bloom. We stopped in front of this tourist attraction for a photo op and then indulged my desire for fresh strawberried by stopping at a roadside stand. We also slaked our thirst once more (or kept the buzz going, whichever), this time with 22 oz. beers at Karl Strauss.

Then on to Joe's condo where the charming Jan, a chilled champagne, hors d'oeuvres and delectable Italian food awaited us [the menu: homemade Italian wedding soup, antipasto, cavatelle with ricotta, homemade sauce & meatballs and porkchops, followed by a brownie with vanilla gelato]. In addition to the bottle of champagne (polished off mostly by B & me as Joe refilled our glasses each time we took a sip), we drank 1 and 3/4 bottles of excellent Zinfandel and had shots of Lemoncella (well, Joe & I did). I'm pretty sure that that little glass of lemon-flavored deliciousness eradicated any bit of sobriety to which I might have clung.

Jan drove our intoxicated asses back to the resort. I held Joe's hand the entire way and smilingly faded in and out of consciousness. The last thing I remember was saying goodbye to my cousins at the Resort lobby before waking up in my bathing suit, with my contacts still in my eyes, at 3:24 AM. Hmmmm.

I found out Thursday morning that I had agreed to a dip in the hot tub, allowed my husband to dress me in my suit, then passed out, contacts in, on top of the covers. i also discovered that we left Carlsbad with 2 bottles of damned good Zin, a lot of tarallis (a type of Italian pretzel with anis seed), and new crystal champagne flutes in honor of our nuptials. I also learned that i didn't do or say anything too retarded under the influence of the 10+ drinks i'd consumed. Joe was the consummate host and we enjoyed the condo filled with German steins, clocks, and shag carpets. We even agreed to visit again after our balloon ride the next Tuesday. I hoped to actually remain sober enough to write down all of the family stories Joe has to share.

See Bryan's blog for our May 4th sunbathing saga...

ESCAPE

2006-05-17T20:57:00.000-04:00

Sunday, April 30

Got to Logan via LJ and the Logan Express bus. When we got up to the ticket counter, I realized that I didn't have my purse, which I had had on the bus. No license, no credit card, no money, no composure. With a look of what could only have been sheer panic, I explained that my purse was gone to the ticket agent. She told me to run downstairs to the Information booth to see if I could stop the Logan Express bus before it left the airport. I did this, the info booth guy did stop the bus, scanned it and talked to the driver. No purse. The American Airlines people assure me that I will be able to get on the plane and to run to the gate. So, leaving my complete identity somewhere in Boston, we head to the gate.

At the security checkpoint, I am allowed to pass after showing a prescription bottle I happen to have in my carry-on, the absolute only thing with my name on it. We had a smooth flight to Dallas/Ft Worth, rode the new skylink tram to our connecting terminal, ate some tasty sandwiches, and arrived at our gate just in time to board our flight. Bryan had to admit that his first experience in TX was flawless.

After another smooth flight to SD, we flag a cab and, in a total rookie move, realize that we don't have the address to our resort. Our cabbie drives in the "direction" of the resort as we call 411 to get the address. We inform the driver who radioed headquarters and in some indecipherable African language got directions adn navigated his way to the Bahia Resort.

We informed the very nice hotel clerk, Scott, that we were on our honeymoon and got an upgrade from garden view to ocean suite - sweet. Then, because I needed to get all of the telephone numbers to cancel my credit cards, we asked for directions to the closest library. We got some funny looks from Scott and the concierge, but a player had to find some free internet in a foreign city and the public library is the surest place. We all learned that there was a library just under 2 miles away and as soon as we'd stored our stuff and changed into cooler clothes, we set off. We made it to the 'brary with 1/2 hour to spare, looked up all of the #s and then truly began our honeymoon.

We walked along the boardwalk and were amazed by the throngs (that's thRongs, not thongs). I managed to walk into a short palmtree-like thing and pierce the inside of my ear (having one hell of a day) - it bled and hurt for just a bit before the constant sight and sound of the Pacific assuaged all pain.

We ate at a great little pizza place on Pacific Beach, Luigi's, where we discovered a Southern California treat, Red Trolley Beer - mmmm. After dinner we took a dip in the hot tub, where we met a woman originally from Leominster, Mass. now living in AZ, I stubbed my toe harder than a Big Papi drive to right, and we finally retired at 9:30 PST.

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THE HONEYMOON BEGINS

Monday, May 1

Still on East Coast time, we woke before the sun at 7:00 AM. I called every credit card to cancel, and fell in love with Chase who not only changed my name to Mrs. O, but who agreed to overnight my replacement card to the resort - Yay. Then, around 9:30 AM (PST), I called Logan Express and learned that my purse had been found. Happy day. My mom went and picked it up and overnighted my license to the hotel, thereby saving my heretofore unidentified ass. With this new piece of mind, we read all morning, ate a delicious breakfast buffet, lay on the beach, swam in the pool, napped, watched the first batter of the Sox/Satans game (booing inside all the while), turned it off so as not to ruin this perfect day, just in case, walked to the ocean again, ate tacos while watching the surfers, went back to the hotel to read a little more before setting off to our Sunset Harbor Cruise.

May 1st continued at Bryan's blog as well as our exploration of La Jolla on May 2nd...

Mrs. O is in the building

2006-05-17T20:12:00.000-04:00

Well, it's done. Vows were said, the aisle was walked, the first dance was wonderfully executed, and a good time was apparently had by all. It was a beautiful, brisk day and absolutely nothing went wrong. The pictures came out great, the ocean was the perfect color blue and Bryan actually showed his pearly whites.

We left on April 30th for our honeymoon to San Diego. While there, we kept a journal of our exploits and adventures, each one of us taking turns recording the happenings. Now, for your reading pleasure we will do the same here on our blogs. For your viewing pleasure, I have also added a link under Pictures of our honeymoon pictures which I uploaded to Snapfish.

Away we go...

The forces are converging

2006-04-26T10:13:00.000-04:00

Bryan's parents have arrived in town and I am officially out of work (well, after I post this entry). I now feel like I have a million little things to do, but it's all really coming together. Unless I get wicked ambitious tomorrow, when next I post, I'll be a married lady.

There's still time before I'm married to help out the free world

2006-04-21T10:45:00.000-04:00

This picture is awesome because the sign is awesome, but the point of the picture isn't the sign, it's the fact that there is a bag over the shoulder of one of the protesters that probably proves that the person is a librarian. And another librarian thought that this was cool and posted the picture. I am one of so many dorks.

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I have some birthday shout-outs to catch up on - my dad celebrated the big 6-0 and still no gray hair, not bad (my mom is so gonna comment that she got them all, thank you very much)

And happy birthday to Sheri - 29? Is that right? Or do we actually want to admit that we're "in our thirties"?

7 days left. That's, like, only a week away. Whoa.

Preoccupied

2006-04-19T22:13:00.000-04:00

I know that I've done a lot of stuff in the past week, but I can't remember a freakin' thing. Well, maybe I do.
*I read a really good book, Our Lives are the Rivers by Jaime Manrique, a book set in Ecuador and Peru about Manuela Saenz, the lover of Simon Bolivar. Really good historical fiction.
*I got to celebrate our upcoming nuptials with beer and free nachos and a tasty burger courtesy of Colleen and Kate. Yay!
*I also celebrated my dad's bday with tasty Fr@mingham B@kery pizza and my noisy (though lovely) niece and nephew.
*I had a hair "trial", which seems to be a pre-requisite for getting one's hair done on one's wedding day. It looked pretty nice I guess.
*oh, yeah, Easter. We ate ham, and it was good.
*Celebrated Patriots Day with my broom and mop - dustbunnies stood no chance against my wrath. To quote Tangina, "this house...is clean." (seriously? Poltergeist)
*Got surprised by my excellent co-workers with brie and a huge heart-shaped brownie, and presents. I love those guys.
*Visited weather.com more times than ever before to check that 10-day forecast.
*Went to dinner with my favorite grandma, who never ceases to amaze me with her grace and generosity.
*Felt saddened by all of the violence in Iraq and worried that it was too easy to feel good about so many wonderful things in my life when others live in constant fear. I hope that by working at an organization that attempts to instill cultural awareness and sensitivity in students, the future of this world, that I am doing a small part to make things better.

And that brings me to 5 more days of work and mere single digits until the wedding.

Update

2006-04-10T20:56:00.000-04:00

Thank you to all of our wonderful friends who have offered to come to the DJ rescue. Though our DJ is not perfect, we're sure that he will do a credible job on the big day (that and we actually made CDs for him of any and all songs we thought he might mess up due to a Limewire gaffe). We really had entertained just making a play list in Bryan's iPod and letting that "dj" but we still would've had to rent the sound equipment and getting a real human thrown in for virtually the same price really will be better.

Now onto bigger and better things wedding-related. We had our final meeting with the caterer and wedding coordinator and after toasting our upcoming nuptials with what else but Bass Ale (at Bass Rocks) we got down to the nitty-gritty details. Our wedding coordinator actually recommended full open bar rather than just beer and wine bar because a vodka tonic at the Elks club is actually cheaper than a glass of wine. Gotta love that. At one point our wedding coordinator looked at me and said, "and you have the bathroom baskets, of course." Of course. Bathroom baskets? A strange custom exists of placing a basket with small bits of toiletries and assorted mints "just in case". Well, I had not given one second's thought to bathroom baskets, but after look of complete confidence thrown my way by the wedding planner, I thought I'd better get on it lest I look like a complete slacker bride. Over the weekend I went out and bought the baskets and assorted bits of wee toiletries to place in said baskets. So, if you are attending our wedding and need a tic tac or a bobby pin or a handy plastic brush, don't fret, just make your way to the bathroom. Next task is to assign seating to specific tables, a task that feels kind of like doing a puzzle and one that Bryan and I are enjoying.

As for RSVPs, we still have 3 outstanding for people who just don't want to tell us they are or are not coming. Due to the family grapevine and email gossip and such, we know whether or not each person is actually coming, but it sure would be nice to get an official yes or no. We didn't think that RSVPing was that darned difficult. Sheesh.

My seamstress is working double time to get the bottom hem just so, and one of these days I'll actually have a working bustle, but there is plenty of time left, right?

12 days of work to go...

No, the OTHER "Lean on Me"

2006-04-04T22:35:00.000-04:00

I can't believe it's taken me so long to write about this incident. I think that I needed to forget about it for a week so that I didn't weep openly at work.
We've got a slight DJ-situation. I found his ad on CL and was impressed by his low price (just a side job for him, more of a hobby). We hired the person after a medium-length phone conversation and lots of emails, but we hadn't actually met him. Until last week. Let's just say that this meeting convinced us that he's a few Bradys short of a bunch.

Bryan and I actually made an entire play list and gave it to DJ, a list that the DJ said would play for almost 5 hours, the length of our reception. This sounded good - we picked music we like and he's going to play it. What could go wrong?

When we sit down with him, he explains in a VERY thick NY accent that he has all of the songs on our list and that he uses Limewire and it's "pretty good." I saw Bryan's face fall - he is NOT a fan of a heavy NY accent, OR this music sharing site, because people are less than accurate. For example, if you do a search for the song "Let's Stay Together", a kickin' song by Al Green, you might get the song listed by the artist Teddy Pendergrass or Marvin Gaye. You might get the title 05 Lets Stay together, referring to track 5 of an album and illustrating very poor grammar skills. Bryan doesn't use Limewire - it's not very reliable and it messes up the order in his iPod. I am more forgiving - I am not that particular because my music sits on my computer and I know which song is which regardless of which title or artist has been assigned to a song. So, I was willing to give the DJ the benefit of the doubt.

I wanted an old, hard-to-find song for my father/daughter dance. He found it. Good. Bryan joked that it was probably pretty hard to find his mother/son song from that little-known "White Album". Blank stare from DJ. I laugh nervously. DJ gives a half smile. Not good.

We mention DO NOT PLAY list. DJ has it and promises to keep it in front of him the entire night. Good. DJ then mentions a song that is really popular at all the high school functions he's done lately (red flag?) the "Boot Scootin' something or other". I blanche. I'm pretty sure I don't want a song with "Boot" or "Scootin" in the title played at our wedding. He proceeds to play the song - a line dance, despite large letters on our DNP list that say NO LINE DANCES. Bryan mentions having heard the song at Y*****s Stadium. DJ looks excited, "are you a Y*****s fan?" Bryan grimaces and says that he is the absolute opposite of a fan. DJ looks confused, I try to dilute the situation by saying that we're a Red Sox family and that the "Boot" song should definitely be left off the playlist. Not so good, but no harm done.

Next, we mention that we don't want to play our entire first dance song, just the first 3 minutes. DJ looks at me quizzically and says, "that's okay, the song is only 2 minutes and 40 seconds." Huh? It's a 7 minute song. Not good.

Our first song is a beautiful, slow ballad by Terry Callier. The title of the song happens to be "Lean on Me". Well, Limewire says that the Bill Withers version was sung by Terry Callier, so when DJ started playing the song for us, instead of our beautiful ballad, we got the techno version of the Withers song. Bryan is shaking his head. I'm wondering how this all went so wrong.

We say that we will be burning a CD with the correct song on it and dropping it off ASAP.

The final item is the announcing of the bridal party as they are introduced into the reception. DJ looks a little uncomfortable but takes the list. I have written exactly what needs to be read. Bryan explains that 2 mentions of L1nd@ Jeffr*y is not a typo, there really are 2 of them. DJ nods then starts to read it as if there were only 1 LJ. "So, they're both walking her in?" Yes, both my dad and my mom's boyfriend are walking my mom in. And LJ2 is going to hang out at the bar.

We once again explain that there really are 2 people being introduced with the same name and that they are, indeed, separate and distinct women. A 15 watt bulb finally goes off over DJs head. Got it. Good-ish. He proceeds to pronounce Bryan's parents' names with his loveliest NY accent, Mahry and Gahry O'Kawnah. Bryan looks as if the air has been forcibly sucked from his lungs. We move toward the door.

Bryan holds in the tears until we get to the car. I can only laugh hysterically (not that I thought it was hysterically funny, but that I was actually on the verge of hysteria). Music is one of the most important things to us and we had carefully and lovingly selected a playlist to entertain, delight and rock out. I reassure Bryan that we will give him all of the songs that matter on a CD and that we will get another friend to announce the wedding party at the reception. He understands DO NOT PLAY and keeps high schoolers happy on a regular basis. It will all work out.

Sometimes, you really do get what you pay for.

Estrogen...good

2006-03-28T16:51:00.000-05:00

This past weekend, I was in the presence of most of my very favorite girlfriends. There is something very rejuvenating and inspiring about being around strong, intelligent, funny women and a girls' night only makes me realize that we don't do it enough. Some things I found/remembered/thought about this weekend:

*3-year-olds are bossy
*late-20, early-30 somethings enjoy being bossed around by 3-year-olds
*Sangria is tasty
*Sangria with Mexican food is even tastier
*only Mexican women should wear Mexican dresses (especially when there's a video camera in the room)
*Andre should be invited to all parties
*I can't believe I'm writing this, but there should've been more dancing and less board game playing
*when you have all your best buds in a room, time goes by too quickly

One month 'til go time.

Thank you

2006-03-21T14:15:00.000-05:00

to Chris. You rock. I had a huge smile on my face this morning as I munched my yogurty Grape Nuts and felt loved.

And thank you to Hollywood for calling Tom Cruise out for the weirdo that he is. Believe what you want to believe, Tom, but for the love of aliens everywhere, keep your mouth shut about it.

Happy Spring?

2006-03-20T21:23:00.000-05:00

A quote about the St. Patrick's Day parade: "it felt colder than the Christmas parade." First of all, there's a Christmas parade in Boston? Second of all, ef you, Spring. I do like that it's sunny out, but sun without warm is like bran-flavored ice cream. Speaking of bran, Bryan took pity on me and bought me a box of Grape Nuts. They kick Bran Nub ass. Mmmmm..crunchy.

Things wedding are progressing nicely. Only 39 days left. We've met with the florist and firmed up all necessary flowers. We've decided to go with tulips - purple and orange. I couldn't love this more. I wanted to find a picture of the two together, but I could only find some of each, so you'll have to use your imagination to put them together:

We've figured out food, given our Motown-heavy, 80s-light, zero-disco playlist to the dj, written our vows and picked our readings. The rings have been engraved, our attire has been selected and appropriately altered, and, our plane tickets are bought and hotel reserved. Most importantly, we have first base tickets at Petco Park for a Saturday night game against the Cubs. Get this, we bought them online, with ease, several days after they went on sale.

In case you were wondering, all seven fishies are still alive.

Just confirming what I already knew

2006-03-16T11:09:00.000-05:00

Chris loves online quizzes of all kinds. He knows what kind of superhero/rock star/emperor/disney character he'd be, how normal he is (or isn't), what his astrological sign tells him about dreams, whatever. Sometimes, I take the tests to which he links. More often, I read what he is (or isn't) and smile and move on. Today, I was sucked in by the best title - How Evil Are You? Believing myself to have more dark in me than light, I took this little test. Just to confirm, I'm 74% evil. Mwah hahaha mwah hahaha.

Now, if I could only get my hair to do this...

You Are 74% Evil

You are very evil. And you're too evil to care.
Those who love you probably also fear you. A lot.

How Evil Are You?

Oh, and one more thing...

2006-03-15T13:03:00.000-05:00

of which I was just reminded at lunch. I was grocery shopping last night and, in an attempt to eat healthier, decided to be better about eating breakfast. Toward this end, I placed a large container of vanilla yogurt in my cart and proceeded to the cereal aisle to find Grape Nuts, cause I'm really not a huge fan of yogurt but it is palatable with crunchy Grape Nuts mixed in.

Aisle 4: Cereal. I slowly and carefully make my way down the aisle, scanning for the familiar box, red "grape", purple "nuts" (heehee). Nothing. Grape Nut Flakes are in abundance, but that's not going to cut it. So, I look to see if I can substitute for my favorite gravel-like, yet tasty, cereal. I stop at All-Bran. I see a picture on one of the boxes that looks like Grape Nuts - they are called All-Bran Bran Nubs. They cost $2. I throw them in my cart.

Today: I pour some Bran Nubs onto my bowl of yogurt. I kid you not that these ungodly things looked like rabbit pellets. They smell faintly of sawdust and taste like the farts of a mummy. I mashed them up into the yogurt and pretended to be somewhere happy in my mind while I swallowed them down. I'd better have one appreciative colon. Healthy sucks.

What I wanted:
What I got:
Grrrr.

Know what pisses me off?

2006-03-15T11:59:00.000-05:00

Well, a lot of things, but what pisses me off today? Range Rovers and/or Hummers or SUVs in general with either a)American flag license plates, b)American flags flying from the antenna or in any form of bumper sticker, c)Support our Troops yellow ribbon magnets or stickers, or d)an entire body paintjob that IS the American flag. Hello, dumbass, you're driving a 2 ton off-road vehicle on a tiny two lane route getting all of 13 miles per gallon from your 24 gallon tank. VERY fuckin' American. Man, I wish I had my "the troops are over there because of Oil" sign to hold up.

Also high on the raise-the-bloodpressure list: my neighbor across the street. He has parked his rusty old pickup truck in front of his house, smack in the middle of the curb. Since it is winter and there is a parking ban in effect, we can only park on one side of the street, the odd-numbered side, where his house is located. He doesn't want people parking in front of his house, so he has used his beat-up eyesore of a truck to keep it that way. All this while, he has a 2-car garage and a full driveway, and only his own new pickup truck to drive. Last night, I was forced to park 6 houses down (2 past his). This morning I made that trip again. I am contemplating writing him a letter giving him my "opinion" of how unneighborly and curmudgeonly this behavior is (I might choose other words, who knows). What's that you say? Alert the local authorities about this selfish, seemingly lawfully wrong practice? Nope. As long as the hunk of metal is registered, it can reside in that spot for as long as it wants. My neighbor's name? Dick. Go figure.

And finally, though not pissing me off, it is the Ides of March and it sure was a bad day for Caesar. Be careful out there today.

Check out a book

2006-03-13T17:34:00.000-05:00

There is an article in today's Globe about libraries working to keep up with technological changes and patron whimsy. At several points in the article there are quotes that seem to imply that if libraries don't offer everything that a patron is looking for, they will become obsolete (the libraries, not the patrons - heh). I work in a library that helps K-12 teachers get materials for their classrooms and I am constantly being asked for print resources, things that teachers can show students. I am also increasingly asked for DVDs and videos for the classroom and, of course, for electronic resources to help kids interact with history a little more. I HATE being asked if being a librarian was a wise career choice. If anything, there is TOO MUCH information out there and no one has the time to assess all of it. Librarians do that on a daily basis and without people working in this field, I have this vision of people wandering around glassy-eyed and confused about where to start looking for the tools they need to get a job, log onto the Internet, find a primary source about the American Civil War, whatever. Libraries are becoming aggregators of all of the best tools available to info-seekers. And, it's all free (and don't give me the tax-payer line - you pay more in federal taxes to support the war in Iraq, and more in state taxes to support just about everything else going on in your city/town from pothole-filling to traffic cops to the salaries of the Oh-so-helpful town workers). So, for the love of freedom and the american way, go check out a book or hug a librarian.

Odds & Ends

2006-03-13T16:24:00.000-05:00

*Librarians trump nuns! Not that I had any doubt:
"Thursday's competition went 12 rounds and, as expected, came down to the nuns and Boone County librarians, with a Kenton County Public Library team finishing third.

The sisters bowed out when they couldn't spell "chimopelagic," a word that describes organisms that live deep in the sea and come up once in a while for light.

The Boone County librarians spelled that word correctly, then spelled one more word correctly for the win - "trinitrotoluene" - otherwise known as TNT." Now that's explosive.

*How much is your blog worth? Mine is worth a measly 3 grand.

*This past weekend involved 9 hours in the car, lots of hanging with adorable children (all related), Irish carbombs, which did indeed cause my head to explode, catching up with good friends, and eating several meals of deliciously prepared meat. Oh, and basketball. I feel more prepared than ever to fill in my bracket though I think I read too many articles today and now I'm second-guessing myself. You should all enter Bryan's pool - it's stats-filled and delightful. And, you can honestly say that you care when Murray State wins a basketball game (not that I'm saying I picked that).

Congrats to the Thomases - that's one lucky baby. I meant to ask, are you already reciting pi to it?

Starting St. Patty's celebration early

2006-03-10T16:20:00.000-05:00

I have a crazy weekend in store, first Newport, RI for some Irish food and dangerous and delicious carbombs (a shot of Baileys in a 3/4-full Guinness that is ingested as quickly as possible), then off to Saratoga, NY on Saturday afternoon to hang with Bryan's best man, then home on Sunday to get ready for another packed week. I don't like to think too many weekends ahead since most of the next 6 or 7 are loaded with to-dos and gatherings and, um, a wedding.

Bryan and I watched the complete run of The Office, the British version, and I've had the theme song stuck in my head almost every day this week. I am completely in love with this show, both British and American iterations. The characters are excellent, the writing is spot on, and what Ricky Gervais can do with a guitar - Woo! I urge people to get the complete DVD set with seasons 1 & 2 and the 2-part specials and watch those and all of the extra features. And, as for the American version, Steve Carell is amazing and so far they haven't ruined the subtlety and undercurrent of humanity that kept me watching the British version. Even through the bumblings and inappropriateness of the things that come out of his mouth, Michael Scott is on par with David Brent. And what's become of the handbags and the gladrags that your grandad had to sweat so you could buy? What indeed.

Eat books, Jesus

2006-03-10T16:16:00.000-05:00

Librarians vs. nuns! My kind will so kick their kind's asses!!!

You think you know madness...

2006-03-08T16:41:00.000-05:00

but until you have a bracket for things other than basketball, you really don't. This bracket is for the Tournament of Books going on at the online magazine The Morning News. The tournament is a competition between 16 acclaimed novels, not necessarily the best or most beloved, but acclaimed nonetheless. Don't worry, I'm not totally nerding out. I have been watching more basketball than the average librarian and will certainly participate in my honey's annual Madness pool. But, I love games and this just feels like another way to bring some gameplaying into a field I like very much: the "reading books field".

Unlike the rest of the world, I haven't yet weighed in about the Oscar "best-movie debacle". Having only seen Brokeback Mountain and therefore having no knowledge or authority regarding the other nominees, it did seem like Brokeback got the shaft (no pun intended). I have been reading articles all week that have pointed to the insipid, de facto homophobia running rampant in Hollywood. Though the industry is probably one of the most gay-friendly, when it counts, when an award is at stake that would make a statement, just like a good red-stated, middle American, an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voter cast his vote for the socially conscious film rather than the truly daring, emotionally gripping possibility. Again, not having seen the other candidates, my opinion is worth diddly, but I was blown away by Brokeback Mountain and would've liked to see it win the big award. I really couldn't complain that much because "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" did win and that was satisfying for some reason. I did see Hustle and Flow and that song was pretty central to the plot. Would I have nominated it for Best Song, probably not, but it was nominated, and I like that it won. 'Nough said.

Happy belated bday to Melisa - Bryan and I raised a glass to you and to Steve and that memorable bday we spent at Tir Na Nog 2 years ago!

Literary...Porn?

2006-03-03T09:36:00.000-05:00

Yes, PORN. This is a hilarious bit about the transformation of one of the world's most popular (though terribly written and ridiculously easy to figure out) fiction books into...porn. Yee haw.

Happy Friday everyone.

Thought I'd share

2006-02-24T13:16:00.000-05:00

I worked out this morning and my legs feel like jelly, my gluts are on fire and there are muscles in my chest and arms that I certainly didn't know I had creaking in protest. On the plus side, I feel healthier than I have in a long time and it's Friday.

I also wanted to capture a question posed to me yesterday by a wise colleague: "Doesn't it always seem like the person telling you to calm down is the one who's making you nuts in the first place?" Heck yes it does.

Quailtard

2006-02-23T21:37:00.000-05:00

Well, Cheney finally apologized for shooting his friend in the face, so that presumably puts an end to this chapter of an otherwise stellar and glorious vice presidency. Anyone out there with wingless, legless animals in a pen and a liking for the arrangement of their own face, be wary if you hear that good ol' Dick will be in your area.

In news related to this story, thanks to the Daily Show, the word "quailtard" has been given an entry in Wikipedia. He said quailtard. Heh heh.

February has been chock full of holidays and birfdays. While I'm not a huge fan of all the commercial crap associated with Valentine's Day, I do enjoy a day that revolves around remembering those we love and appreciate. This year Bryan and I decided to exchange candy bars which is an affordable and delicious way to say "I love you." And President's Day weekend was amazingly relaxing and we got quite a kick out of exclaiming, "it's only Sunday, we still have another day off" and then figuring out what we would have been doing had we been at work on Monday. And the birfdays began with Bryan's cousin Erin's, followed up by my grandmother's, then Bryan's dad's and finally, Bryan's big 2-6. I tried to buy him an overcoat for his birthday but so far all he's gotten is a really, long uncomfortable coat that lost a button after 2 days, had a pocket tear after 5 days, and seems to be unreturnable because the salesman at Men's Warehouse doesn't understand that Bryan doesn't want this coat (even if the sleeves do fit, which is its one redeeming quality). We will attempt to give it back this weekend though replacing it with another coat that Bryan likes more, and that fits the monkey arms, has not proven to be an easy task. Friggin' 48 extra long - can't find that at Macy's.

This weekend ends the celebratingist month with the anniversary of our first date. In honor of this day, we will have the first meeting with the minister to talk about our ceremony, dumbly stare at the organist while she asks us which musical pieces we'd like played at said ceremony, and then round out the day with a half-hearted recreation of our first date. The first time, we had the option of drinking several beers and a bottle of wine and then getting on the T - this time we'll gaze longingly at other people enjoying several beers, have one glass of wine and the get in the car and haul our asses back to Framingham. It should be a great day.

Oh, keep 'em coming

2006-02-14T16:57:00.000-05:00

Brilliant.

And ESPN has an article from its hunting section about the "shooting". The 78-year-old man who was shot in the face by the vice president has suffered a "mild" heart attack. Has John Kerry or Barack Obama called this man yet? Maybe right around the time he heard Intensive Care for another week he started seriously reconsidering who his "friends" are. I can't stop using mitten quotes when talking or writing about this story. So. Fun.

Don't Quail, Duck!

2006-02-14T15:55:00.000-05:00

I'm loving all of the Cheney-bashing going on today. This guy is unbelievable. I won't overextend my assumptions too far, but I think that he wanted to brush the whole thing quietly under the rug and move on, and the media, so ready to jump on anything this administration does, is all over this. If you missed the Daily Show last night and you have a chance, watch the rebroadcast at 7PM tonight. Hilarious.

Happy V-day. I keep saying that this is a no-big-deal day, one of those holidays designed by Hallmark and Hersheys, but I guess that any day that makes people pause and appreciate those they love is a good thing. I also like wearing red.

Seriously?

2006-02-12T18:13:00.000-05:00

This man "accidentally" shot another man while quail hunting. The story goes that Dick didn't see the other man who had gone to find a quail he had shot, so he let one rip hitting Harry Whittington (described as a millionaire attorney from Austin) in the face and chest. It was okay, because our vice president travels everywhere with a bevy of medical personnel and has a private ambulance on call (!), and Whittington is going to be all right. It was the first time the two men had been hunting together, brought there by a mutual friend. Now I am not normally a conspiracy theorist, but if I were a reporter, I would surely be checking into Whittington's background to see if he was "conveniently" shot in the face by the dirtiest Dick in America in the hope of getting him out of the way. Hmmm.

Breaka You Face

2006-02-09T16:38:00.000-05:00

I now know that it is possible to break one's face thanks to my younger brother Joe. Last night I got a call from him around 10PM:
"Um, do you know where mom is?"
"Yes, gone for the night."
"Oh....I may need your help."
"Ok. You sound funny, everything all right?"
"Well, if you consider having your two front teeth dangling in your mouth all right..."

Fifteen minutes later I met him in the state's slowest ER and saw what can happen when one human mouth collides with a hard body part of another human. His teeth were still in his mouth, but they were pointed the wrong way, heading back toward the direction of his gullet.
"Dude, your teeth are pointing the wrong way." I'm very astute.
He had gone to play flag football and in the process of catching the ball, had caught a head or shoulder in the face.

The charge nurse visited to get his insurance card and asked, "Did you at least win?" To which he replied, all deadpan, "The game hadn't even friggin' sthtarted. Thith happened during warm-upsth." Ouch.

After waiting about 45 minutes, a "doctor" came to see Joe's newly aligned smile. He pushed a little, asked a question or two, then left. About 15 minutes later he showed up with another doctor who explained that the first guy had called him to consult. Now, maybe I watch too many hospital-themes television shows, but I think we had been sent an intern the first time and he needed to check with the real doctor, who simply agreed with the first guy that my brother's teeth were pointing the wrong way in his mouth. They're very astute, too. One medical profession wearing a lab coat asked the other medical professional if an X-ray was in order - they concurred and left the room to proclaim it to the land that an X-ray was in order. Another hour passed.

Finally, the X-ray was taken and it was deemed inconclusive. Joe might have a fracture, but they couldn't tell from the picture of his skull in front of them, so a new picture was ordered: a CAT Scan. About this time, the first "doctor" returned and asked my brother, "So, there's no pain, right?" To which I'm pretty sure he received two incredulous stares from both Joe and myself. When checking him in, the charge nurse had asked, "On a scale of 1-10, how much does it hurt?" "8 and 1/2," was the reply, from a guy who isn't exactly a novice in the cuts and bruises department, and now a medical professional stood before us, 2+ hours later asking if it hurt. Finding his voice, my brother said, "Yeah. It hurths. A lot." This brought a nurse scurrying into the room a mere fifteen minutes later with a percoset, a glass of water and a straw. Time check, 12:45AM.

At about 1:15, with my brother starting to doze thanks to the codeine-infused meds, I wandered out to the nurse's station to inquire about the estimated time until the Scan and to bully someone into speeding things up. The appallingly chipper nurse explained that "CT was on it's way from our Natick location" and that it should be here "sooner rather than later, hon." She followed this with, "But once it's here and they take him, it only takes 3 minutes for the scan and another 20 to read it," like this was a great turn of events. I countered with a very tough, "So, another hour?" and got "At least" as an answer. I returned to my tiny, glass-enclosed world and watched the tail end of the Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson, a show I didn't know existed with a host I couldn't place (until Joe said, remember the Drew Carey Show, and I was vaguely reminded of the actor who had played the obnoxious boss). Fortunately, this was on later than usual thanks to the Grammy Awards so I had something at which to mindlessly stare while I waited for the CT to "get here."

About 1:45, a different nurse appeared in the doorway, and pulling a Nurse Ratched, said in a loud, grating voice that CT would take him away now. Joe was in a sound-ish sleep and I had been sleepily watching ol' Craig Ferguson say goodnight and we both jumped; I again wondered at the qualifications of a hospital employee. While my bro's face was being scanned, they decided to move us to a different room, closer to the nurse's station. I was heartened that this room had a rocking chair, but a little disturbed by the Finding Nemo stickers watching me from all sides.

My brother returned and promptely fell asleep again. At this point I had foregone the tv, figuring that anything on at 2 o'clock in the morning was just going to be depressing. The "20 minutes to read the Scan" stretched into 40 minutes and 3AM was staring me in the face. Finally, the results were determined and it was revealed that my brother did, indeed, have a facial fracture. I couldn't help giggling a little and saying, "you broke your face!" The nurse told him that this was considered an open fracture and that he would have to take antibiotics for 10 days to ward off infection (which she cheerily informed him would be an infection of the bone and that would mean a minimum of 8 weeks in the hospital with an IV drip). Anyway, the cup and straw were back and he swallowed 3 and 1/2 tablets of tasty penicillin and we were finally free to go after promising to come right back if there was any "hurling or whurling." I thought of doing that on the spot, but figured that the fastest path to my bed was to just vomit in my mouth then wearily smile and repeat that he would be brought to an oral surgeon first thing in the "morning".

Today, Joe got some lovely new hardware in his mouth, hardware which is apparently holding in his front teeth very well and ensuring that his broken face will mend. Kind of puts a new spin on that old Italian saying.

---------------------------------------------------------

In un-family-in-pain-related news, why do we continue to let this President get away with deception and blatant mis-handling of facts? Dan Kennedy of the Media Nation blog has a link to the story of a Bush campaign aid who lied about his education. Will this administration EVER be called to task on all of its betrayals to the people of the US (never mind the rest of the world)?

Blogslump

2006-02-06T17:11:00.000-05:00

So, I've been really lax in blogging mainly because I've been maintaining two other blogs for work (I'd link to them, but they're focused on K-12 education and grants, and as such are kind of boring). The other reason I haven't blogged is this general malaise I feel about blogging. I read other people's blogs and am entertained and enlightened and then when I open my new post window, the cursor just winks at me cruelly daring me to write something interesting. And, when the most interesting thing that you do is buy wedding invitation envelopes and hang some insulation, it's pretty tough to get excited about blogging.

I just sat through a 2 and a half hour staff meeting and must leave now to go to dance class, so I'm leaving you with the taste of an empty posting about not blogging - pretty inane, but that feels about right. If that's not enough, find some warm nacho cheese and eat that...mmmmmmm.

2006-01-28T23:03:00.000-05:00

The scene: A fifth grade classroom in a Metrowest suburb. The sky was clear, the temperature cold.
I still remember where I was when it happened. I still remember the excitement in the air, the thrill of being connected, even if second and third hand, to something HUGE. I went to school that day, like any other day, an eager fifth-grader at McCarthy Elementary school. But this day was not going to be ordinary.

Just before lunch, all of the fifth graders gathered in the hall in front of a tv raised up on a large cart. Our teachers hovered behind us, willing us to understand how important this was and how fiercely proud they were, on this day, to stand shoulder to shoulder and call themselves "teacher".

NASA had issued a contest of sorts to send an ordinary citizen into space; they narrowed the list to three teachers from the US.Of the 11,000 applicants, the field came down to three, one from Texas, Barbara Morgan, one from Framingham, Charlie Sposato and one from Concord, NH, Crista McAuliffe.

Sposato, or Mr. Spo as he was affectionately called, was a local high school teacher and we were extra excited that some of our older siblings could claim to know such a famous "ordinary" citizen. As for McAuliffe, her mother, Mrs. Corrigan was often our substitute teacher and was really nice, so we had some good bragging rights of our own. And coolest of all, my teacher, Miss Curley, was good friends with both Mrs. Corrigan and her daughter. Miss Curley had traveled all over the world herself and she had a "lucky" brooch that had accompanied her on many adventures. She had given it to McAuliffe to wear in space because she knew that was one place she would never be able to bring it. Miss C had proudly mentioned this brooch on several occasions and we were eager to see it upon its return from the great beyond.

5-4-3-2-1. Lift off. Every fifth grader in the hall focused on that white rocketship, thrilled at the masses of white smoke billowing around the launch pad. Then, 73 seconds into the flight, something went terribly wrong. The announcers' voices were panicked and filled with tension. Miss Curley's knees had buckled and she wilted to the ground overcome with grief. To the eleven-year-old mind, death is not grasped quickly and the tremendous tragedy was not fully realized in the minutes surrounding the explosion. But later that week, attending a packed mass at a local church, a mass dedicated to all 7 lost astronauts, but particularly for the local girl, McAuliffe. We listened to stories about her life, saw pictures of her children, not that far from our own ages, and started to understand the impact.

Later we would pause to reflect that it could've been Mr. Spo and his daughter, my friend, would've lost her father. And we realized the blow to the space industry, and personally to our teacher and our friendly and kind substitute teacher.

I got a postcard with this picture above from CNN and I wrote the date and the words, "Never forget" on the back. I don't think I ever could.

Arrrgghh

2006-01-25T14:57:00.000-05:00

Our moron-in-chief went Kansas State University on Monday to give a speech about why he thought spying on people in the US without a warrant was okay.

This excerpt from a story in the Boston Globe terrifies me and leaves me asking, "WHO THE HELL ELECTED THIS MAN TO LEAD THIS COUNTRY???" Please, if it was you, let me know who you are and where you are, because you need a flick in the forehead.

For much of his speech and question-and-answer period, President Bush served juicy red meat in a red state where he slammed John Kerry in the 2004 election, 62 to 37 percent. He said:
''This enemy cannot beat us. They cannot defeat us militarily. There's no chance."

''In the short term, we'll stay on the offense."

''Congress gave me the authority to use necessary force to protect the American people."

''We're using all assets at our disposal to protect you."

In the question-and-answer period, there was a moment when Bush was caught confused about his assets in another arena. Someone asked Bush, ''Recently, $12.7 billion was cut from education . . . How is that supposed to help our futures?"
There was applause from the crowd.

Bush stumbled. ''Education budget was cut? Say it again. What was cut?"

The person said, ''$12.7 billion was cut from education. And I was just wanting to know: How is that supposed to help our futures?"

Bush said, ''At the federal level?"

The person said, ''Yes."

Bush said, ''I don't think we've actually -- for higher education?"

The person said, ''Student loans."

Bush said, ''Student loans?"

The person said, ''Yes, student loans."

Bush said, ''Actually I think what we did was reform the student loan program. We are not cutting money out of it. In other words, people aren't going to be cut off the program. We're just making sure . . . it functions better. In other words, we are not taking people off student loans. We are saving money in the student loan program because it's inefficient."

Bush continued, ''And secondly, . . . we're actually expanding the number of Pell grants through our budget."

Karl Rove should have told Bush that if you visit a university and offer a question-and-answer session, you might get asked about education."
Read the entire story here, if you can stomach it.

President? Am I President? Whyfore in hell didn't someone let me know? Did I mention I love freedom? Moron.

Mexican hat dance

2006-01-17T23:22:00.000-05:00

Bryan is trying to read and I'm singing the Mexican hat dance because I was just looking at birthday e-cards and the Hoops & Yoyo characters sing a mexican birthday song, which is really just the hat dance song - woo, funny stuff. And a little bit obnoxious.

Anyway, I spent the weekend babysitting for 3 kids and I learned some stuff:
*Kids can consume an obscene amount of kraft mac & cheese - so can the babysitter when faced with a choice between a bowl of gooey orange macaroni or a bowl of candy for lunch
*Armpit farts come in ALL varieties
*"I have to go the bathroom" means NOW
*Having children means going to a lot of birthday parties (5 in 3 days between 2 of the 3 kids)
*It is way more fun to be at the park than at work
*The new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles aren't as dorky (and therefore cute, in my mind) as they were 15 years ago
*Bunkbeds make it difficult to throw a 6-year-old into bed
*Nothing is more beautiful than a sleeping child
*Three kids is a handful

Watching the Pats game was painful, especially as I was alone in a house with 3 sleeping children. There was no one with whom to commiserate as the dream crumbled turnover by turnover, so I paced and talked to myself (perfectly acceptable in this situation) and watched Bill's house topple. It was an exciting run and a pretty good season and it will be kind of (really, only kind of) nice not to have a vested routing interest for the Super Bowl - I can just enjoy it (unless Pittsburgh wins :)

In wedding news, Bryan has picked out the tuxes and I have an appointment with our florist on Saturday. My "non-bachelorette" party is in the works and the invitations have been started (thank you, again, Nic for the design templates). As the wedding channel has informed me, 100 days to go. Maybe we should play the Mexican hat dance for our first dance...

Is that the sun??

2006-01-12T14:12:00.000-05:00

In honor of the 50+degree weather in January in New England, I chose to don a skirt for work today. This may sound like a simple thing, but I had to wake a few minutes early, shave both legs, find a pair of nylons with no runs, put them on, and dust off a pair of heels. The effort really paid off as colleagues commented on "how nice I looked" and "how put together I was today". Maybe I should feel a little insulted that most days I look less than put together, but since this is probably true, I just felt happy that my effort was noticed (and that my pantyhose weren't drooping, but that's unrelated).

I've been following the story of James Frey whose book Million Little Pieces was "exposed" on the Smoking Gun Web site as being less than true. The book is a memoir and recounts Frey's experiences as a drug addict and his recovery and ultimate redemption. The Smoking Gun got hold of documents that proved that Frey didn't spend 3 months in jail as he claimed in his book, but instead just a few days. And, it refutes some of the other pieces of his story. On his web site, Frey admits that he embellished and made some stuff up, but that this only comprises 5% of the content in the book. The big debate is "Does is matter that the story isn't entirely true?" It was labelled "memoir" by a publisher instead of fiction, and many will say that this is reflective of a market in which memoir/nonfiction sells much better than fiction. It was a great gamble by the publisher: Oprah Winfrey chose it for her book club and the book was the #2 selling book of 2005 behind Harry Potter. So, should a memoir be as close to the truth as possible? It's funny, at work I run the library book group and our theme this school year is memoir. We have talked about this issue and it will come up again when we read one of the upcoming selections in which the author explains that she has written a memoir, but that she can't actually remember everything that happened since she kept no journal and has not been in touch with most of the "cast" of her story. Is this okay? I don't think that it is, entirely. However, the idea that a book is a personal recollection of a time period or experience offers a certain leniency not given to a nonfiction book that writes of a historical event or era. And, who's to say that every historical nonfiction book is 100% accurate in what it reports? When telling a story, humans naturally exaggerate and embellish, to make the story a little bit better - why say that 2 foot fish was a mere 24 inches, why not 30, or even 36? What harm is there is 6 inches or an extra foot? I am not entirely defending Frey, because I think that when you choose to tell your story and base it in reality and explain that it is an accurate rendering of the events as they occurred, you should be as faithful to the telling as you can be. I think that a writer of memoir or nonfiction should resist the urge to make the story a little bit better. If you have a compelling enough story, that will be enough. If your story needs lots of little fictionalized details to make it better, there's a genre for that: fiction. Anyway, that's enough rambling about this for now. It's just a really interesting topic and I will continue to follow the story to see what the fall-out is.

2006-01-11T17:19:00.000-05:00

Some observations and comments from this past week:
Lots of people were buried last week, which is such a chilling prospect that I couldn't stop reading the coverage. I almost can't believe that in this day and age, people can be buried in a mine - seems so 19th/early 20th century. I am in awe of the people willing to go to work hundreds of feet underground just so others can benefit from the resource being mined.

Fiberglass insulation (for the house) is expensive. And pink. And it makes the air hurt. Fortunately, it's also effective and our house feels cozier already; I can't imagine how warm it will be once we're finished hanging it all.

People in the US are finally recognizing that French and Spanish aren't the only two languages that should be taught in schools. Arabic and Chinese are starting to get their due. It's reaffirming to know that all of the content about which Primary Source works to educate K-12 teachers is being recognized as important and necessary. Course, that doesn't mean that we get all of the funding that we'd like, but it's a start.

Angelina Jolie might be pregnant! Whoopee! God, who cares? I am so glad that I'm not famous because it seems like it's impossible to participate in a normal, healthy relationship and be under the disgusting and excruciating magnifying glass of the media.

I finally watched Million Dollar Baby. I say finally because it was all anyone was talking about for a while and it won so many awards last year. It was certainly a good movie and Hilary Swank is one hell of an actress, but I wasn't blown away. It was sadder than I was expecting and had more shots of Clint Eastwood's weirdly-shaped butt/hips. Bryan and I couldn't entirely get over the fact that it looked like Clint was wearing depends under those hiked-up grandpa pants he sported in every scene. Kind of a silly reason to knock a film, but it's hard to watch a movie when all you can think about is whether or not Clint has a bladder problem.

I also watched the movie The Missing - not a terrible movie, but you can save yourself 2 and a half hours(!): Angry woman's father returns to her frontier home after an absence of many years - woman's daughter is stolen by a band of outlaw Indians. Woman reconciles with father (who has been living with Indians himself for the past few decades) to search for daughter and rescue her. Lots of shots of Tommy Lee Jones' craggy face and some sappy, melodramatic moments. Aside from some beautiful shots of the American west, I wish I'd been reading or dusting or something rather than wasting time with this movie.

Vacation is hard work

2006-01-03T17:57:00.000-05:00

Let me start by saying that getting out of bed this morning was more difficult than watching george bush say nuclear. This is due in part to the 11 glorious days of vacation I just experienced, in part to the late hour at which Bryan and I finally fell asleep after waking up yesterday at an hour that couldn't be called "morning", and in part (or mostly) to the annual "throwing-out" of my lower back. It all started when...

Mid-December: I realized that I have a lot of vacation time left and too few days to use it. Undaunted by the fact that I will have to take off more days than I will work for the rest of the year, I put in my time-off request and "work" until noonish on Thursday, the 22nd. The rest of this day is taken up by speed Scrabble with co-workers and the end-of-the-year wine and cheese celebration (I have to mention here that my Primary Source Jeopardy game was a smash hit). I then began my longest stretch of vacation since becoming gainfully employed.

Christmas: The O’Connors arrive, the tree is artfully decorated and the three-day extravaganza begins. More board games are played than JD has Salinger, more wine is drunk than Brookline has Chinese food restaurants, and more presents were opened than, well, not. I won’t actually rank my gifts, but a list of top ten moments of 2005 from my sweetie, two Brian Andreas prints, and a digital camera were among the highlights. Nieces and nephew abounded, joyfully tearing wrapping paper, and all was right in Santaland.

The post Christmas haze didn’t dissipate at all as we continued the fun with a trip to the Museum of Science, a long and fruitful trip to Home Depot, where I actually felt comfortable for the first time ever (thanks to Bryan’s dad and brother-in-law), some tasty Mexican lasagna (and more board games) (and more wine), and a jaunt to Connecticut for some amazing QT with the “girls.” By the time New Year’s Eve rolled around, I wouldn’t have believed my vacation could get any better.

NYC: Bryan and I headed south to the Big Apple to enjoy what we hoped would be a lively and dancerific New Year’s Eve. And, boy, we weren’t disappointed. We found a parking spot in front of the twins’ apartment building, ate more tasty Mexican food (and got some free drinks from the owner who loved that Rob and Pat were identical twins), drank our body weight in any and all kinds of liquor and beer, danced, danced some more, and crashed hard on an Aerobed where we woke up to eggs with ham!

2006: A most welcome year; the year of our nuptials (finally), and of the potential for changes in surroundings. It feels like a year fraught with possibility and adventure. I can honestly say that I have never felt happier and more stable in my entire life. I’m employed in a job I like, and within an industry that I love; I’m marrying someone I adore and respect, who can kick my ass at Scrabble but take a lickin’ in Boggle; I live in a home that I’ve been able to fix up and learn from (okay, this is a euphemism for things don’t work and I have to figure it out or risk losing my ceiling, but it’s fun in a Bob-Villa-what-doesn’t-kill-you-makes-you-stronger kind of way), and I have a great (albeit a tiny bit insane) family. So, hello 2006 – glad to know ya.

The aftermath: And that brings me to yesterday. A day of rest and recuperation. A day to undecorated the tree, clean up the pine needles, take stock for the upcoming year, and mentally prepare to face the morning commute again. It was during the cleaning up of the pine needles that life’s sick sense of humor give me a not-so-gentle-kick-in-the-ass reminder that time is moving forward and that I’d better be able to afford a housecleaning service soon ‘cause this body was not meant to bend over at the waist for prolonged periods of time.

Happy, happy, joy, joy

2005-12-23T17:30:00.000-05:00

Last weekend included lots of celebrating, first the birth of my good pal Ginella (the big 3-0) and then xmas at my dad's. One of the beauties of having divorced parents is an extra day of giving and getting presents. Course, this usually involves lots of sweaters as this is the preferred gift of my father's. Every year he valiantly attempts to match knitted cloth to his children's (and their significant other's, if applicable) bodies. And every year, this effort is rewarded with a one in 4 success rate, and that could be generous.

Anyway, this weekend we welcome our first hosted Christmas with Bryan's parents arriving from North Carolina and his older sister and family from NY. There will be some O'Connfrey mixing and lots of wine should be drunk (or maybe that's what we'll be).

Aside from the 1562% increase in traffic in Framingham, this is a fantastic time of year. People are a bit cheerier, houses are a little brighter, families gather together, and the air is scented with evergreen and cookies. Oh, and there are presents. I hope everyone's holidays are tasty and that you all get at least one sweater that doesn't make you want to cry.

Merry Chanukah, Happy Christmas, and Have a kick-assed Kwanzaa.

A pebble?

2005-12-15T14:15:00.000-05:00

So, I was driving on the highway last week and a pebble flew out from some truck's tire and whizzed off of my windshield. Other than scaring the crap out of me, the small flying stone did little damage - just a small nick below my sightline. I thought about this nick for .2 seconds before forgetting about it's existence.

Silly me.

This morning, while peacefully driving on the highway (read: inching forward through traffic tighter than a nun's ass), a long, slow crack began stretching out in either direction of this nick and only stoped when it had traveled almost the entire width of my windshield. There was no fanfare, no drama, just a blossoming line accompanied by the tiniest sigh of a 'snap'.

My insurance agent asked if there was anyone to blame and I answered, "you mean the pebble?" And she answered no anyone. Obviously the answer here: god. Jerk.

2005-12-14T11:01:00.000-05:00

Since I last blogged:
*I shoveled a lot of snow. A Lot.
*I finished stringing xmas lights though I haven't quite figured out how to plug them in without having to use an indoor outlet (could let a little more cold air into our already chilly apartment).
*I spent an evening playing board games and drinking beer. Strangely, this involved a lot of singing. A Lot.
*I attended Bryan's office holiday party where I somehow persuaded a table of 8 strangers (plus Bryan and his sister Colleen) to make utter fools of ourselves dancing in front of the other 50 people attending the party who watched and pointed from their seats.
*Received a hug from the DJ after said party for helping him get engineers and "finance people" on the dance floor hopefully securing for him a fat tip from the CEO (who had told the DJ, "this isn't a dancing crowd")
*Met the Sports Guy from ESPN, Bill Simmons, at a book signing and watched as Bryan and Gary swooned just a little. Discovered that BS was 5 years ahead of me at Holy Cross and that we were probably at our respective class reunions at the same time. For some reason, this was a cool fact.
*Bought and put up a xmas tree. Tipped over this tree 3 times (yes, all the way over) while attempting to put lights around it. Put the tree back up and got the lights on. Decorating to follow.
*Finished my top 100 albums list. This year's top ten (according to me):
Aenima - Tool
Not a Pretty Girl - Ani DiFranco
Pearl - Janis Joplin
Under the Pink - Tori Amos
The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle - Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band
Grace - Jeff Buckley
OK Computer - Radiohead
Nevermind - Nirvana
Are You Experienced? - Jimi Hendrix
Reckoning - REM

I wanted to give a quick plug to a few books. My book group at work just read First They Killed My Father by Loung Ung and everyone agreed that it is one of the most compelling memoirs they've ever read. Ung's story begins when she is 5 years old and the Khmer Rouge comes in to power, forcing all citizens living in the city (Phnom Penh) to evacuate with whatever they can carry. Ung is one of 7 children and this story tells of her family's fate during the 5 years of Pol Pot's rule. From the title, the reader knows that not everyone in Ung's family survives, but her losses go beyond family members: the innocence and joy of childhood are systematically stripped away. Ung draws the reader in with her candor, and the melodic and engaging way that she uses words to paint the stark reality in which she found herself at such a young age. A quick, if emotional, read.

I'm currently reading The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of The Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester, and I'm enjoying it. The two characters alluded to in the title are James Murray, the editor and driving force behind the original OED, and W.C. Minor, an American physician who contributed thousands of entries to this dictionary. The reason there is a story here: in some kind of psychotic breakdown, Minor shot and killed an innocent man (who was "out to get him") in England, and was convicted and sentenced to the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, from where he sent these entries. Murray accepted the entries for 20 years before arranging to meet this prodigious contributor - this is when he discovers that Minor is a "madman". The most interesting part of the book for a nerd like me is the description and study of the making of a definitive English dictionary. One of my favorite observations by Winchester is that early writers like Shakespeare and Spenser had nothing to consult when writing - they essentially "made up" or put into practice so many words because there was no reference work for them to consult. As a librarian and frequent checker of many, many reference books/databases, this fact amazes me. The book is a quick read and is interesting though you have to be interested in language and the history of locking that language into place to really appreciate the story.

And lastly: Everyone Worth Knowing by Lauren Weisberger, the author of The Devil Wears Prada (which I haven't read). I am listening to this book on CD during my commute and while completely predictable and probably shallow, it's a very fun listen and I'm enjoying the look inside the world of celebrity PR and the vapid, self-indulgent characters mocked by Weisberger. Eliza Dushku reads the book and does a good job with the main character and an appallingly bad job with any foreign accents, but I'm even enjoying that for some reason. Maybe it's because I'm not listening xmas carols on the radio.

And just to make sure everyone's paying attention, Christmas is next week! Wow.

Holly Jolly

2005-12-09T11:45:00.000-05:00

I took a snow day today and have been loving the day off. It's always a little strange to be home without being sick or without having anything planned (except lots of shoveling). Bryan also called in snowy, but he has to "work from home" which he's actually doing despite my best efforts to distract him with movies and games. I have taken this opportunity to decorate for Christmas, the first time I've ever done this, since Bryan's family is coming to us this year and I want the place to look festive. Towards this end, I ventured into the Christmas Tree Shop last night and bought holiday-inspired candle-holding knick knack-type things. I REALLY hate knick knacks and don't understand why they are okay for holiday decorating, but I jumped right in and acquired a few new things. My favorite is the Holly Jolly sign for the front door which puts "Holly Jolly Christmas" in my head instantly upon seeing it. My lovely significant other has thoroughly mocked my efforts, but even he had to admit that the peppermint striped candle was nice (that's right, that's how bad it is).

I'm off to continue making the yuletide gay.

Happy Birthday Gary and to my cousin Anthony.

Things I've noticed today

2005-12-07T17:01:00.000-05:00

Dove milk chocolate is damn tasty

It’s incredibly cold outside, especially without a hat

Economics, try as it might, will never be exciting

Writing with a computer thesaurus is a bad idea if you have the vocabulary of a circus flea

The tv show The Office is even more hilarious the next day, over lunch

Books are heavy

Throbbing headaches make it difficult to bob one’s head in agreement

I have 10 more sick days and 14.5 more vacation days to use in the next 17 days of work

I missed Chris's birthday - sorry about that (I'm glad the e-card was funny - happiest of happys)

Birthdaytastic!

2005-12-04T16:03:00.000-05:00

Surpassing what I deemed "the best birthday ever" (last year), this year's bday was pretty great. Highlights included:
*Dinner at the Top of the Hub with my honey
*Watching from the 52nd floor as tiny cars crept all over Boston while eating one tasty dinner
*Hearing Brandi Carlile sing "Hallelujah"
*The opening note of Ray LaMontagne's set
*Getting a new copy of both Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, a yoga mat, a new endtable and a lamp, soft leather gloves, a David Sedaris book on CD, and brand-new pink slippers
*Homemade chocolate beer cake
*All the e-cards and good wishes from my buds
*Watching the "meet-market" scene at Soho in Brighton
*Being thanked once or twice by Gary
*Getting breakfast in bed on Sunday thereby making it my birthday weekend

So, while I don't love being IN my 30s, I heart my birthday. Only 363 more days 'til the next one!

Another year...

2005-12-02T06:46:00.000-05:00

A year has passed and come back around again to that most sacred of days...my birthday. I've said this before and I'll say it again, I love my birthday. I like that we all have one day that reminds us of our entry into this world. And that people say "happy birthday" and it makes you smile. And I like presents, not in a materialistic way, but because I am lucky enough to have people in my life who take great care and thought in selecting things for me. And there's usually cake. I like cake.

So, this past year was one of welcome surprises, more laughter than tears, and some wedding attending and lots of wedding planning. A girl can hardly ask for more.

Oh, and Radio Sh@ck commercials can eat my ass - they are the definition of the gross commercialization of christmas (and as I mentioned, I like presents, but snotty kids demanding electronics from their parents, brutal).

I need an assistant

2005-11-30T17:13:00.000-05:00

This has been my foremost thought this week at work. There is simply too much to do in one day, let alone the entire week, for one person to accomplish. And I'm not talking about big, far-reaching projects, I can't get all of the returned books shelved, never mind the new books (many of which still need to be covered), and teachers keep coming in with overdue materials raving about how "nice" I am not to hound them about these overdues. Nice? Try way too busy. And just when I have all of my phone messages answered, I open the library inbox to find 6 more reference questions waiting to be answered. Not that I should complain too much. I really like my job and I like the people with whom I work, but an assistant to help with the photocopying and the filing and the library set-up (before and after programs) would be pretty sweet. Think Santa brings assistants?

Turkey Day was tasty and over much too quickly. Our weekend was list- and NameBurst-tastic, and now that December approaches, I'm almost ready to hear xmas carols on every freakin' radio station.

RIP Stan Berenstain, co-creator of the lovable bears who taught me about being nice at school and how to share with my siblings (kind of). Luckily, his wife Jan and his sons will continue to create new materials.

And RIP Nick & Jessica (or is it Jessica & Nick?) - poor fools thought they could let every slob in America into their marriage and still maintain a healthy relationship. Not that I'm a big fan of these two, they were complicit in the invasion, but it makes me a little ashamed of the American public that we so delight in watching people's personal lives decombust. Anyway, it's nice that their split has taken a bit of the limelight against the craziest man in America - Tom Cruise. What drugs, er, I mean vitamins, did he stop taking recently?

A much-needed break

2005-11-23T15:48:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting here at my desk, one of the last people still working at this hour of the day. In my last post, I mention adding some links to my blog, and I meant on the RIGHT, not the left, since the right is where my links are found. And, after promising this, I completely forgot. So, rather than adding those links now, I'm going to see this as a sign that I need to put down my keyboard and walk AWAY from my computer. For the next 4 days I vow not to touch a computer key.

I have been dreaming of pumpkin pie for many nights now and I look forward to fulfilling my dreams and eating at least TWO pieces. May all of your Thanksgiving Day dreams come true!

and to think, all you people want to eat him

Happy Birthday to my favorite big brother - 29, right? We'd better be careful or Joe is going to be the oldest soon :)

Cruising

2005-11-22T17:09:00.000-05:00

So, I've been cruising the web today looking for library sites that suggest books because I am trying to put together a list of historical fiction for the PS Book Group for next year. In my research, I have come across a bunch of library blogs that have tickled my fancy. Since I use an RSS reader (thanks Sasson), I forget that just because I check these sites everyday, if I don't link to them, readers of my blog will never know about them. So I've added a few links to the left. One site that I had to include in this message is the Literally site - this is in homage to my good friend Kate, you should get a kick out of this, but not literally, I hope.

Because Bryan's cryptic nature doesn't permit him to tell stories in a straight-forward, simple way, I will elaborate on the story here: A tablespoon=3 teaspoons, not a problem unless you think a teaspoon IS a tablespoon when measuring out cough medicine with codeine. Too many tablespoons=possible death, too many teaspoons=labored breathing. Labored breathing + the thought that you took tablespoons of codeine when you took teaspoons=a trip to the ER on a Saturday night. An emergency trip to the ER when you're mostly fine=a feeling of embarassment and endless jokes about overdosing on cough medicine and the size of various household spoons.

For consideration...

2005-11-18T16:27:00.000-05:00

Good things on which to spend money:
*the perfect wedding dress
*underwear
*a house
*someone to rake leaves from the yard of that house
*picture albums
*ice cream
*a winter hat and scarf
*birthday cards
*massages
*lunch with a friend
*Halloween decorations
*slippers

Bad things on which to spend money
*tuna salad sandwiches from a sandwich shop
*manicures
*handling (of shipping and...)
*dirt and/or manure
*crack
*blockbuster movie fees
*water
*extra cable channels
*parking tickets
*gym memberships
*body piercings
*expensive wine
*Hummers (I mean the vehicle here)
*christmas decorations (angels, snowpeople in weird poses, cute santas, etc.)

Just my thoughts for this cold Friday. We meet with our caterer to set the wedding menu this weekend - should be fun. And, I finish the floor-sanding project begun 15 months ago, thereby completing the 2nd floor kitchen makeover. Oh, and in case anyone's is counting, two weeks until my birthday :)

Happy belated birthday to the world-traveling Corissa. I'm such a dolt for forgetting, but don't worry there will be a card and a package waiting for you upon your return.

Wow

2005-11-14T15:09:00.000-05:00

Sweet merciful meatballs, it's nice outside today. It's one of those days where you think there will be a chill underneath the warmth, because it's November, but really there isn't. It's a "wear-a-tee-shirt-roll-your-window-down-sing-at-the-top-of-your-lungs" nice day. Course, as the auto mechanic at the shop where I stopped for an oil change this morning said we'll pay for this nice weather somewhere down the line. And, while he's probably right, it's still rejuvenating to have such a glorious day.

The most nagging problem with a day this beautiful is the dampening thought that keeps creeping into my addled, homeowning brain: "I should be raking leaves on such a day as this." And I hate that thought. Raking leaves is, without a doubt, my least favorite part of owning both a back and front yard. But since we thoroughly killed all of the grass this past summer, I guess I shouldn't fret if snow comes and covers the lawn before we get those pesky piles of moldy tree droppings into 10 gallon disposal bags. Right then.

Wedding update: Though our first choice of a hotel decided not to open next spring until a week after our wedding, we have found some new, better options for our guests. We still can't actually block rooms in any lodging establishment in Gloucester, but at least we can list a few good choices on our invite (and yes, on our wedding website which seems an unavoidable necessity these days) so people can stay as close to the reception site as possible after consuming a few tasty Elks' gin (or insert favorite liquor here) concoctions.

And, I've bought my wedding dress. I found the dress quickly enough, but then I hesitated and deliberated and convinced myself that it was a bit too pricey, etc. And after dreaming about showing up to the wedding with no dress at all three nights in a row, I went online and bought the darned thing. I have to say, I haven't been so happy with a purchase since I saw Bryan's face light up when he unwrapped the iPod box last Christmas.

Now, all that needs to happen is 165 sunrises and sunsets and we're there (well, some music will be chosen and some balances paid, a honeymoon destination will be agreed upon and menus selected, but those are for another day, another post).

You don't say

2005-11-10T17:40:00.000-05:00

I guess as punishment for the fastest work week ever last week, this week is going as slowly as some slow motion kung fu fighting (you know what I'm talking about Dr. Charlie).

Bryan and I are kindred spirits of dorkiness and as such really enjoy making lists. I so enjoy lists that I often use them in my daily life never venturing into a grocery store without one, making them for daily to-do's at work, and using them to make suggestions about xmas gifts.

It is the time of year for the greatest QHS list - the Albums List, and these past weeks, watching Bryan struggle over which album is better than which, and debating the merits of one album over another, I have realized that this is not my favorite list. Before Bryan, I never really analyzed music in the album format. I love music, but I have loved it for songs and artists more than for albums. I mean, there have certainly been albums that I have loved (and still do) but I'm talking White Lion's Pride, and Pat Benetar's Best Shots, and certainly not anything of true artistic brilliance. However, I participate in this list wholeheartedly and since knowing Bryan have had the pleasure to and met the challenge of listening to more albums. I feel more capable of analyzing and ranking the albums I included on my list last year and I do look forward to reorganizing and reassessing my "top" 100.

In the mean time, here are some lists of another nature: the reader's amusement.

Top five places I'd rather be than in this lovely office chair:
5. A proctologist's office
4. Home Depot
3. A young republicans club meeting
2. A confessional
1. Dinner with Dubya while a priest attempts to shove a hammer up my ass

Seriously,
5. Curled up at home with a good book and a cup of hot chocolate
4. Touring Europe
3. On an African safari
2. On my way to a quaint b&b for a long weekend with my honey
1. On a beach on a tropical island

Five things that really annoy me:
5. "Free samples" of men's deodorant in my Amazon book boxes
4. Lifting my coffee cup to my lips only to find cold coffee from this morning rather than cool, refreshing water
3. Junk email suggesting ways of growing my "member"
2. Ignorance (I'd say intolerance but as I'm rather intolerant of ignorance, that wins)
1. Pantyhose that bunch and/or ride

Five names I'd like to not hear anytime soon
5. TomKat (ok, ok, so this is two, sue me)
4. Kobe Bryant
3. Theo Epstein (leave the man in peace)
2. Magical Mr. Mestopheles
1. Donald Rumsfeld

Top five beverages
5. Raspberry lime rickey
4. Chai tea
3. Mandarin orange poland springs sparkling water
2. Southern Comfort manhattan, straight up with a cherry
1. A double-thick chocolate malted

Three things I'm going to do when I get home:
1. take off my pantyhose, vile, evil clothing
2. make enchiladas
3. happily watch alias and ER

What is wrong with people?

2005-11-04T16:47:00.000-05:00

So, it's Friday and this has been one of the fastest work weeks in history. We are in the thick of our fall courses and with so many teachers in the library everyday, I am kept hopping with reference questions and book searches. I'm pretty sure that I still need to catch up on some sleep from last weekend, and since we have no major plans this weekend, I hope to find those lost zzzz's.

I have to use this forum to express my disgust about a local story about which I learned on last night's news. Two asshole morons were drag racing on the Lowell Connector, which is a piece of curving highway north of Boston, and one idiot jerk lost control of his car, going 90 miles an hour, and slammed into the median thereby flipping his car into the air and landing on top of another car, killing the driver, who happened to be a 31-year-old pregnant woman. How can one believe in justice in this world when that kind of shit happens? And drag racing? Seriously. Unfortunately, the driver of one of the delinquent hosebags is in critical condition and the other is on the lam, as yet unidentified. If one dies and the other isn't found, who will be punished for such diabolical, insane stupidity? This story upset me just a little.

In other news of the weird, I just received a phone call from my aunt, my mother's younger sister, telling me that my grandfather, a man I had never met, has died. He and my mother were estranged for my entire life and she never wanted us to meet him. And, not included a brief moment of being in the same room with him once, when I was about 17, I never did. And now he's gone. I don't feel sadness or any real loss, though it's a little strange when a piece of your ancestry is gone. I just hope that my mom feels no regret over her decision to walk away from this tyrannical man now that it is too late to do anything about it.

I'm off to dance class and to a weekend of doing what we want cause we have no other plans.

Unbelievable

2005-11-03T16:22:00.000-05:00

From MSN news today: "Libby’s indictment was a damaging blow to the White House, which was already reeling from the mounting U.S. death toll from the Iraq war, the bungled response to Hurricane Katrina and the withdrawal of U.S. Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, under fire from Bush’s conservative power base."

Great choice, America. Great choice. Are coups legal in this country?

Another year, another scare

2005-11-01T13:24:00.000-05:00

Another successful Halloween party is behind me (phew). There were decorations, there was snow (yikes), there were great costumes (as usual), there was scaring, and there was a wee bit of drinking as the ice luge was used and abused.

This year's decorating began two weeks before the party - I cleaned the basement and began "building" the haunted house. Using my entire basement was the biggest challenge since I've never had such a large space in which to send my apprehensive guests. We had two separate rooms to send people so there was room for a winding section with lots of places for the "actors" to hide and a whole room with a strobe light and people jumping out of closets. Heehee - I do get a kick out of frightening folks.

Some notable costumes:
*a sparkly pig and her chef
*a farmer and her tall, effeminate pig
*a tool bag
*GI Joe
*Scrabble pieces spelling B-O-O, complete with the correct values (they equal 5 points)
*Hooter girls
*"the one who didn't get away" - a man with the ugliest "woman" just over his right shoulder
*a waist/waste of time
*a deviled egg
*spongebob squarepants (completely homemade) and crabby Patty
*the Avian flu
*the holy ghost/ghost from Charlie Brown
*nun for you
*two peas and a pod (Bryan and I in my first ever "couple costume" - try to hold down the vomit please, we were cute)

There was also a collection of girls with ears of one variety or another, men with masks/robes, doctors, angels, and mechanics.

The winners of the contest this year:
tied for 3rd: the Pope (though a store-bought costume, it was well-executed by a man eerily resembling Pope "Saint's name, roman numeral whatever" currently ruling Vatican City)
an ipod and a mini ipod - Bryan's cousin and his girlfriend whose costumes were so accurate they even had dangling earphones
2nd: mermaid and Neptune - my mom once again came up in a big way, transforming herself and Bill into two amazing seafolk
1st: bug zapper - some black netting, a bike tire tube, rubber bugs, and lights attached to an outlet from which Kate didn't move for two hours all earned for her the big prize and the title of defending champion for next year's party - no pressure or anything...

Every year, I worry that the party will be a dud, that no one will show up, and well, anything everything else I can worry about. But, all that worry was for naught. More people than ever showed up, people laughed and mingled, and as one guest left, sitting in the back seat of her friend's car, I heard, "that was the best, best, best, party ever". Three bests. Not bad.

_____________________________________________________________

So much news about which to comment today: Theo Epstein's resignation, the new SCJ nominee, Bush's plan for the bird flu - wouldn't surprise me if he was suggesting chicken noodle soup as a remedy, and the fact that Jamie Lee Curtis is no longer accepting acting work. Since I don't possibly have time to comment on all of it, I'll just leave you with this fact: When snakes are born with two heads, they fight each other for food.

Happy Birthday Joe - how the heck are you in your late 20s??

Happy Birthday Kristen!

Dinger-less nights, and Lists!

2005-10-27T10:18:00.000-04:00

Well, baseball season has come to a close, and the Sox won it. Granted the wrong color Sox (yes, with me it's always about color), but I wouldn't begrudge the Chicago fans this feeling of elation and unreality of the "morning after". In fact, I would even suspend my need for another Boston victory until after the other Chicago team won the World Series. Then all would be right with the balance of baseball and it would be "let the best team win" (except the Satans, of course).

Luckily, my Halloween party is this weekend, distracting Bryan and I from the fact that we now have nothing to do at night. Course, we could always make lists. Like, maybe we could list our albums. Too bad we don't enjoy listing things then tediously and painstakingly ranking them to come up with a list of the top 100. And too bad we don't have any friends who like listing things and submitting those lists to be tediously and painstakingly ranked thereby adding to and rounding out the top 100. Of course, I jest. Just last night, Bryan put his current top 100 albums into a play list on his ipod so he could get a head start listening to them all so he can assess whether or not they stay at the top or move off to be replaced by something new. While I don't have an ipod in which to add my top 100 albums, I didn't sit out of the listmaking. I actually started christmas lists for both Bryan and myself. Really, could we be any more exciting?

Way to go, Sheryl Swoopes - not that it should matter in any way what athletes, actors, singers, etc. do with their personal lives, but it certainly seems like a courageous thing to do to stand up for your beliefs and your lifestyle, especially when it is not considered that of the mainstream. And I think that athletes have it particularly tough because they are supposed to embody the essence of "male" or "female" and for some reason heterosexuality seems to go with that image (think Wilt Chamberlain, almost revered for his sexual exploits with women). This type of announcement does make me wish for the kind of world where people don't have to announce who they love, and it wouldn't be a shocking revelation to be "other".

Case of the Mondays

2005-10-26T16:47:00.000-04:00

Yes, that's right, I have a case of the Mondays...on Wednesday. It has been a long day and I feel like the pile of to-do's on my desk will never diminish. And my car is making a very weird noise, weird enough that I made an appointment with a garage for tomorrow morning; auto shop appointments are one of my least favorite things.

I think that planning has taken its toll. Planning for parties: Halloween and wedding, planning for holidays, planning for new programs at work, and planning for the unexpected weird car noise. My problem is that I take everything very seriously so when I have to think about all of the steps involved in pulling off a party or a new program, I tend to get overwhelmed. This is probably where the expression "the devil is in the details" came from. Anyway, I do know that eventually everything gets done, but on a day like today, where I've tried unsuccessfully to contact the hotel, caterer and an author for a book reading; and where I've successfully contacted a mechanic (which just leads to spending that holiday and party $), and been successfully contacted by one significant other who simultaneously offered me the lovely prospect of a professional massage and the fact that he would be working the morning after my one big party thereby leaving me with any and all houseguests and the clean-up. On a day like today, it just makes we want to get in my creaking automobile and drive into the semi-darkness in search of a Monday-less world.

However, not all is Monday-like. It actually being Wednesday, Lost is on tonight. And the rain has stopped for now, though it did bring a nice drip into my library [luckily, no books were affected, but water anywhere near my materials makes me a nervous librarian]. And I got this link from a co-worker for a funny anti-AHnold & his right-wing cronies web site. And lots of my friends are heading to my house for this big party, which will inevitably be a great time. And I have that wonderful significant other to go home to. And I get to go to dance class tonight, which is a great way to forget all blahs and blues. "Cases of Mondays" is why tomorrow was created, and tomorrow is Thursday. And that ain't bad.

2005-10-24T16:25:00.000-04:00

I'm a bit ahead of my "once-per-week" post, but my life is just so darned exciting, I have to update. Actually, nothing new has really happened, but all things continue to move forward. My grant is finished and mailed. All parts of my costume have been purchased. The haunted house construction is almost complete - I'll just say, that I'm afraid to go down there, so it's gonna be a good one this year. And, Bryan and I were stood up by a dj we were supposed to meet on Sunday, which turned out ok because we found another one for less money who is available and seems pretty cool. We've made zero progress on the hotel glitch and I think that I'm still waiting for my wedding fairy to appear in my office, living room, car, wherever, and tell me that she will be waving her magic wand and making it all work out. Since the likely hood of a wedding fairy existing is slim to nil, I guess I'll be calling and/or sending a letter off to the management to try to convince them of the good business sense of opening one week earlier and raking in all those room fees from our wedding guests.

This past weekend I attended my 2nd Bentley homecoming weekend. I have yet to attend one homecoming weekend at my own alma mater yet I've managed to see the Falcons play twice. This isn't really the result of misplaced loyalty, just the fact that Bryan still has friends that he graduated with who will make the trek to Waltham to watch a football game and attend a Boston Harbor booze cruise (in the rain, no less). I don't even want to drive to Worcester, and a football game and an alumni mass make it no more attractive a prospect.

Happy birthday MGO! Wish we could be there to celebrate - we'll save it all up and drink extra wine over the holidays :)

Event planning pitfalls

2005-10-18T11:39:00.000-04:00

I'm back in grant-writing hell at work as I try desperately to complete a grant to the b@nk of americ@ foundation that I have no desire to write.
And this week, I have the first meeting of the PS book group, which I am running. I have never run a book group before so I am a bit nervous that everyone will show up and then just sit there and not talk. Since most of the participants are teachers and librarians, this is probably an unnecessary worry; teachers and librarians do like to talk about books.
Then to end the week, I am facilitating a round-table discussion about issues and strategies for special librarians at the regional library office. Again, I hope that people show up and that those who do, talk. I really like designing and running events, parties, etc., but it really does add a lot of pressure to one's day. What if no one comes? What if no one talks to one another? What if I forget to wear pants that day? At least at parties, there is the possibility of alcohol numbing the inhibitions a bit. Should I be spiking the coffee at work events to help alleviate my worries?

Halloween is fast approaching and party planning is in full effect for that. The basement is almost ready to begin haunted house construction. A costume has been thought up (though not quite executed yet). And, the upstairs kitchen has been tiled and plastered (this doesn't have much to do with the party, but it's good to make progress from one year to the next and since we meant to do this for last year's party, I'm happy it's done).

Wedding update: the hotel at which we hoped to stay, the one that's TWO DOORS away from the reception hall, has informed us that they will officially open for the season next year one week AFTER our wedding. I haven't completely digested this news or started on a course of action to get them to change their minds, but it was quite a blow and we will be a little bit devastated if they stick to their guns and refuse to open. Hotels in Gloucester are pretty much on their own time frames and can decide when to open without any real regard to people who might be counting on them to be open. It is just so lucrative to open for the months they do, that they don't have to bother with accomodating a wedding at the end of April. So, here is our wedding wrinkle. Let's hope there is an iron big enough to conquer it.

Small victory

2005-10-11T10:10:00.000-04:00

With NY eliminated from the baseball playoffs, one thing is right in the world. I've become a temporary Angels fan and hope that they can take it all the way, though I really don't care since Boston can't win it and the Satans won't. Oh, happy day.

My blog changes are complete for now. I'm happy with the new colors and my new heading picture. I can't guarantee that these changes will do much to inspire creativity, but I'm glad to be rid of the green palette and the damned rounded corners. Sun might do more to inspire, but it seems to be in permanent hiding. Or maybe it's on vacation. Where would the sun go to vacation? Somewhere cool?

In wedding news, we found our photographer and she's lovely. The dj isn't far behind. We even started our list of "songs that shall not be played" (so far, def leppard is out, but i'm making my case for bon jovi). We also began the contemplation of our registry and decided that aside from a few household items, what we really would love is help with our honeymoon. Gotta love the Internet, there are oodles of web sites that actually offer the set-up of honeymoon registries. We haven't picked one yet, but we're checking it out. Why register for a trivet, when we can register for a hot air balloon ride over the Blue Ridge Mountains?

Happy Birthday to Shayna & Eric and Happy Anniversary to Kristen & Tyler.

Ch-ch-changes

2005-10-07T16:00:00.000-04:00

If you're observant, you'll notice that I've changed the colors around on my blog. I'm also working on a new header pic, but my HTML skills are a bit rusty and the color changes took enough time, so one thing at a time.

Off to watch the Sox W-I-N.

Key questions for the day

2005-10-05T22:50:00.000-04:00

*I know we won the big show last year, but why does being a fan still feel like swallowing nails while being poked in the rear with a burning poker?

*If you're Graffanino, are you going to bed tonight knowing you might be the next Buckner?

*Can our next Supreme Court Justice nominee truly be a person who has never been a judge. Ever.

*Is it even possible to be a "conservative" Christian these days?

*Why does a crockpot make a pot roast so darn tasty?

That's the furriest cow I've ever seen

2005-10-03T17:21:00.000-04:00

Well, Wang wasn't much of an issue, but drat to those damn Y***ees who can't seem to lose when it matters (to Sox fans :) I mentioned to one of my colleagues today that typical Boston fans that we are, instead of being happy that our team made the playoffs, we focus on the fact that NY also won a spot. If we ain't complainin', we ain't happy.

Despite 2 day games, we did manage to divert our attention to other things over the weekend. Things like napping, visiting Jen & Charlie in their new abode in Portsmouth, RI, and drinking tasty beer and looking at goats and a wooly cow at Hyl@nd Orch@rd in Sturbridge. We managed to return home from said orchard with nary an apple, and a resolve to forget about baseball for one day while we recharge our emotional battery for the days ahead.

Redeem Thyself

2005-09-30T16:37:00.000-04:00

Ok, due to Bryan's consternation at my last posting (actually claimed it was one of the weirdest ever), I promise not to mention any female anatomy and definitely no C-list comediennes who are dissolving their marriages.

I guess all I have to say is goodbye, September, you fickle mistress. May October prove to be easier on the nerves and may we all be saying "Wang who?" next week and not, "Drat that nasty Wang!"

Nothing a set of nips can't cure

2005-09-29T10:40:00.000-04:00

Bryan and I went to the Sox game last night and instead of focusing on the depressing result of the match up, I will focus on a more exciting element present at the game: boobs. Our seats were in the bleachers, section 39, row 25. Sitting two rows in front of us, to our left in seat #1, was a well-endowed blond who chose to match her tight jeans with a tiny, white tank top. Don't know if you went outside last night, but the temperature hovered around 50 degrees; in row 23, this made the weather a "tit nipply" (yes, even the blind man sitting on top of the Dunkin Donut sign could see the beam). Bryan and I, and pretty much every pair of eyes in the rows behind us, watched enthralled as the woman stood, sat, stretched, left the row repeatedly going the "long way", nips pointed back, ran down the stairs and back up, bombs jiggling and raisins lighting her way every glorious one of the 25 stone steps. She arrived at the game with one average-looking man, and left with another non-descript gent prompting much post-game discussion about her, um, profession (who knew so many people still used the term whore in casual conversation?)

So, nipple girl, this post is for you. Instead of dwelling on the depressing, angering, and despairing feelings brought on by the loss of our hometown boys and the triumph of those employed by the evil empire, your stand-at-attention mammaries (plus a few Fenway brews) captured our concentration and our imagination, possibly preventing two more bodies from being pulled from the Charles. If only we knew where you were watching the dreaded weekend series...

I'm sure there are other important things to discuss: a lying, thieving Republican majority leader, the continuing struggle of people to recover from the walls of water dumped upon them, Kathy Griffin's divorce, and whether diet Dr. Pepper really does taste more like regular, but tonight is our "big night" at work: the annual Open House and Curriculum Fair, and I have to go make the library look pretty for the expected throngs.

Songs!

2005-09-26T12:04:00.000-04:00

Bryan and I had a low-key weekend in which we took in not one, but two movies, a rare thing made possible by Bryan's agreeing to accompany me on an escape from the reality of mortgages and wedding details for a bit (into the world of The Corpse Bride and the 40 Year Old Virgin, both delightful in their own way). I did manage to badly sand the walls in the upstairs kitchen in preparation for the wainscotting, look for djs on craigslist, and clean almost every floor in our apartment.

Bryan, accountant by vocation, statistician by avocation, compiled the QHS Song List v1.0 for the reading pleasure of our blog audience. As mentioned in an earlier blog, seven of us contributed 25 songs each, then voted from the combined pool of 174 songs for the top 75 songs. Bryan statsified our selections into a top 50 list, followed by an unranked 50-100 list. The result is quite interesting, and while it wouldn't be my personal top 50 list, it does cut across many genres, decades and styles to illustrate the power of music: many of the same songs inspired 7 very different people (most of the top 50 received votes from 4-7 people), and yet, with 174 to choose from, only 11 songs were left out in the cold with zero votes, so almost every song grabbed someone.

I found this list so much more difficult to rank than movies or albums because what does make one song better than another, and on whose criteria should we base that value? The enjoyment of a song is a personal expression, and as Bryan writes in his intro to the list, liking a song today does not mean that you will like that same song in 10 years [though I do admit, I had to stop myself from nominating some pretty bad 80s songs that still speak to me, some might say in tongues]. Enjoy the list; only 2 and a half months til the QHS Albums List gets updated.

More than I can hold

2005-09-23T16:03:00.000-04:00

As part of the country braces for the impact of another hurricane, and the people of Louisiana remain displaced as more water invades their homes (or what's left of them), I have the surreal feeling of living an untouched life. I look at internet ads for The Corpse Bride, which opens this weekend, and think, "wow, movies are opening this weekend, and yet there are thousands and thousands who cannot imagine going to a movie. And the biggest tragedy of my week has been the fact that the Sox have been knocked out of first in the AL East - but how much does this matter? The world has become so interconnected, and we now have access to so many more threads between ourselves and people all over the world. Yet we live in bubbles of selfish reality: 'what matters to me is what affects me most.' I'm not really offering a solution, just ruminating on the vastness of the human condition and the small part we all play in our own lives.

On a different note, one of the most important things to me is knowledge, and I celebrate the finding of knowledge, both the kind found through reading books and the kind experienced by putting a book down and walking outside my front door.

Excerpt from "Ode to the Book"
by Pablo Neruda

I love adventurous
books,
books of forest or snow,
depth or sky
but hate
the spider book
in which thought
has laid poisonous wires
to trap the juvenile
and circling fly.
Book, let me go.
I won't go clothed
in volumes,
I don't come out
of collected works,
my poems
have not eaten poems--
they devour
exciting happenings,
feed on rough weather,
and dig their food
out of earth and men.
I'm on my way
with dust in my shoes
free of mythology:
send books back to their shelves,
I'm going down into the streets.
I learned about life
from life itself,
love I learned in a single kiss
and could teach no one anything
except that I have lived
with something in common among men,
when fighting with them,
when saying all their say in my song.

translated by Nathaniel Tarn

Gee!

2005-09-20T12:20:00.000-04:00

From The Shadow of the Wind:
"Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its page, its spirit grows and strengthens."

Critics have not been that kind to this book, and I had heard that the ending was weak, but I thoroughly enjoyed this book, ending and all. I am impressed enough that I will buy a copy of the book for my own collection, and while you might think that this is no big deal because I love books and probably own a lot, that's not true; I am very discriminating because there is only a finite amount of shelf space, and because I only want to add the books that leave an imprint.

Bryan's bachelor party was last weekend, so the QHS gang gathered together in good ol' framin(g)ham. Bryan wanted to have a homerun derby with the boys and worried that March or early April carried too high a chance of cold and snow. I was allowed to hang around on Friday night, which brought conversations about music, reminiscences about past glories, and a late-night basketball game. Saturday, I made myself scarce and spent the day with the ladies.

For the record:
Bryan won the homerun derby
Bryan's team won the baseball game that followed with the help of his 3-run dinger
Bryan ate meat and drank beer

Jill got to watch girls try on expensive rings
Jill watched Manny Ramirez hit a game-winning dinger
Jill ate tasty fried pizza and drank beer

All in all, a successful weekend, and one more thing off the list of "to do's" for our wedding (much to Bryan's consternation since he would be thrilled to play baseball and hang out with all of his favorite buds every week).

Happy Anniversary JJ and Karen - still going strong and stting fires. Happy Birthday to Rachel - still only 5 though sometimes I swear there's a 15-year-old lurking behind those blue eyes.

Damn you, spammers!

2005-09-14T17:28:00.000-04:00

I've had to add word verification to my comments section cause those pesky spammers are finding new and annoying ways to infiltrate my world. Now when you want to comment, you have to type the letters in a little box so that the system knows you're a real person and not a message from a computer geek/jerk trying to sell something. Brilliant. Thanks to all you asswipes with too much time on your hands (yet not enough to go get a job to make your money) who have to send electronic junk to clutter up our already full lives.

Don't know if people are following the Supreme Court hearings, but could Roberts be any more evasive? "“Because cases are going to come up … I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to comment on that one way or another,” was his answer to his stance on the legal rights of the unborn. I understand that he wants to be nominated, but he has been pretty cadgey about answering any controversial questions, and while, this will undoubtedly secure him a spot on the highest court in our country, I can't decide if I need to worry about his appointment. If only he were 72 years old, then we would be assured of death before too much damage could be done. Wishing for the death of a not-even-appointed justice, pretty sad. Vancouver is looking better and better...

Last one before moving on to the usual banalities

2005-09-13T14:23:00.000-04:00

Kate sent me this article and I meant to post it last week, but I got distracted:

From the Washington Post, September 8, 2005:

Challenges to Library Books on the Rise

By HILLEL ITALIE

NEW YORK -- Attempts to have library books removed from shelves increased by more than 20 percent in 2004 over the previous year, according to a new survey by the American Library Association.

Three books with gay themes, including Maya Angelou's "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," were among the works most criticized.

"It all stems from a fearfulness of well-meaning people," says Michael Gorman, president of the library association. "We believe in parental responsibility, and that you should take care of what your children are reading. But it's not your responsibility to tell a whole class of kids what they should read."

The number of books challenged last year jumped to 547, compared to 458 in 2003, with the library association estimating four to five unreported cases for each one documented. According to the ALA, a challenge is "a formal, written complaint, filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness."

National organizations such as the American Family Association have been involved with library challenges, but far more complaints come from individual parents and patrons, according to the ALA.

The ALA study was to be released Friday in anticipation of the 25th annual Banned Books Week, which runs Sept. 24 to Oct. 1 and is co-sponsored by the ALA, the American Booksellers Association and others. Gorman acknowledged that few books are actually banned, adding that Banned Books Week is a "catchy name."

Robert Cormier's classic "The Chocolate War" topped the 2004 list of challenged books, cited for sexual content, violence and language. It was followed by Walter Myers' "Fallen Angels," a young adult novel set in Harlem and Vietnam and criticized for racism, language and violence.

No. 3, Michael Bellesiles' "Arming America," has been widely disputed, even by its original publisher. First released in 2000, the book challenges the idea that the United States has always been a gun-oriented culture and was awarded the Bancroft Prize for history. But questions about Bellesiles' scholarship led publisher Alfred A. Knopf to drop the book and Bancroft officials to withdraw the prize.

"If you're a freedom-to-read person, pulling a book like that one is not that different from any book that might have fake scholarship," Gorman says. "No matter how wrong a book might be, people should have access to it. It's a slippery slope once you start removing books like that."

Also high on the ALA list were Angelou's memoir and two other books with gay content, "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky, and "King & King," by Linda de Haan and Stern Nijland...."It's a perpetual problem, and it attacks fundamental American liberties _ the attempt to impose one's own positions on society as a whole," Gorman says.

This is a perfect example of the hoisting of one's personal view upon others.

And I actually received a comment to my last post in which the commentee asked if I was a sinner. Crock of shit. My point is, if I "sin", let me believe what I wish about what will happen to my so-called eternal soul; don't push your belief of heaven, hell, reincarnation, etc. onto me. The Bible is a book. Of stories. Use them how you will, but don't judge me for looking at them as a piece of literature and nothing more.

ANYWAY, I really am done. I don't want to turn into THAT person and I don't want my blog to be a forum for religious crack pots wanting to "educate" me about my wayward, heathen views.

So, we now return you to our regularly scheduled programming: Bryan and I had an action-packed weekend.
*Caught as much of the Satins-Sox series as we could stomach (which meant mostly watching the highlights on NESN)
*Went to a bizarre cookware demonstration for which we received a 3-day, 2-night certificate for an all-inclusive stay at an Allegro resort (mostly found in Mexico and the Dominican Republic)
*Attended the first annual Pond St block party
*Witnessed a beautiful wedding vow renewal ceremony
*Saw our first "Utilikilt" which is exactly what it sounds like, a kilt with loops all over the top of it in which to put useful things. Like chains
*Checked out Colleen's new apartment
*Ate dinner, probably for the last time in a while, with Bryan's cousin Jeff who heads to NYC this weekend for a new job challenge

I'm reading a fantastic book that I heartily recommend, The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. It is the story of a boy and a mysterious book and an even more mysterious and elusive author. The boy introduces himself: "I was raised among books, making invisible friends in pages that seemed cast from dust and whose smell I carry on my hands to this day." I have been hooked ever since. It is reminiscent of Borges and Eco though most of the literary reviews say that it fell short of this lofty position. I am finding it well-written and suspenseful, and during the day, I find myself wishing that I were reading the book to find out what happens next instead of cataloging books and answering emails (sigh).

Ponies done been good to me, listmania, and a response

2005-09-06T22:56:00.000-04:00

Labor Day Weekend: along with the group from QHS, drank lots of tasty Yuengling, talked of baseball stats and the merits of this song and that, bet on the ponies, and played baseball.
At the track: I actually managed to hit 4 exactas in a row, about which Bryan was quite impressed. Before you get too excited, the first three of those were exactas involving the 2 favorites so the pay out was nice but just enough to continue my wild betting of $5-8 per race. The fourth was a random choice that inolved the #10 horse, who was running at 29-1 odds. He came in second. The 4-1 horse came in first. I put a dollar on this possibility. I won over a hundred bucks on that accidental insight. So, I ended up leaving the track with a fuller pocket than when I got there and only spent 3/4 of it on beer over the next 2 nights. Ah, the ponies. I'm already looking forward to next year.

Songs: The seven stout-hearted list-addicts came together, CDs in hand, laying out our vulnerable top 25 for all to judge and rank. We hashed out why this Beatle song rather than that (or in my case, no song at all), should a song be over 10 minutes long when 5 minutes would do, and made the realization that the swinginest twins from the Foothills Council actually have heard a song, or two, from black artists. One day, they may even realize that women sing too!

So, here is my list, in no particular order:

Pretty Good Year, Tori Amos
Rambling On My Mind, Robert Johnson
Me and Bobby McGee, Janis Joplin
Hallelujah, Jeff Buckley
Eulogy, Tool
Here It Is, Leonard Cohen
Breathe Me, Sia
The Sounds of Science, The Beastie Boys
Fear, Sarah McLachlan
Perfect Circle, REM
Blue Sky, Patty Griffin
Somewhere Over the Rainbow, Izzy
Downtown Train, Tom Waits
Lean On Me, Terry Callier/Beth Orton
Thunder Road, Bruce Springsteen
Kid Fears, Indigo Girls w/Michael Stipe
Simply Beautiful, Al Green
Buildings & Bridges, Ani Difranco
Space Dog, Tori Amos
Romeo & Juliet, Dire Straits
Joga, Bjork
Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone, Lighthouse Family
The Gambler, Kenny Rogers
No Ordinary Love, Sade
Just Like U Said it Would B, Sinead O'Connor

This is my contribution. We are going to rank 75 out of the 174 possibilities (1 song repeated, A Day in the Life by The Beatles) and send them to the Statsifyer who will work his magic to tell us what the best 50 songs are according to we seven. What a great hobby we have!

Playing Baseball: Played an almost 8-inning game on Sunday. Muscles I didn't even know I had have all banded together to scream at me for this terrible transgression. I look forward to the day when I can once again walk with ease.

Here is the rest of the baseball story.
Top of the 8th: Bryan's on the mound.
Mark Low steps up to the plate and rockets an 80 mph line drive directly into Bryan's eye.
Bryan drops to the ground faster than a 20 lb bag of cement dropped off a 5 story building.
Black eye ensues.
Luckily it was only a tennis ball or I'd be wiping his drool off his chin for the rest of our lives.

On the getting together of good friends: With so much chaos and tragedy in the world, particularly during this time of suffering for so many in New Orleans, it is amazing and necessary to laugh. Laugh we did.

Happy Birthday to Sue J. in California, to Shannon, wherever you are, and to Kate, I hope people sufficiently celebrated the full wonderfulness of you. And RIP to Bob Denver, aka Gilligan; it's weird when a person who played such a silly, vibrant character dies. What will the skipper do now?

WARNING - moral babbling ahead:
In my previous post, I commented on the state of religious hypocrisy (wow, that's a redundant phrase) in this country and I received a comment that asked for some further discussion and thought on this. The question posed to me: When my faith informs my actions, should I not say the reasons for my actions?" My first reaction is Why? If you are helping the poor because you believe that your god will look favorably on your kindness, or because you were taught in Sunday school that this is the "right" way to act toward your fellow human, why do you need to announce the reason behind your action(s)? Does it matter to those who have been assisted that you believe that your god is happy with you? Does it make your actions any better? Or worse? Does it really help those aided any more to know that you are a little holier because you've acted in accordance with the tenets of your religious beliefs? Again, believe what you will, and if this makes you reach out to more people under the guise of moral rectitude, fine. I love that you are helping people, but I don't care why. If we didn't have religion to throw up in front of us, would we still help, and could we do so without feeling self-righteous and more secure in the knowledge that your future halo just got a little brighter?

A bigger issue to me is that those spouting religious dogma as they do their "acts of kindness" are so often blind to the need(s) of those they are "helping". If you believe that prayer in schools is the best thing for those children who have no money, because if they pray and show great zeal for "god", then they can go to heaven where they will be fully rewarded, is this the best help you can give, particularly because you believe it to be so important? Does this take into consideration the needs of those children with not enough food in their bellies and no hope of climbing out of the poverty into which they have been born? My point is that people of great religious fervor put on blinders and only see the right and wrong of the world in one shade, or I guess two: black and white. I saw a bumper sticker the other day, 'If you're christian, you can't believe in abortion' - really? Why not? I can be a good person who helps other and lives life with respect and sincere love for others, but I might not be able to mentally or financially handle a child. And who is that person driving that car to tell me that I'm wrong because they, or their god, don't agree. I now feel like I'm rambling and that I could write about this forever, because it is an issue that must be discussed and one point leads to another and to another, and right now, I'm just arguing with a huge "Christian" right that feels the need to push its beliefs into my house. And the safety lock is only so strong on my front door.

Keep it in your house

2005-08-31T16:30:00.000-04:00

I have been reading more and more articles in the news about this religious group decrying that religious group and about evangelical-types who want to mold our society to their values and ideals. It hurts my stomach to read these news pieces. Why is it okay to air your religious views in public as if they were as important as other political and social ideas? Whether or not you do or don't believe in god or you do or don't want jesus to be your friend should have nothing to do with whether children should have health care, the price of a barrel of oil, or how I live my life. I think that most people will agree that on a human level, politicians, athletes, movie stars, teachers, plumbers etc. in America all subscribe to the basic tenets that keep our society running somewhat smoothly: don't hurt other people, be as honest as possible, don't take things that aren't yours. I'll even concede that these tenets came from a moral, call it religious, base. Okay, we all agree with these, now let's work on how to make things better for everyone. Let's work to bring more tolerance and acceptance. If I want to believe that when I die, my body becomes dust and returns back to the Earth and that's it (which I do believe), or I want to worship a rubber chicken (which I don't), but I am kind and respectful of others, what the fuck is it to another person???

Do people in America realize that this type of religious one-upmanship is what causes civil strife? It's not okay to kill someone because he steals your lawnmower, but if he believes in a different form of "god", it is okay to persecute, limit and judge him? I cry foul! Don't want Mitt Romney to be governor because his jesus isn't yours? Think that the state has to be "returned to jesus" because you don't like the fact that two people who think differently from you love one another can make it legal?
Put that shit down.
Look around at the realissues like unemployment, rampant child abuse, particularly through the state-run DSS system, the lack of books in urban classrooms where the students are expected to pass "standard" tests, the cost of oil because we would rather financially support a war in a country where we cannot (or did not) begin to understand the people's needs from a cultural perspective before depositing thousands of our fellow citizens, many of whom, at 18-22 years old, are literally the future of our country, there to "defend" our "way of life". Which is what? The right to believe and practice what we feel is best for ourselves, again within certain sensible societal constructs? I have NO problem with people who love god, jesus, allah, buddha, that ol' rubber chicken, but there are places called meetinghouses/churches/temples where similarly-minded people are allowed to gather to celebrate that love. Don't bring it to the public court, statehouse, school, classroom, icerink and tell me that I have> to love him/her/it too, because that is an affront to my beliefs, which thanks to years of shed blood and passionate debate, I am allowed to exercise as fully as you.

Thoughts for the week

2005-08-26T17:23:00.000-04:00

The Red Sox need to stop losing. Schilling needs to stop talking and start pitching well.

Did L@nce Armstrong "dope" himself up? Yup, the day he lost his left nut he actually lost 1/2 his brain cells thus causing him to leave his pregnant wife (with twins no less) and take up with horsey-faced Crow. Is there an athlete not taking performance-enhancing substances?

Britney Spears had a baby shower and she got lots of "super cute things"!!! Oh. My. God. Is it too late to abort?

"Fall" allergies have begun. It's August. Did pollen get on the "let's start the season early" bandwagon practiced by department stores everywhere? WTF?

I read one of the most horrifying articles in the Boston Globe this week about an evangelical minister in Roxbury, MA by the name of Pastor Mir@nda who is gaining popularity among hispanics in the area. His mission: to reclaim the state of Mass for jesus christ. Did JC once own Massachusetts? Does he really need the whole state back? Couldn't we just give him Pastor Mir@nda's house?

My car has been in the auto body shop for nearly 2 weeks due to my stop-sign-running fellow motorist. As a result, I've been driving a 2005 Volvo S60, which is such a great vehicle. I'm going to suggest a trade - the body shop can give my '97 Toyota Avalon to the rental company and I'll just hold onto this baby.

Inspired by lists everywhere and life in general, Bryan and his friends have come up with a new project: seven of us are compiling lists of the top 25 songs (in our opinion). We will each burn our selections onto a CD (or 2) and distribute them to one another, at which time each of us will listen to the suggested 150 songs, in addition to our own 25, and we will nominate the top 50. Stats will work his magic and report to us the hallowed songs that land on this esteemed list. Therefore, I have been listening to a lot of music lately and have reconnected with some old favorites like Under the Pink by Tori Amos and Living in Clip, a live Ani Difranco album. I've also sifted through so many memories of phases of my life where one song perfectly evoked the emotion and tension of the situation. Fun. I'll be sure to post my contribution when I've made my final determinations.

consciousness bristling

2005-08-22T13:17:00.000-04:00

among the ashes of other tv shows rose a brilliant phoenix. actors with the uncanny ability to wear the skin of a character thus transporting viewers into their world of death and life and more death. writers intelligent, smart, philosophical, brave enough to delve into the scariest abyss known to the thinking mammal. a creator courageous enough to breathe life into his idea for a show that explored, exploited, and exalted death and what it means to die, and live. it all equaled a welcome hour reprieve from the drivel clogging the tv air waves (yes, i mean every reality show, even the ones you swear are really good and really realistic). six feet under ran for 5 seasons and ended last night with a show that made me cry, laugh and dream of better days when all programs created for the public aimed at the high level of thought and raw emotional catharsis brought on by spending an hour with the fishers. death remains one of the most elusive and terrifying ideas for humans, and it is so often couched in terms of lightness: angels and fluffy clouds and all the chocolate you can eat FOREVER. but death is messy and complex and can be treated reverently while not being taken too seriously. it happens, and if you worry about it all the time, you become an automaton, going through the motions thrust upon you by birth, class, or environment. yet you can't forget that it's coming because then the wonder and joy and amazingness of living can be taken for granted. one theme that drew me to this show was that of risk and redemption. if you take a chance, on love, marriage, career change, leaving your house every morning, whatever, you will experience the totality of being alive and that will save you. not from death, of course, but from being dead while still moving and interacting with other people, while existing in this form for the time you're given.

so, all that from a tv show? pretty fucking amazing tv show.

Thoughts on the week

2005-08-17T15:56:00.000-04:00

Well, I really pushed this "on vacation, can't blog" thing pretty far. So now, there's lots to say and probably few of you who actually care. Short version=rode in the car, met lots of family, saw, joked about and ate corn, ate lots of other foods, drank lots of spirits, repeated for 6 days, rested on Sunday. Returned to work. For more detail, please, read on...

Highlights
*Cooperstown: in the middle of cornfields (yes, cornfields in upstate NY, besides Bryan and every member of his family, who knew?) lies a picturesque town existing on the collective memory of a nation enthralled with the sound, sight and stats of a wooden bat and leather ball in the hands of amazing athletes teaming up for over 120 years to play this game called baseball. I fell in love with the place and enjoyed every minute of our visit. I didn't get to see the library as it's closed on weekends, but I did buy a few baseball books for the kiddies in the museum bookstore. And I had the chance to walk among the hallowed hall of greats who added to the mystique and character of the game I worship.

*Wedding: in the middle of the state of NY (aka nowhere) gathered a group of people many of whom and to whom I will soon be kin. There was drinking, groove-thing shaking and much merriment, and I enjoyed both meeting unmet family members and every joke about corn.

*Saratoga: back to civilization (no corn here), enjoyed our first trip of the year to the track though no one walked out a winner. We'll be back on Labor Day weekend so maybe our luck was just saving itself 'til then. We did get to sit on the beautifully refurbished Carey deck and watch Lauren eat a chocolate pudding pop. Mmmmm...pudding.

*Maine: got out of the car from NY just to get back in and drive to an idyllic spot just outside of Augusta on Lake Cobbosseecontee (I didn't actually look up the spelling so I don't want to hear about it if it's wrong - there are too many letters in this word anyway). Got to cavort once again with many members of Bryan's dad's family which affirmed my initial impression: this is one fun family, and they like to eat (full lobster, corn on the cob dinner) and drink as much as my own family. Give us 5 years of marriage and we'll be rolling one another to family events.

*Gloucester: showed off the church and reception site to Bryan's parents, ran into no one uncomfortable, and daydreamed about owning a house so close to the ocean. No corn in the ocean.

*Parental pow wow: friday's lunch was phase one of "meeting the parents" as o'connors met daddy jeffrey and LJ2 - delicious food and Smithwick's made their usual appearance and everyone got along swimmingly. Friday's dinner moved us into the 2nd and final phase as o'connors met momma j. et al. Again, eating, drinking and merriment ensued and by the end of the night all parental units had not only met, but seemingly liked one another. Mission accomplished. Not one mention of corn.

*Tax-free fun: Suffering from car lag, we roused ourselves on Saturday to travel the short distance to the mall to spend obscene amounts of taxless dollars. Wedding bands, an upgraded ipod and a receiver and speakers were all acquired by team O'Connfrey. We also saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which was disappointing. I liked the actor who played Charlie, but Depp was disconcerting as Wonka and I felt plain uncomfortable watching him traipse through his factory dispensing naughty children up various pipes and down various holes. Ending was corny.

So, our first official vacation is over; it went by too quickly and brought a whirlwind of introductions and laughter (did I mention enough food (corn) and drink to feed a small nation?). It's now time to turn an eye toward the fall and the start of school and PS programs.

Congrats Colleen - we look forward to having you in the area!

on vacation...

2005-08-05T13:14:00.000-04:00

So, the loose ends are indeed tied off in a neat knot and I am ready to vacate the office for the next 9 days. I am looking forward to the oconnor family wedding, to meeting those family members I've not yet met at aunt sue's. I did find the perfect outfit (opting for a dress/shirt combo rather then a dress) and managed to get the hair cut and the gift bought. I am also looking forward to sleeping a little more than usual and to not risking life and car doors at the Newton corner rotary for a week. And of course, to taking a peek at the library at the Baseball Hall of Fame, if only Cooperstown weren't in the middle of NOwhere...

I think I hear my first beer calling me...don't worry sweet can of liquid vacation, only 4 more hours.

I may blog next week, I may not, do try to carry on without me.

Plans schmans

2005-08-03T15:58:00.000-04:00

So, I recovered quickly from my night with Andre - for some reason 6 bottles of champagne split among three women over 6 hours did not have the anticipated effect and I was able to not only drive myself home with ease, but to drop Kate off on the way. It was a lovely night that confirmed my already pretty rock-solid belief that time spent in the company of other amazing women is vital to a healthy psyche.

This week has been Sox-tastic. Sunday, Bryan and I visited McCoy Stadium for the first time with my dad and brothers (and their significants) to watch a PawSox game. Though the home team didn't win, we did score bronze-like Wade Boggs statuettes (commemorating his Hall of Fame induction the night previous), drink $4 beers, and park easily for next to nothing. Then, last night, as I was preparing to leave work, I got a call from my younger brother asking about my plans for the evening. Having only a half-hearted plan to go shopping for a dress for the wedding I'm going to this weekend, I was open to creating a new plan. He had free tickets to the Sox game and I'm not sure there are plans I wouldn't cancel for an opportunity to sit in a tiny hot seat, surrounded by the screaming, cheering swell of humanity all focused on the same end: not spilling our beer as we clap for our favorite boys of summer at the hometown park. To make the night sweeter, the Sox pulled out a victory as Wakefield got the birthday W and we met up with Kate and Matt, who were also at the park, for a post-game brew.

Course, I still need to find a @&#$! dress for the wedding, and I need to get a haircut, tidy up the house in preparation for 4 days away (and the return home with a few members of Bryan's family in tow), and pull all of the loose ends together at work so I can vacate the office for a week without worry.

In a short follow-up to my car saga, written about at length two weeks ago (July 21st post): I got my car back from the auto shop with the brake lights fully operational, pulled into a parking lot, and was RAMMED INTO by a young girl who neglected to stop at the funny-shaped, red sign in front of her. So, I lost a piece of my headlight and have quite a pathetic dent on my front, right fender (at least it off-sets the dent on my driver's side door acquired the very first day I drove the car courtesy of an unfortunately placed pole in my office parking lot). At least she had insurance, and I have an appointment to have both the fender and the door fixed. Ah, the joy!

So, in closing, congrats to the once and future inhabitants of Vin@l Avenue - can't wait to be invited over to "your" place for couple-like things. Happy first tooth to my 9-month old niece, may the rest follow in as painless a manner possible, and to her mother, my lovely sister-in-law, Happy Bday to you!