You Just Can't Make This Stuff Up

Don't Let This Happen To You

2011-09-24T13:29:00.003-05:00

I hate salespeople.

Whenever I go shopping anywhere that involves a salesperson--car dealership, retail stores where employees work on commission--I always try to fly in and out under the radar to avoid any unneccesary contact with these people. If they come to my door, I pretend I'm not home. If they call on the phone, I screen the call. Why? The same reason 95% of the rest of the world's population does the same thing: the fact that I feel like I'm being conned.

If you've ever had the same reaction to something and felt as though you were being a bit paranoid or overreacting, have I got a story that will cure you of that but quick:

We have been in the market for a new computer, and visited a local branch of a big box electronics store, which shall remain nameless, within the last few weeks to look at the computer Hubby has been eyeballing. We had been there for no more than .046 seconds when--you guessed it--the manager walked over to see if we needed any "help."

Within the first three minutes of the conversation, this guy talked us out of a sale. He did it by trying to talk us into buying something else in addition to the computer: the extended warranty the store offers. His sales pitch? He told us that he had the same machine we were looking at, and the hard drive had fried after only a year's time.

I immediately felt conned. We had done some research prior to coming in, and hadn't heard of anything like this ever happening with this particular computer. Plus, what this guy didn't know was that Hubby used to work for this very same big box electronics store, and was well aware of their policy to give incentives to their managers for selling as many of these extended warranties as possible. Once, Hubby watched his own boss get a weekend trip to Las Vegas because he and his employees sold enough sound systems (that's right, the employees under the manager don't get rewarded for their sales--they all get lumped under the manager's numbers, and the manager is the only one who gets the reward).

I quickly came to loathe this manager. I decided there was no way was he getting credit for anything we bought. Ever. So I encouraged Hubby to leave. He did, even though he really wanted the computer. I felt like a bad wife, but was still determined not to buy anything from that man.

Fast forward to this week. Hubby's co-worker, also in the market for a new computer, goes to the same branch of this big box electronics store and is helped by the same guy. He gives her the same schpeel about his hard drive frying within the first year of his owning the machine, and encourages her to get the extended warranty. Instead of walking out of the store like we did, however, she bought the warranty. It added almost $500 onto her purchase price.

A different employee rang up her purchases. As they were chatting while the transaction was being processed, Hubby's co-worker mentioned something about the schpeel the manager had given her, which had influenced her to buy the extended warranty. The other employee rolled her eyes and said:

"That guy's such a jerk. He's got five computers, and, like, three of them he's won from here because he sells so many of these warranties."

So take heart friends! It's okay to say no to the pushy salespeople. There is a reason they are pushy, and it isn't because they have your best interests at heart.

How Many Times Can YOU Move in a Year?

2011-02-20T12:53:00.001-06:00

When I started this blog, I was updating daily. Then it went to weekly...then biweekly.

Now I'm down to biannually. :( For those of you who still read, my apologies. Life has gotten in the way of regular blog posts. I do enjoy blogging, and intend to keep up with it, even if posts are few and far between for the time being. I am hopeful that the frequency might change once life calms back down.

When I last posted, we were living in an apartment, desperately hoping to find a house before our lease expired at the end of September. We failed. We found another house we'd hoped to buy at the end of September, but again, it was a bank repo, and someone else beat us to it (although, again, it was still listed as available).

So our lease expired, and we packed up our stuff, and one of Ben's aunts was nice enough to take us in for a month. That was October. In November we moved across the yard and into Ben's dad's house, where we stayed for the next six weeks. Fortunately, during that time, we were able to find a house that we liked and was available! We closed and moved in December, almost six months to the day when we closed and sold our previous home.

And in those six months, we moved six times, alternating between the apartment and generous relatives who tolerated us temporarily invading their space. To those relatives, if you ever read this, a huge thank you. It is a wonderful blessing to have family who will take you in when your Plan A, B, and C living arrangements fail.

We have been in our new home for two months now, and we love it. It has a walk-in pantry, a whirlpool bath, formal dining room and a fireplace, all features I was hoping to find. Hubby loves the large three car garage and basement, which he's turned into his man-cave. The previous owners took good care of the house, so, while there are cosmetic changes we are making to suit our personal taste, there were no changes that absolutely had to be made if we had decided to pass on the house projects.

And I have pictures! Well, two. We still have stuff all over the place, so if you want to see more, you'll just have to come visit. I refuse to document for public posterity our current mess.

This room had the nastiest carpet in the house. So we gave it to our cats.

And our living room with the afore mentioned fireplace!

Limbo

2010-09-10T11:13:00.002-05:00

April 28 was the first time we went house hunting.

It is now September 10, and we still haven't found a house. We've seen at least 100 houses. At least.

That's not to say we haven't found anything we like. There have been two houses we've tried to buy. The first was a short sale, and the agent didn't disclose there was an existing offer until we called to make ours. The second was a bank-owned home, and, again, the agent didn't disclose there were multiple existing offers until after we had seen the home and fallen in love with it.

Our three-month lease, which we originally thought would be too long, expires at the end of the month, and we're not sure where we're living after that.

All of our stuff is in boxes in the garages of various relatives. I can't bake anything in the oven, because all that stuff is packed. Pizza cutter? Packed. Winter jackets that we'll be needing soon? Packed.

I'm frustrated.

Men

2010-08-16T15:45:00.004-05:00

One of the perks of apartment living is shared laundry facilities. Based on the people I've seen floating around our apartment complex, I refuse to use the laundry facilities as it is quite probable that they are hotbeds of multiple germ and bug infestations. My mother-in-law has been nice enough to loan out her laundry facilities whenever we need them, so once every other week or so I bring two basket fulls of dirty laundry and camp out at her house for the 12 hours it takes to wash two weeks worth of laundry. Recently, on a non-laundry week, hubby asked me if I was planning on going to his mom's to do laundry. I said no, but that I would make a special trip if he really needed something. He was shooting a wedding that weekend, and needed a pair of dress pants washed, so on my day off I dragged my basket of laundry down to my mother-in-laws and did a load of laundry. He also requested I pick up some other items we are storing at her place. At 5:30PM, hubby called to tell me he was on his way home from work.

"Ok," I replied. "I am just now leaving your mom's."

"Oh," hubby says, his voice filled with surprise. "Did you do laundry today or something?"

Next time he needs an emergency load done, I'm just going to go buy him new clothes instead. It will be quicker.

Where Does The Time Go?

2010-07-30T16:11:00.003-05:00

Wow. February 5. It feels like I just updated this blog a couple of weeks ago.

For any of you still out there, here's what we've been up to:

Moving: we began the process of putting our home on the market in March. By April, we were finally ready to list. In today's economy, we weren't sure how long it would be until we had a buyer. We had regular showings--every couple of days I was either going to work late or coming home early to make sure the house was clean for prospective buyers. Our house sold in under three weeks, which caught us a little off guard, because we had been so busy getting the house ready to sell that we hadn't bothered to look for a new one yet.

Our closing was in June; we had scheduled a two and a half week vacation a year ago that ended four days before our scheduled closing. We decided not to cancel. We enjoyed the vacation, but paid for the timing. We had four days to move our seven years worth of stuff plus the 20+ years of stuff from Hubby's childhood out of the house. We didn't make it--Hubby had to go back the next day for one final load. Fortunately the new buyer wasn't moving in until two weeks after the closing.

Since the closing, we've looked at probably 100 homes. We're still looking. It's been a frustrating process. Temporary housing is an apartment with a three-month lease; originally we thought that would be too long, but now I'm worried it won't be long enough.

We are hoping to be in permanent housing within the next couple of months. In the meantime, we don't have Internet access at the apartment, so postings will probably remain few and far between. Hopefully the next post will be a picture of our new house!

'Nuff Said

2010-02-05T13:10:00.004-06:00

California Turbines Frozen in Minnesota Wind

From the Star Tribune:

"Like a lot of California transplants, 11 newcomers to Minnesota are having a hard time adjusting to our winters.

They are wind turbines, erected last fall by 11 metro and outstate cities. The green energy machines were expected to be spinning before Christmas, but so far their blades have been largely motionless, apparently paralyzed by frigid weather."

I posted this on Facebook but thought it was worth a second look here. Just more proof that things from California weren't meant to live in the Upper Midwest.

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

2010-01-28T12:18:00.007-06:00

January is usually the time when I post about how much I hate the cold, or about how much I hate how midwesterners drive in the cold. Today I thought I'd do something a little different. Below is a picture that accurately sums up the midwest experience for me:

For those of you who can't read the sign, it says "Free Mullet Removal." And yes, this huge sign was posted roadside here in Minnesota within the last few years. Because in Minnesota, the mullet is still an acceptable hair style, 25 years after it's 15 minutes of fame.

Bah Humbug-er's

2010-01-08T09:42:00.002-06:00

Ah, the Christmas season. A time filled with decorations, parties, friends and family...

And shopping. Lots and lots of shopping.

I am a diehard Black Friday shopper. I've been doing it for years. There is nothing like the feeling of excitement that comes when one starts eargerly anticipating the arrival of the Thanksgiving paper and the included Black Friday ads.

I am a sucker for doorbusters, jewelry in particular. The Friday after Thanksgiving is the only morning of the year when I will voluntarily get up well before the crack of dawn to score $15 pearls or $10 earrings.

Each year the stores are opening earlier and earlier, and many of the major department stores find themselves competing with each other for customers. Both JCPenney's and Kohl's, stores that I routinely hit on Black Friday, opened at the 4AM this year. Herberger's, a midwest department store, opened at 3AM. All had excellent sales on jewelry, which presented a quandry for me.

For those of you who do Black Friday shopping, you know that many of the high profile door buster items are cleaned out within the first five minutes of the store opening. Picking which store to go to first is the equivalent of deciding which doorbuster you want the most. But many of the stores solved that problem for you this year by offering online shopping.

Herberger's was one store that offered customers the option to buy selected doorbusters online on Thanksgiving. Even though it was the only store opening at this time, it was a welcome discovery for me, becauase a) Herberger's is always obnoxiously crowded on Black Friday, b) I wasn't real excited about the 3AM opening, because c) it's freakishly cold in Minnesota at 3AM on the last Friday in November.

So, decked out in my comfy jammies and in the warmth of my own house, I solved my Herberger's dilemma on Thanksgiving by ordering all of the doorbuster merchandise I wanted online.

I received a confirmation email immediately, listing all of the merchandise I had just ordered. I then went to go get ready for Thanksgiving, quite proud of my shopping accomplishment.

The e-mail confirmation stated that my order would ship in 7-10 days. Sure enough, about a week later, a box from Herberger's appeared at our doorstep. However, it did not contain the full order. I received an email saying the rest of the items would be shipped shortly.

I waited another week, eagerly checking the mailbox each night to see if a package had arrived. When that week had passed, and still nothing had arrived, I began to get a little nervous. I had originally purchased all these items for gift exchanges we would be part of or as gifts for other people, and Christmas was rapidly approaching. I called the customer service number on the order confirmation to check the status of my order. I waited...and waited...and waited...and then decided that I could watch a little TV with one ear and keep the other ear open for the promised representative that was supposed to be with me shortly. I watched an entire half hour TV sitcom while waiting for that stupid representative before deciding the situation was ridiculous, and I would call back from work tomorrow when I could at least put the call on speaker phone so I could work while waiting for a human to pick up the phone.

The next day at work I made the call, put it on speaker phone, and waited another 20 minutes for a representative, only to find out that the remainder of the items I had ordered were not in stock. Now, this initially wasn't that big of a deal to me. I figured that the items were backordered, and, while we might not have them in time for Christmas, they would at least arrive sometime thereafter. A late present is better than no present at all.

But the items had not been backordered. Instead of trying to fill the rest of my order, Herberger's canceled it. THEY CANCELED IT. I was told by the poor person on the other end of the line who was in no way responsible for my situation but was having to deal with my wrath because of it that I should have received an e-mail notifying me of the cancelation.

I received no email. There was never any correspondence indicating that the order had been canceled. I received only two e-mails from Herberger's: the order confirmation and the shipping notice, wherein they said the rest of the items would be sent shortly.

Not only am I down several gifts I was counting on having days before Christmas, but I am down doorbuster jewelry items. These were not items we would purchase as gifts at regular price. Days before Christmas, there is no way we were going to find gifts of the same quality at the same price as the jewelry I had ordered. Furthermore, the entire problem could have been avoided if I had just done the shopping in-store the day after Thanksgiving; I could have left the store with the actual items in hand. But I didn't, because I thought I had finished all of my shopping online.

There was no indication on the Web site when I ordered that these items were not in stock. Apparently the people at Herberger's have never heard the old addage "If it's not for sale, don't put it in the window."

And there is one ad I will not be looking at when I make my 2010 Black Friday shopping list.

A-Typical Interview

2009-12-17T23:45:00.000-06:00

For those of you who don't know, my husband works at a nursing home. As part of his duties, he is responsible for handling the admittance process for new residents, which includes a variety of paperwork and a pre-screening type interview.

One of the questions he has to ask about the person being admitted is whether or not they were ever a convicted sex offender, because, you know, nursing homes don't want to admit potential threats to their communities.

So on one recent day he is interviewing a man who is admitting his wife, and my husband gets to the part of the interview where he has to ask if the woman is a convicted sex offender.

The man's response?

"Well if she was, I was sure missing out."

Costco Fail

2009-11-13T15:35:00.004-06:00

Recently I was making a run to Costco. I typically love shopping at Costco, but the one Costco experience I could do without is having to show your membership card upon entrance. I'm not sure why they do that, since you can't actually purchase anything without a membership card anyway, so it seems to be somewhat of a redundant effort.

But I digress. The reason it is my least favorite Costco experience is because I can never seem to manage to have the card out and ready to show in an efficient manner prior to actually entering the store. My best efforts are almost always derailed by a cell phone that rings at an inopportune moment, or a cart that doesn't realize that I am supposed to control the direction in which it travels, leaving me fiddling for my membership card as the greeter, and inevitably a line of people behind me, wait.

But on one recent trip no unwanted distractions occurred during the walk from the parking lot to the store, and I was actually able to pull my membership card out of my wallet prior to entering. I was quite proud of my accomplishment, so you can imagine my disappointment when the greeter didn't even glance at my card as I was approaching the entrance.

So what did I do? Why I repositioned the card of course, putting it in a location where she could not help but see it (actually, she probably couldn't have avoided it if she tried).

You can imagine my surprise and confusion, then, when instead of smiling at me and welcoming me to Costco, a place in where my membership card clearly indicated I belonged, the greeter looked at me like I was an escapee from a local mental institution.

Then I realized the card I had taken such care to show to her wasn't my Costco membership card at all, but a rewards card for a local gas station chain.

Battle of the Bulge

2009-10-09T12:26:00.002-05:00

Recently Hubby and I went out to eat. Somehow, we got on the topic of breakfast, and Hubby mentioned that during a recent morning commute to work, the dry cereal he had brought to munch on just didn't seem that appealing anymore.

What did Hubby want to eat instead? A doughnut.

Both Hubby and I have been experiencing weight gain in the last few years. Nothing extreme, but neither of us is in the shape we once were, or in the shape we'd like to be.

So Hubby tells himself that he does not need a doughnut. The cereal he brought is just fine. He continues on his way, and then remembers that he is low on gas, and needs to stop at a gas station before work.

This is somewhat problematic, because the station he has stopped at also sells doughnuts.

"I do not need a doughnut, I do not need a dough nut, I do not need a doughnut," Hubby tells himself.

This strategy almost works. Almost. Before leaving, Hubby notices that the station has a special on doughnuts: by one, get one free.

So what does Hubby do? I'll let him tell you in his own words:

"So I didn't buy a doughnut. I bought two."

Prairie Dogs Have Plague

2009-09-18T16:22:00.014-05:00

My apologies to all my regular readers (all two of you) for the lack of posts this year. The job is consistently crazy, and even on those nights when I'm home at a reasonable hour, my brain is usually too fried to come up with a decent post.

That being said, I have wanted to share with you our recent trip to Mt. Rushmore. It was one of those things on my must see list, and we were able to take a road trip this summer for a long weekend vacation (of course, our recent acquisition of this no doubt helped motivate Hubby for said road trip).

Mt. Rushmore is about an 8-hour drive from the Twin City area...8 hours of corn fields and prairie grass until just before you reach the Black Hills National Forest, where you suddenly find yourself in some of the prettiest scenery I've ever seen anywhere in the U.S.

We stayed at the Best Western Golden Spike Inn in Hill City, which is right in the Black Hills National Forest. Because we were going at what was rapidly approaching peak summer vacation travel time, we bid for our hotel through Priceline in the hope that we would get some sort of discount. We got a room for $115/night that was advertised everywhere else for $150, so initially I was satisfied. However, when we arrived at 9 PM after our 8-hour plus road trip and checked into our room we discovered that it was dirty. I can tolerate a lot as far as hotel rooms go, but dirty isn't one of them. Our room had two queen beds, and when we pulled the sheets back on the first, we found brown stains on the white sheets. We told ourselves it was chocolate, and turned to the other bed. Same brown stains there, except this time they were on the duvet. I am horrified at this point. I went back to the check-in desk to ask for either clean sheets or a new room.

And at this point, I must say that the staff at the Best Western Golden Spike Inn went above and beyond anything I expected to accomodate us. They moved us to a different room, which was really a luxury accomodation. It was a two bedroom apartment, with a full bath, vanity sink outside the bath, full living room and full kitchen, complete with refrigerator, coffee maker, microwave and dishes. It was the biggest hotel room I've ever been in. They told us at the time that this particular room would not be available our whole stay and that we would have to move the next morning, but we were fine with that. We had paid for a standard room, and certainly were fine with staying in a (clean) standard room, which is what we assumed we'd have the next morning.

But once again we were shocked (in a good way) at the level of customer service at the Best Western Golden Spike Inn. The next day we were placed in a suite, complete with jacuzzi tub and fireplace. This suite had a separate sitting area, two TV's, and a kitchenette. It was really one of the nicest hotel rooms I've ever been in. Even though the first room had some issues, I would still recommend and stay at this hotel again based on the customer service. I would even pay full price for one of those suites. Which is saying a lot--we try to never pay more than $100/night for a hotel room.

We were able to pack a lot into our extended weekend. Besides seeing Mt. Rushmore (which is amazing--if you haven't seen it, you really should try--pictures do not do it justice), we took several scenic drives and saw a lot of wildlife, took a tour of Jewel Cave, one of the largest caves in the U.S., "hiked" to an underground waterfall (it was a .6 mile walk), hiked around one of the lakes in Black Hills National Forest, went to a wild horse sanctuary to see wild horses, saw the Black Hills, and stopped at two Laura Ingalls Wilder museums. I grew up reading the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, and being able to step into the house she lived in and see things that I read about and that she actually owned was a really cool experience for me. The wild horse sanctuary, in addition to having several herds of wild mustangs, also had one of the oldest post office boxes in the U.S. It was literally a small wooden shack built back in the days of the pony express. There were also ancient hieroglyphics that National Geographic has even featured in one of their shows.

It's definitely an area of the country I would recommend seeing. But I will stop talking now and show you the pictures, since they are more convincing than anything I could ever say. Enjoy!

Mt. Rushmore

Mt. Rushmore through a tunnel. On one of the scenic drives we took, there were several tunnels carved out of rock that were only big enough for one car to go through at a time. This was one of them.

Inside Jewel Cave

Wild Mustang herd

Baby wild mustang

Hieroglyphics

Old post office

Baby mountain goat--one of the many wildlife creatures we saw. We were really as close to them all as the pictures make it seem.

Antelope

Prairie dog--I loved these little guys, even if there was a sign outside of the entrance to the Badlands National Park that they had plague.

Deer

Buffalo and baby

Badlands--it was much prettier here than I thought it would be.

Sounds of Summertime in the Ghetto

2009-08-04T20:42:00.003-05:00

Welcome to the 'hood.

Is it the sound of rap music blaring from a 1987 boombox coming from the upstairs window of the low income housing condominium abutting your backyard that lets you know you live in the ghetto?

Or is it the summer barbecue held on a Tuesday evening at which 30+ people are in attendance and partaking in basketball, loud conversation, dancing and smoking all out on their front lawn because, you know, who wants to party inside and not disturb the neighbors on a weeknight? until the wee hours of the morning that lets you know the neighborhood ain't what it used to be?

Perhaps it's the sound of preschool-aged children having the time of their lives running around the neighborhood unsupervised in their diapers after dark.

Or the sound of social workers slamming their car doors as they make their regular visits.

Or the preteen youth who come to your door and ask if they can have $30 so they can buy a birthday present for their cousin.

Maybe it's the sound of somebody's top-of-the-line car stereo system as they cruise back to the aforementioned low-income housing project they live in.

Or maybe it's the sound of a mother screaming at the top of her lungs from her doorstep instructing the children that she spent the last 3 hours not watching to get back in the house.

Whatever it is, it's time to move.

Sign of the Times

2009-07-14T19:27:00.001-05:00

You know the economy isn't doing well when the local thrift store goes out of business.

Not Any More He Doesn't

2009-06-22T19:52:00.003-05:00

Recently Hubby and I were watching The Amazing Race, and I mentioned how that would be the only reality show I would ever consider doing. You essentially have a trip around the world paid for, and, if you do it right, you could win one million dollars just for traveling. A guaranteed travel opportunity and a chance to win one million dollars? Where do I sign up?

But Hubby was all about Fear Factor. Do you remember that show? Contestants were given outrageous challenges, and the one left standing at the end won the monetary prize. Each episode of Fear Factor included at least one challenge where contestants had to eat something disgusting like live spiders or pig's blood or something.

I told Hubby I could never, ever, EVER do that show because of the eating challenges. And then I asked him if he seriously thought he could stomach some of those things. And do you know what my darling husband said to me then?

"Why not? I eat your cooking."

Hmph.

You Can't Take Us Anywhere

2009-06-12T12:01:00.003-05:00

Recently Hubby and I attended an event at the college where I did my graduate work. It was the type of event one did not arrive at in jeans. Everyone was dressed in at least business casual attire, and all of the highest ranking facutly members of the department were present. The hall where they had the event was beautifully arranged. All the tables were covered with linen tableclothes and napkins and there was a bottle of red and white wine on each table beautifully highlighted by elegant tea-candle table decorations.

It was to be a 3-course dinner. It began with the salad course. The salads were placed at each place setting before hand, and had fruit and lettuce other than Iceberg. Our table had just finished passing the bread basket and Hubby found an open space on the table on which to put it. We began our meal to the sounds of fine china and silver clinking and academic conversation filling the air.

Our meal continued this way until someone at the next table looked at us and said "FIRE!!!!" It took a minute for us to realize what they were talking about, but as we followed the gaze of the woman yelling "FIRE!!!!" we realized what had happened.

The bread basket, which was elegantly lined with a linen napkin, had been set too close to one of those beautiful tea-candle table decorations, and was now in flames. While I tried to figure out a way to extinguish the flames that would be less of a scene than throwing the table's carafe of water on it, Hubby quietly used his Boy Scout skills to smother the flaming napkin, and then handed over it's charred remains to a member of the wait staff.

So at the fancy-schmancy elegant dinner, it was us that managed to accidentally set fire to something. I'm sure some of my former professors wondered how I ever managed to finish the program.

Our Paris Vacation Comes To An End

2009-05-31T15:56:00.003-05:00

On our last day in Paris, we decided to take it relatively easy. We got up late, and then decided to do all the things on our list that we had missed earlier in the week. The first stop was Notre Dame. A relative had recommended seeing the crypt, but it had been closed our two previous times there. The crypt isn't what it sounds like--we weren't looking at old skeletons. It was basically an underground museum with an interesting display of the history of Notre Dame.

We had also wanted to try the restaurant in the Musee D'Orsay, and did so today. We only ate out a few times in Paris because I bought too much stuff when we went to the grocery store by our apartment, and that was my only real regret about this portion of our European trip. I was glad we had the opportunity to eat here though. It was reasonably priced, and I found the food to be good. We each had the plat du jour, which was fish (cod, if I remember right) over fettucine. For dessert, Hubby had the best ice cream I have ever tasted (and that includes all the gelato I ate in Italy), and I had a “Floating Island.” I’m not quite sure what a “Floating Island” is, but it tasted like a big, toasted marshmallow in a caramel sauce. Yummy!

After lunch, we went to the Orangerie to see Monet’s lilies. For those of you unfamiliar with these pieces, they are huge canvas paintings of...well...lilies. They were breath taking. I had originally had the Orangerie on the list of sites we’d see if there was time, and I am really glad we ended up going. That man was just a genius. I can’t believe he painted so many pieces of that size. Amazing. Here are some pictures (these paintings were about 8 feet tall by 25 feet wide):

And that was the end of our time in Paris. Of all the places we went in Europe, Paris is the one I miss the most, which suprises me actually, because at the time we were there, we felt as though we had done a pretty good job of seeing everything we wanted to see. But there is something about waking up and falling asleep with the Eiffel Tower that I'll never forget. Paris was magical, and I hope that all of you reading who would like to get there someday are able to do so.

Versailles

2009-05-19T19:49:00.004-05:00

We watched Marie Antoinette with Kirsten Dunst before going on this trip, and I knew then that I wanted to see Versailles. Versailles is about an hour train ride out of Paris, and the train ride was mostly uneventful. At one stop, a group of tourists taking a bike tour got on. They successfully loaded six bikes onto the train in the 45 seconds they had to do so. I was semi-impressed. Of course they put the six bikes directly in front of the staircase on the train, blocking passage for anyone wishing to go up or down, but the speed at which they did so was impressive. When we got off the train at Versailles, we followed the masses to the palace, and…NO! The marble courtyard was undergoing renovation. (Rent Marie Antoinette if you want to see what I'm talking about. It is amazing, but alas, wasn't to be for us.) It had sheets and tarps and scaffolding all over it. I was really looking forward to being able to see Versailles from this angle in person, so was disappointed to discover we would not be able to.

It took about an hour and a half to see the interior of the palace. My favorite part about the whole experience was looking for all of the hidden doors in the walls to see how many “secret” rooms there were. The exterior of the palace--now that was the highlight in my opinion. The grounds are massive, and immaculately kept. I loved the gardens—I wished I had had the energy (or the debate skills I needed to convince Hubby to rent a golf cart) to see even more than we did. And I absolutely loved the Hamlet. We spent all day at Versailles. It was a lot of walking (I had to rest a couple of times) but well worth it. Here are some pictures:

Above: Versailles

Above: Marie Antoinette's Hamlet. She had this built so

she could experience peasant life.

Above: The gardens

The Mona Lisa!

2009-05-11T20:16:00.002-05:00

For our fourth day in Paris, we spent the morning at St. Chapelle, and then the bulk of the afternoon at the L'Ouvre. A relative had recommended St. Chapelle, and we really enjoyed seeing it. The chapel is almost entirely stained glass, so it's really pretty when the sunlight comes in and hits the different windows. Here's a picture of one of the windows:

After we left St. Chapelle, we stopped by Notre Dame again so Hubby could climb the tower. You are still able to climb some of the towers of the churches in Europe, and Hubby wanted to try this one. It was the same tower Victor Hugo wrote about in Hunchback of Notre Dame. I don't do heights, so Hubby was on his own for the 400+ stair climb. Here is a picture from the top:
After Hubby finished his climb, we were ready to see one of the most storied museums in the world. We headed first in the direction of Winged Victory and the Mona Lisa. Winged Victory was quite impressive. I liked how they had it displayed on top of a staircase, and it was much, much bigger than I thought it would be. We continued on, admiring all the paintings, but the best parts for me were the ceilings. Don’t forget to look up when sightseeing in Europe. You’ll miss some of the best stuff.

We got a peak at the Mona Lisa between the heads of the people crowded around her. By this time, we needed to get away from the crowds, so we made our way to the sculptures. And there I discovered my favorite piece: The Veiled Lady. I couldn’t believe I was looking at stone, it was so realistic and delicate looking. Before leaving, we saw the Medieval L’Ouvre, which Hubby and I also really liked—it is the foundations of the old building. I would recommend that as well, to anyone who is going.

You could spend a week in the L’Ouvre, and still maybe not see it all. One thing that really helped us was reading about the collection beforehand, and deciding what it was that we wanted to focus on. If we hadn’t done this, I would have felt very, very…lost.

We didn't take many pictures inside the building because it wasn't worth fighting the crowds, but here are is a picture of the outside:

That night we took a cruise down the Seine. The cruise was nice (bring a jacket!). But I think we were spoiled with our apartment. I enjoyed seeing all of the sights at night from the boat, but…it just wasn’t the same as looking out over all of Paris from our apartment. But I would definitely recommend the cruise nevertheless.

Plan B in Paris

2009-05-04T19:49:00.006-05:00

On our second full day in Paris, we had planned to go to Versailles, in keeping with the castle/palace theme from yesterday's tour, but surprisingly in Paris a lot of things are still closed on Sunday, most notably train ticket offices, so we had to come up with a Plan B.

Because it was still early out and there weren't many people around, we decided to begin Plan B with a walk around Paris. We meandered over to Place D’Concorde and then down the Champs Elyses toward the Arc D’Triomph. It was a beautiful morning with perfect weather. Here is a picture of the Arc D'Triomph:

And a picture of the fountain at the Place D'Concord:

We walked back down the Champs Elyses, over a bridge Hubby had seen on the bus ride out yesterday morning that he had also liked, and back toward the Musee D’Orsay, which we’ve decided to see today.

On the way back, we noticed several walkways leading down to the Seine were roped off, but not by the police. We couldn’t figure out what was going on. We thought maybe someone was filming something. We crossed back over the river and walked along the street closest to the Seine, before realizing why those walkways have been roped off.

There was a Formula One race car on the street below. For those of you who don't know, Hubby. Loves. Cars.

We were so close to the Musee D’Orsay. I thought about all those masterpieces inside that building, and then looked at the Formula One car. It’s not even doing anything. It’s just sitting there in all of its exhaust-filled glory. There was a driver and a crew, but there was only one car, so it didn’t appear as though there was a race.

Hubby of course has to stop and have his moment of Formula One Worship. We lined up along the fence with other gawkers, and Hubby took some pictures. One of the car guards came over and started shooing people away, and I thought, “Yay! Now he’ll HAVE to leave.”

Oh no. Hubby just moved his pilgrimage a few feet down. The fact that the car was not doing anything was just fascinating to him, because it opened up all sorts of possibilities of what COULD happen. A race? A practice? Hubby was determined to find out. So while the world’s artistic masterpieces sat forlornly a few blocks away, we stood near the Seine, in the presence of…a Formula One car. Finally, finally the driver reved the engine, and the car sped off out of eyesight. Hubby is ecstatic. So am I, because it means we can leave.

The Formula One car:

We finally made it to the Orsay. I loved the Orsay. We mainly stuck to the Impressionist works, but did also see some of the sculptures, the print exhibit and an exhibit that was a glass floor with a model city of Paris underneath it. The thing I loved so much about Europe was that so many things that you just study in school here in the US, or only ever see pictures of, is there, in front of you, in Europe. I marveled at all of the Impressionist treasures under one roof, especially since Impressionism is my favorite style. We got close up to the paintings, and then stood back a few feet to take them in to compare/contrast the detail versus the overall effect. Lovely. I also enjoyed the sculptures, I think because of the way they were laid out, and the fact that all of the crowds are upstairs looking at the Monets. It was a very calming atmosphere.

We spent maybe 2-3 hours at the Orsay, and then headed back to the apartment for food. Then we headed back down to tourist central to see Notre Dame. The interior of this church is worth seeing, but we were disappointed that it felt like a tourist attraction and not a church. But the outside: Wow. Here are some pictures:

Later that night we walked down to see the Eiffel Tower. I hadn’t been that excited to see the Eiffel Tower up close, because I assumed it would just look like this awkward metal…thing. I was really surprised to see that it looked…almost graceful, and…delicate. It was actually very pretty close up, and a very ingenious design.

We staked out a piece of grass and waited for it to light up. It was kind of cool being there when it did light up, and hearing everyone around applaud. While we were there, a woman approached me and asked me in French if I spoke English. I could tell she was American, so I told her in English that I did because I was American. It turned out she and her family are also from the Minneapolis suburbs. We chatted with them for a few minutes and take turns taking pictures of each other. By this time it is completely dark, so we headed back to the apartment. We were reminded again of the importance to roll with the punches, because while we didn’t end up doing Plan A, Plan B ended up being one of our favorite days in Paris.

Loire Valley, France

2009-04-27T19:09:00.007-05:00

For our first full day in France, we decided to take a day tour of some of the castles in France. We found one through Paris Vision that we thought would suffice nicely. A bunch of other tourists had the same idea, because the tour was packed.

When I had booked this tour, there had been four language options for this day: English, French, Spanish, or Japanese. For some reason, I had assumed that meant there would be four separate tours. Don’t ask me why. At some point while we were waiting, it occurred to me that there was probably one bus with audio guides in four different languages, which was fine with me. We waited outside with the rest of the tourist mob for the bus to appear. It finally does, and Hubby and I waited for a line to form to board the bus.

Except the line did not form. Instead, there was a massive surge of people toward the bus. I was totally caught off guard by not only the behavior of some of the group, but also by Paris Vision for not controlling it better. No attempt was made to have everyone line up. We were left to fend for ourselves. I was a little irked by that. I am also regretting having to spend an entire day with some of these people.

Hubby and I sighed and joined the mob, as there was no other choice. I got on the bus first, and Hubby had to literally push his way on behind me in order for us to stay together. It was a double decker bus, so we headed up to the top. That would prove later to be a mistake.

Everyone finally finished boarding, and we waited for audio guides to be passed around. However, there would be no audio guides. The audio guides were only handed out at the castles. The information on the bus was presented orally by the tour guides into a microphone, and they took turns speaking: two girls would switch off doing the French, English and Spanish portions, and there was a gentleman who ran the Japanese tour. Sometimes they did all four languages, sometimes they only did two or three. I started to think maybe this wasn’t the best way to go about seeing castles.

We got comfortable for the ride and watched the French countryside roll by. I watched the lady in front of me have a Heineken for breakfast. And then another Heineken for her mid-morning snack.

The first caslte on the tour was Chenonceau. Here are some pictures:

We both really enjoyed Chenonceau. The castle is picturesque, the information provided by the guide was decent, and the grounds were also very pretty. We didn’t have as long as we would have liked there, but I knew that would be the price we paid for taking a tour of this nature. For our free time, we had enough time to see either the remainder of the interior of the castle that hadn’t been covered in the tour, or the grounds. We chose the grounds, and had an enjoyable time.

Our next stop was Cheverny for lunch and also to see the Cheverny castle. I wasn’t expecting much from the lunch, as it was included in the price of the ticket, but it was actually really good. We ate at a restaurant right outside Cheverny (forget its name). Each table had a bottle of red and white wine, water, and lunch consisted of a salad, salmon over a bed of rice (it was really good), and some sweet breads for dessert.

After lunch, it was on to Cheverny, which we both could have skipped entirely. The architecture of the place, when you’re on a “castle” tour, is somewhat disappointing. It’s really more like a palace at best, and the interior didn’t have anything that we found to be particularly unique. The highlight of Cheverny was seeing the dogs in the dog pen on the grounds, along with the herb garden.

Here is a picture of Cheverny:

And here is one of the dogs:

We got back to the bus a little early, and couldn’t figure out why people were getting on and then getting right back off again. We got on, walked up to the second level, and…there’s the elusive summer we saw so little of on this trip! The upper levels of double decker busses apparently get quite hot when the air conditioning has been turned off for awhile! Having never been on a double decker bus, this was a new discovery for us. But we saw it as a trade off for the cool weather we had in London and sat down.

Our next and last stop was Chambord (on the way there we saw a double decker tour bus like ours that had gotten too close to the ditch on one of those narrow country roads and overturned, gulp). The lady in front of me was on her fourth or fifth Heineken by this point (and that’s not counting the two or three beers she had with lunch).

We got out and…another Wow moment. Chambord is the reality of what you imagine a castle to be. It was gorgeous. Hubby and I couldn’t wait to get going. But we were quickly disappointed to learn we would only have an hour here total. Only an hour? Chambord is large, with extensive grounds, and we really wanted to see as much as we could. But even with an hour, we knew—it was either going to be the interior or the grounds. So we did something that I considered slightly rude, and that I told myself I wouldn’t do: we stayed with the group to see the large circular staircase in the castle, and then we ditched the tour. I justified it by saying I would probably never be back here, and I should, as much as possible, make the most of it.

Here is Chambord:

We walked around the back of the castle, and then down a little way by the canal. The views of the castle from these points were gorgeous. We walked back in front, and then over to the other side, and then…it was time to head back to the bus. I was really sad to leave. I could easily have spent half a day there.

We waited until the last minute before boarding the Oven-On-Wheels that wass our tour bus. Overall the tour was informative, although I thought the structure of it could stand some revision. I was also impressed by the guides that spoke three different languages so well, as I’m butchering the few words of French I remember. One other thing I found interesting is that English seems to be a default languages of sorts. There were people on the English tour who did not speak English natively, but who selected the language because of the four offered, that was the common ground.

Ultimately, however, both Hubby and I felt that if we could do it differently, we would have, and I personally would only recommend this tour as a last resort. Ideally the best way to see the Loire Valley is to take the time and stay in the Loire for several days, allowing enough time to see the castles you want to see. Hubby even commented that for the money (304 Euros) he would have rather hired a private driver, told the driver that we wanted to drive around the Loire and that we’d tell him when we saw a cool castle we wanted to stop at. I had to agree with the latter. I much would have preferred either method to the tour. That being said, I was glad to be able to see this part of France. It was absolutely beautiful. I was also able to sleep most of the way back, which was nice, because it made staying up to watch the Tower twinkle that much easier!

PARIS

2009-04-18T15:10:00.005-05:00

Life is still really crazy but rather than completely abandon the blog indefinitely, I'm going to take the lazy way out and repost the second installment of our European trip report from 2007. After London we headed off for a week in Paris. I was both nervous and excited for this portion of the trip--nervous because I was going to have to rely on my rusty college French for the next week, and excited because, well, because it's Paris.

We arrived in Paris via the Eurostar from London. The train ride was uneventful, but I was a little disappointed to see a gray sky when we arrived. London had been frigid, and after a week, we were really hoping for some sunshine. But when I stepped off the train, I made my first pleasant discovery about Paris: Paris cloudy is warmer than London cloudy.

We took a cab from the train station to the apartment we had rented, and upon meeting our cab driver I realize that my rusty college French is going to become more problematic faster than I had hoped. The cab driver was of African descent, and spoke French as though he learned it as a second language as well. "This is going to be great," I thought. "Two people who don’t speak French well trying to communicate with each other in French." But we manage better than I thought we would, and arrive at the apartment after only a brief minute of confusion. (The street came up kind of fast so the driver passed it the first time around…and coming from the opposite direction, the building address numbers didn’t go in order so we had a little bit of difficulty locating the appropriate building. The apartment rental agency had given us explicit instructions, with pictures of the front of the building even, but of course I had left those in my suitcase, thinking that I had memorized the address and that was sufficient. Lesson learned: always, always have ALL of your travel documents/instructions on your person.)

We get upstairs to our apartment, and…WOW. I had found this apartment through Vacation In Paris, a well recommended agency on both Fodor's and Trip Advisor. The apartment was located in the 15th quarter, which is outside the main tourist center, but had a view to die for. Here are some pictures from our balcony:

Eiffel Tower Light Show

Panoramic Night View

Panoramic Day View

The Eiffel Tower actually looks closer in person than it does in the pictures—Hubby, a professional photographer, said there was a reason for this, which I’ve of course forgotten, but the point is we had a view of Paris that you can only dream of and think that you’ll never actually be lucky enough to have.

Our first day in Paris is very relaxed. We spent the evening gazing at our view, doing laundry (the apartment had a combo washer/dryer, which was nice, because it meant we only had to pack a week's worth of clothes for a 2 1/2 week European vacation) and getting some items at the local grocery store. The best butter and Yogurt I have ever had came from the grocery store a block from this apartment in Paris.

There is a light show on the hour every hour once it gets dark outside, and we didn't go to bed before watching this at least once from our apartment. Here is the video:

Here is a link to the apartment we rented, in case anyone is interested:

http://www.vacationinparis.com/apts/id_154.htm

R.I.P.

2009-04-03T13:35:00.000-05:00

Hubby's maternal grandmother died this week. She was the quintessential grandmother--she doted on her family and grandchildren, and was the centerpoint of the family as a whole. She had a two year battle with cancer, and toward the end it was really hard for Hubby to see how much pain she was in. The wake is Sunday and the funeral Monday--will get back to the blog when life calms back down.

We Should Bottle This Stuff And Sell It

2009-03-27T14:15:00.000-05:00

I have never been a fan of static electricity. It makes your clothes stick in places they shouldn't, makes your hair stick up where it should be lying down, causes your husband's socks to disappear into your flannel pajamas and your cats' fur to adhere to every surface of the house except the dust rag.

It can cause pain, especially if you grew up with a brother who liked to slide along the carpet in stocking feet and then shock you with the electric current he had managed to work up, or if you married someone who likes to slide along the carpet in stocking feet and then shock you (or the cats) with the electric current he manages to work up.

Despite this, static electricity has never been anything more than an annoyance. I mean, it's not like you can blow out entire electronic devices with one ill-timed slide and shock maneuver, right?

Hubby and I were playing Guitar Hero recently when some friends stopped by. Now, some people have video game addictions. I am not one of them, but I do enjoy myself a little Guitar Hero from time to time. It's just the right mix of mindless and enjoyable. It's not so hard that it requires more brain power than I have at the end of the day, but it's not so easy that it can't hold my interest. It is more expensive than your average video game, but really, can you put a price on hours of mindless entertainment? That's right. I think not.

Anyway, the day that these friends stopped by happened to be one of those static electricity days. You know, when, despite your best efforts to not generate static electricity, you still manage to shock everything you touch? One of them wanted to try his luck at Guitar Hero, so I handed him my Guitar. I say handed because it was still about 10 degrees outside and I refused to get out from under my electric blanket, so he had to get up from where he was sitting and walk a couple of steps to get the guitar. That's the kind of host I am, for those of you thinking about visiting, by the way.

When he grabbed the guitar it produced the loudest shock of static electricity I have ever heard. But it didn't just produce sound. It produced damage. That one little bolt of static electricity completely fried the guitar controller?!???!

Static Electricity: 1, Guitar Hero: 0. Proof once again that you just can't make this stuff up. And that Guitar Hero was overpriced to begin with.

California Dreamin'

2009-03-14T12:35:00.000-05:00

I've been doing a lot of that lately considering we just hit sub zero temperatures in MARCH. March is supposed to be the time when the birds start to come back and you can begin to feel the hint of spring in the air. It is not the time to have to dig the ice scraper back out from the pile of stuff its become buried under in the back of the car to chip away at the 1 inch layer of ice on your windshield at 8AM in the morning because there's no way your defroster is going to melt through that in the 25 minutes its going to take you to get to work.

But I digress. I really meant to tell you about our recent trip to CA. My boss was nice enough to send myself and the middle school youth minister to the Los Angeles Religious Education Congress at the end of February. When I moved to Minnesota, I always dreamed about being able to take a business trip back home, but never thought it would actually happen. The Congress was a four day seminar on Catholic Religious Education. It was awesome. Jim Wallis, author of God's Politics, was the keynote speaker on Saturday, and Thursday I was able to get to hear Mark Hart of Lifeteen speak twice. Plus on Friday Matt Maher played at lunch...just awesome. It was the first time since I've started this new job that I actually was someplace where I could get fed spiritually--that doesn't even happen at church much anymore, because I now attend church at the place I work and rather than being able to worship I'm constantly worried about worshipping right because I know people are watching...

But I digress again. Anyway, Congress was awesome, and we were able to be in CA for a week, so we were able to spend some quality time with friends and family. Did I mention this trip also happened to coincide with that unfortunate milestone birthday so many of us are celebrating this year? It was perfect timing. The first day we got there, we were able to hang out with my parents most of the day. My uncle joined us later that afternoon, and then we went out to dinner that night. Then Hubby and I went to the OC to check into the hotel my parents and uncle generously got for us (something about a concern that it wouldn't be appropriate for a high school youth minister to arrive at a religious convention with a severe case of road rage after having dealt with the southern CA traffic for the past two hours). The hotel was awesome--it had a huge koi pond in the center, and we got to see this little guy each morning at breakfast:

The next day was the first day of the conference, and I was able to meet Zack, a friend from high school, for lunch and get caught up. That night Hubby took me to a tea room in Orange for my birthday, and we joined my parents, brother and uncle at local Cheesecake Factory that night for dessert. My uncle got me a sympathy card for my birthday. A sympathy card. Those of you who know how old I am will understand the humor in this.

The next day Hubby and I had some time to ourselves after I was done at Congress, and we went out to dinner and then to see He's Just Not That Into You. It was cute. The following day it was more Congress and then a b-day celebration with extended family and friends at a local El Torito. Hubby and my mom did a great job of planning it, and it was really nice to see everyone. The next morning was the last day of Congress, and then Hubby and I had dinner with my family and longtime family friends. The next day was my b-day gift from Hubby: a day at Glen Ivy with a good friend. I love Glen Ivy. For those of you who have never been, it's an outdoor spa with different mineral baths and pools that are supposed to help you relax and with your skin. They have services there too, so of course we got massages. It was awesome, and over way too soon. We hung out again with my parents that night, and I met up with a girl that I haven't seen since we got married for coffee later. She was in high school when I was a youth ministry volunteer, and it was really awesome to see her as a grown 20-something-year-old woman. The next day, our final full day in CA, Hubby wanted to drive up to the mountains to get some pictures. I'm not really sure why we chose to go someplace with snow when we were in CA to escape snow, but it was fun. Here are some pictures:

That night we met some friends for dinner, and then caught the red eye back. It was a great trip, and over way too soon, but we were glad to be able to see everyone.

It's Been Awhile...

2009-03-04T20:48:00.000-06:00

Wow. More than a month and no blog post. It feels like I was just updating this blog yesterday. Where has the time gone?

Here's an update on what's been going on for those of you who still stop by. February, like the previous four months at work, was crazy. We had our weekend retreat and another day retreat in addition to all the other regular youth ministry activities. So preparing for those while trying not to lose control of everything else was hectic.

Work has been frustrating. We have a large faith formation program, and the students preparing for Confirmation are required to do a reflective paper on their service projects, have an interview and write a letter to the pastor. This is all supposed to be done by the end of this month. Hardly any of them have bothered to do this yet despite multiple mailings with reminders and repeated announcements during class sessions and parent meetings. Sometimes I spend more time babysitting teens and their parents than I do ministering to youth and today it has just been getting to me. It's not even so much the fact that they haven't bothered to take care of this yet as it is the reason behind it--they don't care. And not just the teens--the parents as well. Why would you sign your teen up for faith formation if you don't even go to church on a regular basis (or, for many of them, at all)? What kind of message is that sending? We have this amazing God and they're too wrapped up in hockey and all their other commitments to even notice. It makes me sad sometimes, and I don't know what to do about it.

We did just get back from a great week in California though. I did have to work for part of it, but we were able to spend some quality time with friends and family. The next post will have the details and hopefully some pictures, so stay tuned.

#6

2009-01-31T17:04:00.001-06:00

I have been tagged by my friend, Laura, to do a photo meme.

Here are the rules:

1. Open your photos, choose the 6th folder and then the 6th photo in that folder.

2. Post the photo with a description about it and tag 6 friends to do the same.

So here's our #6:

This was taken in our backyard. In the midwest, squirrels are considered pests/rodents, but being from CA where the only wildlife you see in your backyard are cockroaches, I love them. We have a feeder out back and it is so much fun to watch them run around.

Thanks, Laura, for the meme. I'll get to the other one hopefully this week. :) I'm supposed to tag 6 people, but I'm not going to. If you're interested in the topic, consider yourself tagged!

BRRRRRR

2009-01-16T11:37:00.000-06:00

It is cold here.

So cold that your skin starts burning from the cold after a minute or two of being outside (I think the medical term for this is frostbite).

So cold that you have to call your mother-in-law and her husband to come over and jump start your car in the middle of the day because it won't start.

So cold that the salt they use to melt the snow can't work...resulting in an unfortunate supply of black ice. Everywhere.

So cold that it is actually too cold to snow.

So cold that you have to use your break time at work to let your car run for a few minutes to help minimize the chances that it won't start again when you go to leave at night.

So cold that half the schools in the state are either delayed or closed completely.

So cold that if you don't let your car run for at least 10 minutes before trying to drive it, you will spend your morning commute either sitting in a stalled car or trying to keep from getting frostbite in your car, because the heat will not kick in for at least 15 minutes and even though it's at least 20 degrees warmer in your car than it is outside, when it's -20 degrees outside it's sort of a moot point.

So cold that it's -20 degrees outside.

So cold that as I type this, it is -8 degrees here... and 24 degrees in Antarctica. Antarctica people.

So cold that when you get to your office all excited to be someplace warm after the trek through the frigid parking lot, you find that there is no heat because the outside heating unit that controls the temperature in your office space has frozen over.

So cold that your nose hairs freeze upon immediate contact with the air.

So cold that if you leave the house with your hair wet, that freezes too (you'd think I'd learn after years of living here, but alas...).

So cold that your husband, the stalwart Minnesotan, says it feels cold in the house and allows the heat to stay at 65 degrees instead of the normal 59. And then still thinks it's cold.

And it's only January...

In The 'Hood

2009-01-09T11:26:00.000-06:00

You know you live in the Ghetto when:

1. People in the low-income housing directly abutting your backyard use said backyard as their personal land fill.

2. Items thrown over your backyard fence include not only other people's trash and toys, but on occasion an old Dr. Pepper bottle filled with a substance that looks suspiciously like human pee.

3. Your neighbors think it's okay to throw their trash over your fence.

4. Low-income housing directly abuts your backyard.

5. The neighborhood kids routinely hop the fence into your yard despite repeated requests for them not to do so because they think that just because you have a swing set in your backyard that your backyard is a public park and not private property.

6. When you threaten to talk to their parents after having to chase them out of your yard too many times, they look at you with surprise and say "But my parents said it was okay."

7. Some of the neighbors bring in their trash cans 6 days after trash pickup...if you're lucky.

8. Your backyard fence has been knocked down on more than one occasion by a person who learned to drive in a country other than the U.S. and who can't seem to figure out that you don't have to wait until you hit things to figure out that you've gone too far, you can use those mirrors they put in the cars for you to judge how close you are to something.

9. Visitors to your low-income neighbors arrive in RV's which they park in front of your house and then proceed to set up camp on your curb for the duration of their visit. Calls to the police only result in them backing up their trailer 30 feet or so.

10. And finally, you have to pause the movie you're watching on a Friday night with your husband because you have just noticed that the SWAT team is running through your yard with their rifles drawn looking for God knows who and you need to stay away from the windows to avoid any stray bullets.

I. Can't. Wait. To. Move.

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-21T15:51:00.000-06:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

How Did You Spend Your Thanksgiving Holiday?

2008-11-30T17:36:00.012-06:00

It finally happened.

I still can't quite believe it.

I tried to avoid it.

I came up with every stall tactic I could think of:

"You already bought an old one that you are supposed to be fixing up and it's been sitting on our driveway for three years."

"But I want to go back to grad school, and higher education trumps horsepower."

"Let's go to Europe this year and we can revisit this topic next year, okay?"

When those ran out, I started with the excuses:

"We don't need it."

"We can't afford it."

"You will kill yourself."

The stall tactics and excuses lasted for five years. And then Friday, something happened.

I ran out. Completely drew a blank. Had nothing else left to say.

And that is how this happened:

Yes, my friends, that is now sitting in our garage. It is Hubby's Christmas gift. For the next 50 years. And that is how we spent the day after Thanksgiving. Economy, you are welcome.

Happy Belated Thanksgiving to everyone.

A New Chapter

2008-11-21T15:52:00.000-06:00

So...as most of you know, I have a new job. For those of you who didn't know, I have a new job. About two months ago I started work as a high school youth minister at a church here in the Twin Cities. My apologies to those who enjoyed the stories about my previous place of employment--I will not be able to blog as freely about the new place, so you'll have to wait until we see each other in person or have a chance to talk privately to hear the good stuff.

The journey here was kind of surreal. There were three interviews in the hiring process--the first with the woman who is now my boss, the second with a search committee, and the third with the pastor of the church. My grandfather died two days before the second interview, so I showed up to the search committee interview in a daze. I don't remember really what was said, just that my one goal during the whole thing was not to cry. The third interview was the day after we got back from the burial. So what was already a fairly intense interview process became...even more complicated. God was definitely guiding the whole process. There's a little more to the story than that, but again...not ready to make that public.

The past two months have been a whirlwind of new faces, procedures, events--everything that comes with a new job. Hubby has been really supportive. Sometimes I just come home after being a crazy person all day and he's either got dinner waiting or gives me a back rub or something. I am grateful for the ministry and will try to do a better job of keeping you all updated!

A New Look

2008-11-14T10:31:00.003-06:00

Okay, so I saw Laura's new blog and had to get one too. Plus, a gray line appeared in the middle of the posts in the old layout and I couldn't figure out how to get rid of it so this was the next best thing.

Work has been hectic and will continue to be so for about the next week. I'll post more later...

Why My Next House Won't Have A Basement

2008-11-08T12:44:00.005-06:00

Growing up in LA, I had never seen a house with a basement until I moved to Minnesota. I was immediately intrigued with our basement. After all, it had so many different uses that heretofore had been unbeknownst to me. For example, what does one do with the wedding gift whose purpose or function one can't ever quite figure out, but one also doesn't want to return said gift because that would produce one very upset aunt? Why, one puts it (out of sight) in the basement! Are you having company but are short on time to clean the house? Throw everything in the basement and shut the door! Did a relative unexpectedly stop by in the morning and you don't want to answer the door in your jammies? Basement! ("Oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't hear the doorbell ring, I was downstairs in the basement.") Husband's Lego collection? Definitely basement.

You know what else goes in the basement? The main drain, or the place where all the other drains in the house lead to.

You know what happens when that drain backs up?

Water. Everywhere. Suspicious debris. Everywhere. In the shower downstairs. In the sink downstairs. In the toilet downstairs. And. All. Over. The. Basement. Floor.

This has been happening about once a year since we moved here. There used to be a tree in our front yard that has since been removed, but apparently the roots that are left behind are quite resilient, and they can KEEP GROWING even after the tree is long gone.

And boy, have they ever. They keep growing right into the pipe of our main drain and clogging it.

So about once a year the nice people at Mr. Rooter have to come out and snake out the roots that have grown into our main drain. Of course, we don't know ahead of time when this will be. I usually find out when I go downstairs to throw in another load of laundry and find two inches of water all over the floor from the last load, like I did this morning.

So now we sit and wait for the plumber to arrive. Meanwhile, we can't use any water in the house unless we want to add to the mess downstairs. (And honey, I don't care how bad it gets, NO, I am not going across the street to Target everytime I have to pee. You can't make me. I refuse. I would rather go to Target once and buy a package of Depends.) And yes, my husband did seriously suggest that we adopt this plan of action until the plumber arrives.

Anyway, this is why our next house will not have a basement.

So how is everyone else's Saturday morning going?

Seven Random Mrs. R Facts

2008-10-24T10:09:00.005-05:00

Corinne over at My Haiku tagged me--thanks Corinne, now I don't have to come up with a blog topic. :) The rules: link your tagger and list these rules on your blog. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog. Here goes:

1. I was once involved in a high speed car chase (no, not like VE's). It was back when I was a reporter. I was on an overnight ride along with a branch of the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Office, and at one point the officer who was stuck with me got a call about a high speed chase. So we went careening after the guy, sirens blaring, flying past the rest of the traffic, the whole deal. The CHP eventually took it over, but it defininitely provided some added excitement to a night otherwise filled with DUI busts.

2. I saw my high school french teacher almost get killed by frozen pee. No joke. He had been giving a lesson in front of the class, and then stepped a few feet away to get something off his desk. Almost immediately afterwards, a chunk of large blue ice came crashing through the roof of the classroom we were in, and the bulk of it landed where he had been standing not two seconds before (the rest of it shattered all over the rest of us). Blue ice, for those of you who don't know, is what happens when people pee on aiplanes into toilets that have a leak. The pee mixes with a chemical disinfectant (hence the blue color), leaks out to a place that is exposed to the outside, and then freezes because of the high altitude. If too much of it accumulates, someone on the ground below gets a nice surprise. So yes, someone else's frozen pee fell on me.

3. I have serious OCD issues. I am the type of person that likes to have things arranged perfectly. I even requested bookends for my new office because the fact that I would otherwise have to have a couple of books on the end of each shelf tilted to keep the rest of the books in an upright position drove. me. crazy.

4. I have hiked up (most of) a mountain. It was Mt. Roberts in Alaska. I was out of breath before we even got to the trail head. This should have told me something, but alas, there has always seemed to be a short circuit in my brain when it comes to the area of common sense. So I spent the entire day thinking I was having a heart attack. But by the grace of God I did not die in the Alaskan wilderness, and got to witness some of the most beautiful scenery and views I have ever seen. And I made it about 3/4 of the way up the mountain!

5. I have been within feet of a grizzly bear and survived. Another Alaska story. We had gone to an island in Alaska known for its bear viewing. They had two viewing areas: one was right on the beach, and the other was a tower that was about a mile hike into the woods. The forest ranger with the gun accompanied you to the viewing area on the beach, but for whatever reason, they did not go with you if you chose to hike to the tower. Again, this should have told me something, but I had already stepped in bear scat and had the bejeezus scared out of me by a grizzly before I figured it out. Fortunately, the bear was more scared of us than we were of it, so it ran off without making too much of a fuss.

6. I used to provide medical assistance at local marathons. Years ago, I was a first responder for the Red Cross. In some states, this medical training is sufficient to make you a paramedic, but in CA we were considered one step below a paramedic. Different organizations would request our services if they were hosting a marathon or bike ride, or other event where medical assistance might be needed. It was pretty cool.

7. This doesn't have a fancy title, I just think it's a funny story (well, I do now--I didn't at the time). We were fortunate at our wedding to find a beautiful banquet room at a local golf course for the reception. One wall was completely glass, which provided an astounding view of the mountains in the background. It was about 108 degrees the day we got married. Our cake was right by this window/wall. It melted.

And now I tag Kristy (because she needs to update her blog--I'm having withdrawals), Jody, Colleen, Alicia, Holly, Queen (I know, I know, you're busy...you can save this for one of those days when you know you really should update your blog but the creative juices are not flowing) and MadMad.

Leaving London

2008-10-14T10:25:00.004-05:00

I had a really great time in London and hated to leave (but we went to Paris from London, which softened the blow considerably). We took Eurostar from London to Paris--it was much easier (and cheaper) than flying, and we got to see some of the French countryside as we traveled.
The ride was uneventful, but there was one incident at Waterloo International before we left that I thought I'd share with you.

We brought three suitcases with us on this trip. Hubby had a large suitcase, and I brought two little ones. Throughout the trip, Hubby commandeered two bags—his big one and one of my little ones, and I took charge of my other little bag and any miscellaneous items we happened to have acquired. He was in front of me at the baggage screen area in Waterloo before we boarded the train. He loaded the two bags on the conveyor belt, and passed through the security checkpoint.

I had to wait a minute or two before I could start to load my stuff on the belt, as everything else already on the belt needed to move a bit before there was room. I wasn't carrying anything heavy, but I had a purse, the suitcase, a bag of snacks for the train and a water bottle, so I had to pause for a minute and strategize a plan of attack for how I was going to load all of these things onto the conveyor belt without…any incidents. I must have looked slightly overwhelmed, because as I finally got ready to load the suitcase on the belt, the security guard put his hand on it and told me not to load it.

I had a split second to think:"OHMYGOSHWHATISWRONGWHATDIDIDOTHEY'RE NOTGOINGTOLETMETHROUGHANDIWANTTOGOTOPARIS!" before the guard pointed to my husband and asked if we were together.

I said that we were and had another split second to think: "OHMYGOSHWHATISWRONGWHATDIDHEDOTHEY’RENOTGOINGTOLETHIMONTHE
TRAINANDIWANTTOGOTOPARIS!” The guard asked my husband’s name, I told him, and the guard called him back through the security gate and said:

“You left your woman here with the bag,” and made my husband load the third suitcase on the conveyor belt for me.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I will remember that guard for the rest of my life. My husband didn’t find it as amusing as I did, naturally, as his feeling was that I was more than capable of loading the bag myself (which is true, and I thought our luggage assignments were more than fair). Still…priceless.

I'll get back to regular posting shortly. Sorry to abandon you guys...life has been hectic and this was just easier. Thanks to all of you who still read this blog!

London, Day 6: York

2008-10-10T09:40:00.000-05:00

I had seen a picture of the York Minster in doing research for this trip, and decided within 2 seconds that York would definitely be something we saw while we were in England. York Minster is the largest Gothic cathedral in Britain. It was one of the few Catholic churches that was not destroyed by Henry VIII, to the benefit of the rest of history. We caught an 8 a.m. train and were in York by about 10 a.m. The train seemed a little crowded to me, and we learned upon arrival that it was horse racing day in York! York was very crowded on the day we were there, but it was still an enjoyable day. We headed in the direction of the Minster, but first stopped at a café for breakfast. Hubby had been wanting to try a traditional English breakfast, which included eggs, toast, grilled mushrooms and tomatoes, and baked beans, and he is able to do so here (I do as well, although getting the vegetarian version). It was very good, but very large—I don’t even think I ate half of what was on my plate. We go to the Minster, and…Wow. We saw many churches in Europe during our trip, but this was my favorite. We spent a good two hours here—I attended a Communion ceremony while Hubby climbed the Tower, and we both saw the Undercroft/Crypt area. It is just an amazing building. Here are some pictures:

Above: York Minster

Above: Stained Glass window inside the Minster

Above: View of the Minster and York from Hubby's Tower view

After the Minster we walk back through York to see the Shambles. The Shambles is an old street in York that used to house several butcher shops--the hooks that the butchers hung their meat on 600 years ago are still there. This is yet another sight I can’t believe—that something hundreds of years old can still be not only standing but functioning (it's now gift shops).

Above: The Shambles

Our last stop in York was the Roman Wall. This wall was built during Roman times around the then city of York. And like so many other things in Europe--yep, it was still standing. There is a walking path next to it, and for those who so choose, they can follow the wall around the city. We only chose to walk next to some of it, but it was still quite an experience.

Above: The Roman Wall with the York Minster in the background.

Dinner that night was a chain restaurant in London called Pizza Express. There was one right across from our hotel, and Hubby had been eyeing it for a few days. Hubby had pizza that was okay, but the mushroom ravioli I ordered was…awful. The bottom was burned, and the part that managed to not get overcooked was mushy from being drenched in the Cream of Mushroom Soup they used for a sauce. I didn’t think it was possible to top McDonald’s to earn the title of Worst Meal in London, but the mushroom ravioli at Pizza Express did this with flying colors. (In the travel forum I originally posted this report in, another traveler commented that her mother had the exact same experience with the mushroom ravioli at a different Pizza Express, so I know it wasn't just me.)

I'll do one last post to wrap up the London portion of our trip, and then get back to posting about present times. :)

London Day 5: British Museum & Les Miserables!

2008-10-03T08:08:00.001-05:00

Jody's trip report, the whole reason for my nostalgia, is up. Check it out--she's got some great pictures.

Today we went to see the British Museum during the day and then headed over to the West End to see Les Miserables that night. I was really looking forward to seeing the British Museum, specifically the Egyptian exhibits. The museum is large, and so we were not able to see all of it, but we did see the Egyptian exhibits, which I loved, as well as the Rosetta Stone (but we couldn't get any pictures because it was swarmed with people). It's amazing to stand in front of something and realize it's 5,000 years old. I still can’t believe those items have survived Time for so long. We also saw the jewelry items (there was a name for this wing of the museum, and I’ve completely forgotten it), these cool tiny wooden carvings, and we went up to the print room as well. We were there for probably 3-4 hours. I’d like to go back someday and see the rest of it; I really enjoyed the exhibits. I was glad I had done some reading on the exhibits before we left though, and had some sort of idea of what I wanted to see. The museum is large enough where I would have felt kind of lost if we didn’t have some sort of game plan upon arrival. Here are some pictures of the exhibits:

We headed back to the hotel and stopped for an early dinner at a nearby pub. Food was one of the areas where we didn't spend a lot of money on during our trip. In London, we were lucky enough to have a grocery store across the street from our hotel, so we stopped there frequently for their take-away sandwiches and salads, and spent the rest of the time eating in pubs or local chain restaurants. This night I had fish and chips and mushy peas, and Hubby got another hamburger. The portions were very generous, and the food was good. We were definitely most impressed with the food at the pubs compared to any other place we ate while in London. Not only were the portions quite large, the prices were really reasonable as well.

Finally it was time to head to Les Miserables. I had really been looking forward to this as well. We found a site through TripAdvisor that has many 2 for 1 deals on attractions in London for those holding a valid train ticket. We had purchased a 7-day travelcard, which allowed us to use these offers, so we got one ticket for free, which was a great way to save on what otherwise would have been an expensive night out. The London theater scene also has a site that lets you research seats in all the theaters, so we used that site before purchasing and were glad we did--it was right on, and we had great seats.

And the performance--Wow. Hubby listed it as one of the highlights of his trip, if that says anything. The actor who played Jean Valjean had an amazing voice, and I have never seen an actress nail the character of the Madame Thenardier as did the woman in this production. I had considered many different plays, and was very glad we ended up selecting Les Miserables.

I'll post the last two days in London as soon as I can, and then I might take a break from this trip report to post about some of the things that have been going on in life.

Okay...Stonehenge, Finally

2008-09-25T12:32:00.000-05:00

Getting back to last year's European adventure, day four was spent at Stonehenge. I was really excited for this day. We used a tour company called MadMax for this portion of the trip, and were very impressed. They crammed a lot into the day but we never felt rushed at any of the sites. They also do small tours, so you're not being herded around with 100 other people--just about a dozen or so. Nice.

Stonehenge was our first stop on the tour, and this was the first time on the trip where it really hit me that I’m in England! Stonehenge was the reason we went to England in the first place, and it did not disappoint. It is roped off, but at one point, you can get fairly close to it—close enough where you feel very, very small next to the stones.

Next stop was Avebury, which is another ancient stone formation, but it is huge. It is about a mile long, and you are still allowed to walk amongst the stones. The tour guide gave us a little background information, then we were free to roam for a little while. There were sheep roaming amongst the stones too, which I thought was cool in a random sort of way.

After Avebury, we went to visit two Cotswold Villages. The first was Lacock. (Ladies, you will probably recognize this town from the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice. Lacock was transformed into the town of Merryton.) We went to the King George pub in Lacock for lunch. It has the longest standing liquor license in the country. I loved Lacock. I kept walking up and down the streets (all four of them) marveling that these cottages had existed for so long.

Our final stop was Castle Combe, which was also really cute. It made me want a cottage in the Cotswolds. It had one main street, and some of the cottages had been there for hundreds of years.

The tour had left from Bath, which is about an hour and a half west of London by train, and a tourist destination in and of itself. We were lucky to get back in time to see the Roman Baths--literally a spa dating to Roman times, with the infrastructure still largely intact. It was fascinating.

As we got to the train station to head back to London, we discovered it was rush hour. We used rail passes for our long train trips in England for the flexibility, but while the rail passes allow you onto any train, they do not guarantee you a seat. We managed to find one empty seat, which Hubby gallantly let me have, but he got stuck standing for a couple of stops.

I had really hoped to be able to sleep a little on the train, but unfortunately the seats directly across from me were taken by two girls in their early 20’s who were very excited about their trip to London and were quite passionate in their discussions of how big their bums were and the fact that with their bosses getting Myspace accounts, their bosses can now see when they have been active on their own pages. Every time I started to fall asleep, one of them would shriek something and I’d be jolted awake again, sigh.

We stopped by Parliament and Big Ben when we got back so Hubby could get some nighttime shots. Our first order of business however is dinner. We started heading in the same direction we had gotten lost in the day before on our way to Buckingham Palace, when Hubby said something that completely caught me off guard: “There was a McDonald’s in this direction.”

What? McDonald’s? Hubby never wants to eat at McDonald’s. Plus, I did not come all the way to London to eat at McDonald’s. Then Hubby said that he had seen a hamburger place the night before, but I had been so eager to try another place that he didn’t mention he wanted to try it. Oh. For Hubby to suggest McDonald’s, Hubby must really, really really want a hamburger. We eat at McDonald’s.

McDonald’s is just as crappy in the UK as it is in the US.

But at least we got some great pictures for our efforts.

Life Has Been A Whirlwind

2008-09-23T09:16:00.000-05:00

I will continue my Europe report, but I wanted to apologize for the lack of posting. Life has been crazy lately. I got a new job, and we've had a lot of family commitments in both CA and MN. I promise to start swinging by all your blogs again soon! I miss you guys.

They Say It Comes In Three's...

2008-09-02T14:17:00.003-05:00

There's nothing like getting a call on a three-day weekend from your father that starts out "I have some bad news..."

My maternal grandfather died yesterday. My parents got a call yesterday morning from his neighbors, who became alarmed when they noticed he hadn't picked up his newspaper by his usual time. They knocked on the door and called for him, but he didn't respond. They called my mom, who told them how to get into the house. My parents left for my grandfather's house right away, but my mom was thinking it was more likely that the paper had just been delivered late, and that my grandfather had gone to run errands. But she got a call back a few minutes later from the neighbors, who had found him on the floor in his bedroom. The coroner said it looked like cardiac arrest, and said death would have been almost instantaneous. The coroner put the time of death at 8 a.m., but my mom and uncle thought it was earlier, because all of the night lights were still on in the house, and there was no sign that my grandfather had started his day. He was an early riser, and religiously stuck to his daily routines. They had both talked to him the day before, and my parents had gone over on Saturday to help with some of the household chores.

He was a stubborn man--my mother and uncle had approached him several times about assisted living, but he refused to leave his house. I guess in a way it was good timing--he was getting to the point where he would not have been able to live on his own, and this way he got to finish his life in his house the way he wanted to. He loved basketball, and was an avid Lakers fan. He played both football and basketball at Colorado State, before World War II cut his career short. He served in the Navy, and used to tell us stories about the pet monkey he got in the service (that he wasn't allowed to bring back to the States).

The funeral will be sometime within the next week. I'm going to take a break from the blog until about the middle of the month. When this has all passed, I'll post the Stonehenge stuff (oh, and just to clarify, all the Europe stuff is from a trip we took last year--I just got lazy with the blog and resurrected my trip report so I wouldn't have to write--sorry for the confusion).

I like to think my grandfather and grandmother are together again, and that maybe they're enjoying the time together they never got because of Alzheimer's. It's still weird to lose them both within six months though. My husband's great-uncle recently passed as well, so maybe if the old addage about death coming in three's is really true, the Grim Reaper will leave us alone for awhile.

A Royal Day

2008-08-25T16:22:00.008-05:00

Day 3 of our London vacation: Today we visited Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, the Royal Mews and the Queen's Gallery.

We took the tube--the London version of the subway--everywhere. It was so convenient to be able to go wherever you wanted without having to worry about having a car or pay for a taxi. There are many a places here in the U.S. that could learn a thing or 500 from London's mass transportation system. Today when we exited the tube, we were immediately confronted with the Parliament building and Big Ben. I was awestruck to find myself standing directly beneath these landmarks that I’ve only seen in pictures my entire life. Hubby snapped a few quick pictures, and we headed over to the Abbey.

Above: Big Ben during the day

We got there a few minutes before the first guided Verger tour begins. I had read about the tour in my research, and had really wanted to take it, and we were both glad we did. It was one of the highlights of the trip. You get a wealth of knowledge from the Verger who leads the tour, and you get to see areas that are normally closed to the public, such as sitting in the choir seats, and the area behind the altar. There was an Australian girl in our tour who looked like she was somewhere in the ballpark of 12-14, and she was just fascinated with the chairs that are reserved for those who have been knighted. At the end of this part of the tour, our Verger let her go back and sit for a minute in the chair that is reserved for the queen herself! I thought that was really nice of him, to give her a memory that she will never forget.

Above: Westminster Abbey

After the tour was over, we walked around the outside of the Abbey so Hubby could take pictures of the outside. As we were leaving we ran into…hordes and hordes of tourists. Hordes. We’d just discovered another perk to our hotel, the London Hilton Islington: it’s off of the beaten tourist path. Our next stop was Buckingham Palace, so we took a quick look at the map, planned on stopping for lunch on the way, fought for space on the sidewalk while trying not to get jostled too much, and headed off.

I followed Hubby, thinking he knew where he was going. Hubby followed me, thinking I knew where I was going. We walked way out of our way before realizing that neither one of us knew where we were going. We stopped to pull out the map and realized that from Westminster Abbey we walked east instead of north like we should have, and were now in the Charing Cross area. Sigh. We backtracked via the Mall, but that little misstep cost us the time we would have spent eating lunch.

The Queen's Gallery (the Queen's private museum) operates on timed admission, and our slot was scheduled for 2 p.m. I had wanted to see the Royal Mews (where the royal horses and carriages are kept) prior to the Queen's Gallery, so we were booking it at this point. It had been recommended from several sources to allow about an hour for the Mews, and by the time we get there it is 1:15. I was disappointed and kicking myself, because the Royal Mews was one of the things I was most looking forward to, and I didn't want to have to rush through it. But I shouldn't have worried, because upon entering the Royal Mews I discovered...my first real disappointment of the trip. There were five carriages on display, which looked very…similar. The gold carriage (forget it’s official name) was impressive, but what I was looking forward to the most was seeing the horses, but there were only three out, and one was in stables that you could see from the walkway but you weren’t able to walk past it, so you only got a peak. The other two were cooped up in the tiniest of stalls and turned around so you had a nice view of their rear ends. Maybe I was expecting too much? To see the Royal Mews in their entirety, read the displays we were interested in (we’re not fans of audio guides—maybe that would have added more?) took 20 minutes. We got the Queen’s Gallery early, which was fine, as it gave us some time to sit down. We enjoyed the exhibit (although we had our first dumb tourist moment here: the nice young lady who was directing traffic pointed us in the direction of the audio guides—we only caught the audio guide part and didn’t realize that this was also the entrance. Not being audio guide people we were not interested, so headed for the first room we saw with paintings, but we couldn’t figure out how to open the door, because there were no knobs. With the exception of two staff members, we are the only people in this area, which is empty and filled with marble floors, so no matter how much we’re trying to keep our voices down, they are carrying. We finally realize that the reason we can’t open the doors is because they’re not meant to be opened: as it turns out, this was the exit of the exhibit, and the nice young lady, who at this point was somewhat chagrined, politely asked us to please head in the appropriate direction. We were somewhat embarrassed.)

After the Queen’s Gallery, we made our way to Buckingham Palace. Buckingham Palace was another “If I knew then what I know now” experience for us. It felt like Disneyland Goes Royal. The place was packed (although they do a good job of directing traffic), and inevitably the areas in which we did not care to pause were always the areas in which everyone else did wish to pause, making maneuvering through them difficult. It was interesting to see the rooms, but…after a few of them, they all started to look the same. You do however get to walk through some of the gardens on the way out, which I enjoyed.

We walked back to the front of the palace because Hubby wanted to get some pictures. In all honesty, if we had walked by the front of the palace and just seen that, it would have been a sufficient Buckingham Palace experience for me, but of course you don’t know that beforehand. I sat on the fountain in front of Buckingham Palace and waited while Hubby did his thing. While there I had the pleasure of meeting Jasper, a precocious little boy who was completely intent on retrieving some of the coins in the fountain for his own personal use. He and his friends started to form a human chain for this purpose, with Jasper being hung over the edge of the fountain. I thought, “This can’t be good,” so I told them to be careful. They looked at me like I was from Mars and kept on keeping on in their quest for coins. I wondered where their parents were. It turned out the parents were sitting up a level on the fountain, also telling Jasper and company not to play in the fountain. They were being ignored too. Finally the parents came down, but rather than shoo the kids away, they shockingly decided to participate in the coin retrieval process, assisting in the human chain. As the kids naturally got more and more rowdy, one of the girls got knocked over, and tears ensued. The parent of the offending child couldn't figure out how that happened (it’s called discipline, people). Meanwhile, with the help of his mother, Jasper has managed to get some coins. He has also seen fit to exchange the sock of one of his friends for the coins, so there is now a sock floating in the fountain and a half barefoot little boy walking away from it. I didn't quite believe what I had seen, and thought maybe I was sicker than I realized and had hallucinated the entire thing. I did not, as a second look verified the sock was still in the fountain.

We spent the rest of the night watching English TV. We saw the UK version of American Idol (we were happy to see that the UK has just as many delusional people as the US--the judges are also much more harsh), some random game shows, and my favorite, Mock the Week, which was a combination of "Whose Line Is It Anyway" and SNL's Weekend Update. I miss Mock the Week.

We weren't allowed to take pictures in Westminster Abbey or Buckingham Palace, so the post is light on pictures today, sorry guys. The next one will be better--it's Stonehenge!

Tower of London

2008-08-21T20:48:00.012-05:00

Sorry this is later than promised...

I actually woke up with a cold this morning, and wanted nothing more than to take a hot shower before heading out. Too bad the hot water in the hotel malfunctioned, leaving me with two choices: take an ice cold shower or foist myself on the British after already having gone longer than normal without a shower. I chose the first option. It wasn't the right call, but by the time I realized that, I had shampoo in my hair. I finished as quickly as I could, and finished getting ready. Since it was August, we had packed summer attire almost exclusively, which did not serve us well on this day since we discovered when we got outside that it was probably in the 60's and raining. We decided not to go back and change, hoping that it would warm up. Another bad call.

What wasn't a bad call: the Tower of London. This place is awesome. The Tower used to be the royal castle before Windsor. It was built in the middle of London hundreds of years ago, and modern day London grew up around it. The London skyline is fascinating from this area--you have many very modern buildings, and then this medieval castle in the middle of them all. Way cool.

We got there about 11 a.m., and took a Yeoman Warder tour. The Yeoman Warders are the official guards of the tower, and they have to live on the premises. The tour provided some interesting information that we wouldn't otherwise have gotten, and we were able to see the Chapel, which is only open to those who take the tour.

After the tour, we headed over to see the crown jewels, which are housed in the one of the buildings that comprise the Tower, got mowed over by a group of over-exuberant Japanese tourists (“Oh, I’m sorry, how silly of me for standing in this space which was so obviously intended for you instead”), and then headed over to the White Tower, which is the main building. I really enjoyed the displays in the White Tower, and one of my favorite parts of the entire day was just walking up the staircases in all of the towers. They are just like something you'd see out of a movie-stone, narrow, and winding. It just made me feel like I’d gone back in time several hundred years, and you got some sort of sense for what it was like to have actually lived/worked in the Tower. Plus it made me feel like I was actually in a castle.

At one point, we saw a gentleman coming out of a smallish doorway, so we poked our heads in after he left to see what he was looking at, and find…a medieval toilet! Hahahahahaha!! It was a seat with a round hole on it, and a pipe that went down at a diagonal angle until hitting the outer wall, where there was then an opening directly to the outside world to dispose of the toilet offerings. Eww! We wondered if anyone ever happened to be walking around outside near the pipe openings when…well, you get the idea…

We spent about four hours at the Tower, and saw pretty much everything. It ended up being a really good morning. After we were done, we walked around to look at Tower Bridge, and then headed off to the British Library.

The British Library had been the one thing I knew from the beginning I wanted to see in London. It has old old copies of the Bible, and original copies of the Magna Carter, pages of Leonardo da Vinci's notebook, some of Shakespeare's works, and some works from the Beatles. I really enjoyed our time there.

We headed back to the Tower of London later that night to attend the Ceremony of the Keys. The Yeoman Warders have a particular way that they have to lock up the Tower--it's been the same ritual for hundreds of years, and it is free limited seating if you request your tickets in time. It was so weird watching the Tower being closed down at night the same way it has been for centuries, and being some of the only people in the Tower after dark.

There are just so many cool things to experience in London. Jody, I hope you have a great time. :)

And here are some pictures!

Above: Tower of London

Above: Our Yeoman Warder

Above: Royal Guard at the Tower of London

Above: The White Tower

Above: Armor display in the White Tower

Above: The Tower Bridge at night.

Above: London Skyline

Ah, Memories

2008-08-18T15:11:00.006-05:00

You know what I was doing a year ago today? Wandering the streets of London on a European (London, Paris, Rome) vacation. I'm not sure if it's because of Jody's upcoming birthday trip or if it's just a case of nostalgia, but I've been thinking about it a lot lately, and since I've been in kind of a funk where I've felt sort of blah toward the blog, I thought I would repost a trip report I wrote for a travel forum shortly after we got back, to commemorate our one year European anniversary. That way, you will have something to read but I do not have to write. Plus, you get to look at pictures of Europe. What's better than that? So without further ado, here's day one (which was really a year ago yesterday...so I'm a little late, so what?)

We spent six months planning this trip. It had been a dream of mine, and I was so grateful to be able to go. It was agonizing waiting for it to be time to leave, but one hot summer day last August it was finally, finally time to go. We scored a direct, red-eye flight from American Siberia to Gatwick airport in London, but I was so excited, I couldn't sleep on the plane. Plus on international flights they still feed you and entertain you with personal movie screens and video games?!? so I was in ADHD heaven.

We arrived at 9 a.m. London time. Gatwick is quite a distance from central London, so we took a train into the city and then a cab to our hotel (London Hilton Islington--we scored a great rate on Hotwire of $95 U.S. dollars per night and based on the price we paid, had no complaints). We arrived early, so our room wasn't ready yet, so we dropped off our bags and began to wander the streets.

Islington is mentioned in several of Charles Dickens' novels, and I was so excited to be able to walk these streets and imagine what they looked like in his day. Plus we passed several neighborhoods with houses that looked like they had come straight out of My Fair Lady with Audrey Hepburn. We ate at an Italian place for lunch before heading back to the hotel to officially check into our room.

We didn’t have anything planned for the first day, because we didn’t know how we’d be feeling. We were glad we did this, because what with traveling all night, the time change and being in a big city in a foreign country, all we wanted to do was not do anything at all. So we decided to make our first day of vacation a real vacation, and lounged around the hotel for the rest of the day. Dinner was a Chinese take-out place we had seen on some of the literature the hotel gave us. (The food was typical of cheap Chinese take-out.) We watched some TV (we decided we loved British TV, but more on that later) and went to bed early so that we would be fresh for our first day of sightseeing.

There was of course a little issue (okay, two little issues) with a money belt which I haven't decided if I'm going to share with you yet, and I've left out all of the inconsequential "Where are you going?" "No I'm not" "Yes you are" lost tourist performances that Hubby and I entertained the nice British people with that day, because ultimately, they just don't matter because we were in London!

There is more excitement to come...I will try to post day 2 tomorrow with some awesome pictures of the Tower of London.

Viva Las Vegas

2008-08-11T21:12:00.012-05:00

I'm sorry for the delay in posts, but I've been busy losing money in Vegas casinos...

We just got back from visiting my uncle in Las Vegas. I am happy to report that he is feeling much better, at least if his recent 18 mile bike ride is to be of any indication (which he completed one morning before I even considered getting out of bed). He was nice enough to open his home to us for a few days so myself, Hubby, and my brother could come invade and take over his pool and theater room.

We had a really great trip. Wednesday he picked Hubby and I up from the airport, and surprised us at his house with a bowl of Hostess goodies that he had arranged in light of the vending machine tragedy. I tell you not even that vending machine had as good of a collection as my uncle did! There were golden cupcakes, twinkies, ho-ho's, ding-dong's and chocolate zingers. Oh Happy Day! I think I gained 10 pounds in Hostess, but it tasted so good, especially after my forced sabbaticle. After gorging on Hostess, he took us to Red Rock Canyon. I'd been to Vegas probably two dozen times growing up, but I never knew about Red Rock Canyon. The colors of the rocks were surprisingly vibrant; you could see them from miles away. We took the scenic drive and Hubby did some impromptu rock climbing that the Clark County Parks Department probably would have frowned upon. The colors of the rocks were very distinct; you can see the drastic change in colors in the pictures below.

We spent the rest of the day lounging by the pool, eating In-N-Out and watching movies. Thursday after my brother arrived, my uncle took us up to Mt. Charleston, another area I had been completely unaware of. It was really pretty. As you drive up to the mountain, you are surrounded by cacti, tumbleweeds, and desert. Then, suddenly, you're in this mountain resort that looks like another geographic area entirely. There are pine trees and grass and it is drastically cooler. We ate lunch at a restaurant that served elk burgers (yes, out of real elk), so Hubby and my uncle each had to try one. After Mount Charleston, we did the one thing my brother really wanted to do: we went to a gun range so he could shoot automatic weapons. As we were pulling into the parking lot, there was a (large) guy with a mullet who was wearing a camouflage shirt that stated "I survived anorexia." I wanted to turn around and go home at that point. My husband and brother thought it was the funniest thing they had ever seen.

My brother shooting an M-16.

Friday we went down to the strip and hit some of the exhibits at the hotels. Hubby and I went to the Titanic exhibit where we got to see some of the artifacts they've recovered, my brother and I went to see the white tigers and white tiger cubs at The Secret Garden at the Mirage and Hubby and my uncle went to see the Ferrari dealership at the Wynn, and we swung by MGM to see the lions. It was funny how much the behaviors of the big cats resemble that of domestic cats. The trainers would throw balls to the lions and they would pounce on them and chase them. Of course, the toys that we use with our cats are about one inch in diameter, and the lions were playing with basketballs.

We took my uncle out to Bouchon at the Venetian for dinner, and then spent some time hanging poolside before Hubby, my brother and I went to a casino. We left for California Saturday morning to attend my cousin's wedding. On the way back to LA, we stopped for gas and saw a coyote!

We had so much fun, and it was painful to have to go to work this morning and get back to reality. Thank you uncle for a great time!!

Question Of The Day

2008-08-04T15:00:00.002-05:00

Why is it that at the annual building management tenant appreciation luncheon, the only spider to invade the picnic tent area had to descend from his little web and land on my plate and crawl around on my food?

The Problem With Health Care: People

2008-07-30T13:51:00.004-05:00

My uncle told me a story the other day that boggled the mind.

He has been experiencing some pain related to the surgery he just had. The pain is triggered when he breathes or sneezes; a couple of weeks ago it became severe and consistent enough where he thought it was time to make an appointment with the doctor. He was also experiencing some nausea at this point.

So, on a Thursday morning not too long ago, he picked up the phone to call his doctor. This endeavor led only to an exercise in "automated switchboard gymnastics" as he put it. He finally managed to press his way into the voice mail of his doctor's nurse, explained his symptoms, and asked her to have the doctor call him back. Several hours later, she returned his call, told him that the doctor was in surgery, and that someone would call him back after 3 p.m.

At 9 a.m. the next morning when he hadn't heard anything, he called back and left another message. He finally got a return phone call at 6 p.m. that night wherein the nurse informed my uncle in a manner equivalent to one that someone might use to convey the discovery of a cure for cancer that the doctor agreed that the doctor would like to see him. An appointment was set up for the following Monday, which was the earliest possible time he could get in.

Friday night he was in so much pain that he would have driven himself to the emergency room if he could have moved. Fortunately, by Saturday, the pain had subsided somewhat, so he waited for Monday to roll around.

Monday he drove to his appointment only to discover that the parking lot was full. So was the next one. And he assumed by the guard chasing him out of the third parking lot that it is full also. He spent 30 minutes looking for parking, which involved going over multiple speed bumps, which, when one has just had a kidney removed, feels "like it is tearing something inside." He finally found a spot about a 15 minute walk away from the office. Oh, and this office? Not the one he normally goes to. This office is an additional 10 miles away in the part of Las Vegas sane people avoid, but I digress...

This was how the nurse greeted my uncle upon spotting him checking in:

"Oh, I'm sorry, the doctor isn't in today, he had jury duty."

No one called my uncle to cancel the appointment, either at his house or on his cell. As my uncle is standing there trying to figure out something to say that doesn't involve explicatives, the nurse continues to inform him that unfortunately, there are no other doctors that could see him today in the absence of his doctor.

Now, my uncle just had a kidney removed. Because cancer was growing on it. The surgery was supposed to take an hour and a half. It took four, and to my knowledge no one ever explained why it took almost three times as long as the doctor said it would. Now he's experiencing pain and nausea so bad that at times he can't move...friends, are you, like me, coming up with a million and one scary explanations for what could be causing this pain?

My uncle could. He asked the nurse, "Suppose something inside is bleeding?"

Her response?

"Sorry."

My uncle was speechless. So he did the only thing he could do. He rescheduled for the following day. The next day, he did manage to see the doctor. It turns out he had an infection, so his doctor put him on antibiotics.

Now, normally, this is where the story would stop, but unfortunately, this one keeps going. While the medicine did help, it didn't completely eradicate the pain, so my uncle decided to go in this week for a second opinion. And thus began round two of Fun At the Doctors.

The second doctor performed extensive blood work and sent my uncle home while the lab work was being finished. My uncle received a phone call later that day informing him that one of the tests had abnormal results and could he please come down to the emergency room right away?

Cheerful news, isn't it?

Fortunately, after a CAT scan, the doctor determined that the pain was caused by a combination of scar tissue and the tightening of the bronchial tubes. My uncle is on stronger medication, and is supposed to be doing deep breathing exercises, so hopefully he is on the mend.

I don't think people would complain as much about the cost of health care if they were actually getting good service.

When Gas Companies Are Full Of Hot Air

2008-07-24T15:51:00.002-05:00

Another fabulous day at work...

We are in the process of applying for a building permit for one of our projects. Part of this process includes applying for natural gas. So today I pulled out some blank applications, proceeded to spend an hour looking up the information to fill them out as several people are asking me "When will it be done when will it be done when will it be done" because of course the decision to apply for the permit was made at precisely 10:03 a.m. and the powers that be didn't understand why we couldn't have the permit in hand by 10:11 a.m. I then faxed them to the appropriate utility company and went about my day.

Imagine my frustration when I happened by the fax machine later in the day to see all of my applications faxed back to me with a note that said that I had used an old form, and as such, these applications could not be processed. Would I please fill out the new form that the utility company had so thoughtfully included in the fax and send it back?

I took a deep breath, because, really, what else was I going to do, and sat back down to redo them. But that is when I was met with a very confusing sight. You see, I could not tell the difference between the "new" form and the "old" form. The disclaimer appeared to be the same. All of the requested information was the same. The actual format of the form was the same. I literally had to go through the form line by line to try and find the sections that had been changed.

And you know what I found? They removed one question. They switched the order of the questions in one section. And they added a "print name" line to the signature section.

Seriously? I have to redo four applications because you've made what basically amount to some aesthetic changes? And these changes are so significant that you can't possibly be prevailed upon to process an "old" form?

Where is the vending machine with the Hostess goodies when you need it?

Public Enemy Number One

2008-07-21T11:06:00.006-05:00

There is something that I encounter on a regular basis that continues to challenge my patience, sanity and general feeling of good-will to my fellow humankind. The frustration and humiliation I feel every time I interact with it is unmatched in any of my other life experiences. In no other area of my life have I had something insult my intelligence so greatly. In no other area of my life have I had something disappoint me so completely.

This, friends, is a summation of my experience with Saran Wrap.

I have never been able to master the art of using Saran Wrap. When I try to take it out of the box, it becomes stuck to the box. When I try to coax it around a sandwich, it becomes tangled up in a ball, stuck to itself. When I try to use it to cover a dish of leftovers, it sticks to my hands and not the dish. One sheet is just shorter than a large dinner plate, thereby requiring the use of two sheets to cover the whopping 3/4" of space still exposed. The built-in-for-my-"convenience" knife cuts my fingers more than it cuts the Saran Wrap. The only time the Saran Wrap acquiesces to glide easily into sheet form from its original rolled up state is when the roll of Saran Wrap has been dropped on the floor by mistake.

I'm switching to Tupperware.

My Love Affair With The Vending Machine

2008-07-16T14:15:00.004-05:00

Because my mortgage doesn't seem to want to pay itself, I have to work. And, as regular readers of this blog will know, for the past four years, I have worked at an insane asylum. And, as regular readers will also know, it isn't so much my job duties that generate the stress as it is the office dynamics. After years of having to reprint copies of reports for my boss, who can never seem to keep track of the originals, being interrupted so that I could go fetch him some manila folders, because, God forbid, he should actually have to walk back to the supply room and get his own supplies, and repeatedly reassuring him that our copier, is, in fact, working properly after having to find a tactful way of explaining that his headaches with the machine are really caused by operator error, I finally found one beacon of light, something that I could consistently turn to time and time again for comfort and a pleasant reminder that there are other things in life besides bosses and jobs that bring new meaning to the comic strip Dilbert.

And thus began my love affair with a vending machine.

It was about a year ago now when the blessed machine first appeared in the building across the parking lot. I discovered it quite by accident. I had made a trip next door to get a drink from the existing, traditional vending machine, and, upon arrival in the break room, discovered that building management had made a most welcome addition to their collection of break supplies.

It was a fantabulous vending machine that housed milk, sandwiches, salads, lunchables, soup, and other microwaveable meals. Nothing was more than $2.75, which, when one is consistently spending $7 downstairs at the deli even though she resolves every week to start bringing her lunch like a fiscally responsible person, made it seem much more acceptable to waste 10 minutes every morning hitting the snooze button one last time instead of getting up in a prompt manner that allowed for time to make one' s lunch.

But the best thing about this machine was that it had a whole row dedicated to Hostess products.

I love Hostess. My husband hardly ever lets me buy hostess products because Little Debbie's is so much cheaper, but there is no comparing the two as far as I am concerned. Hostess has completely cornered the market on tasty, preservative-laden chocolate and cream-filled deserts.

It was love at first sight. I began making jaunts next door on a regular basis, as much as the change in my wallet would allow, to see what new and exciting treats the vending machine was so kindly offering. Sometimes it had chocolate covered donuts. Sometimes it had Hostess cupcakes. Other times it had pies or Zingers or cinnamon cakes. It didn't matter what the selections for the day were--the machine always had something that could ease the sting of having to endure another day at the office.

Today I journeyed next door for my regular rendez-vous after deciding that the peanut butter and jelly sandwich I had for lunch just wasn't going to cut it, but alas, my brief moment of respite from work/hell was not to be realized. Someone had taken my machine.

I am not sure if building management decided not to renew its lease or if they decided it wasn't profitable, or if the vending machine company went out of business. Whatever the reason, it made for a dark day.

I think this is Fate's way of getting back at me for the return of Deal or No Deal.

It's Ba-a-a-a-a-a-ck...

2008-07-09T14:00:00.004-05:00

You know what I love more than picnics and fireworks on the Fourth of July? Celebrating freedom. The freedom to be able to voice concerns about the decisions of our elected leaders without fear of being shot by state-employed militias. The freedom to be able to venture into public without my husband's permission or a male chaperon. The freedom to have more than one child, if I so choose. And the freedom to be able to go to Dave and Busters and play the arcade version of Deal or No Deal.

That's right. It's back.

You didn't really think this was going to be a purely patriotic post, did you?

Hubby and I decided our period of mourning had been long enough, and ventured back to Dave and Busters this weekend. And, as we surveyed the facility to determine how many eight-year-olds we'd have to fight for Ski-Ball, we saw it, standing in all of it's neon-lighted splendor.

We never did ask anyone why the game was returned. It seemed as though we'd be tempting fate if we did, so we decided to leave well enough alone. But they had changed the ticket amounts, and in the very first part of the game, where they reveal the case amounts and then shuffle the cases, it appeared as though the shuffling process had been slowed. Granted, it was still to fast for me to follow, but if you were Stephen Hawking, you might be able to manage.

Hubby and I managed to play several times each without developing any gaming addictions or losing our life savings. I even won 100 tickets!

The Year Of Cancer

2008-07-03T14:52:00.002-05:00

As some of you know, this year has been filled with peaks and valleys for our family. My grandmother passed away in February. My husband's grandmother has been battling terminal cancer for a year. My husband's great-uncle suddenly passed away two and half weeks ago, after succumbing to an infection following what was otherwise a successful operation to remove cancer in his bladder.

Just when you think you've reached a point where the bad news has to stop coming because, really, there's nothing else imaginable that could happen because everything that could already happen, has, indeed, happened, you realize that cancer, like most diseases, has a better imagination than you do.

We received news about a week and a half ago now that my uncle had been diagnosed with a malignant tumor on one of his kidneys. He had been experiencing back pain, and had been given an MRI back in March. The doctor was actually not looking for tumors, so in that respect, my uncle was lucky that they caught it when they did, as the doctor told him that those who typically survive this type of cancer are those who receive an early diagnosis, and that early diagnosis usually happen by accident.

This particular cancer is associated with overweight smokers. My uncle has never smoked a day in his life and is in fantastic physical shape. He wakes up every morning and runs on the treadmill for I think an hour and a half. (Me, I wake up and walk past the treadmill on my way upstairs to grab a donut.) He is also an avid biker. So needless to say, we were all shocked by this news.

Fortunately, they caught the tumor so early that it had not had a chance to spread. He underwent surgery this week wherein they removed the tumor and the kidney, and he is expected to make a full recovery.

If, however, you could all keep his recovery in your thoughts and prayers, that he would continue to make good progress and would not suffer any setbacks, we would be most appreciative.

In the meantime, I will wait for whatever curse is on this family to lift.

My Husband, The Romantic

2008-06-30T16:05:00.002-05:00

It seems like just yesterday my wedding cake was melting under the sun shining through the big bay window of our reception hall.

I cannot believe it has been five years already. We have had our share of ups and downs, but there's still no one else I could tolerate sharing my life with. Our anniversary was very nice--well, at least if you were me. :) My husband went all out.

I awoke to breakfast in bed, which consisted of OJ, scrambled eggs with mushrooms and chives, homemade waffles (yes, you read that right--he made them from scratch), and tea, which was brought to me in what was my anniversary present, my very own tea set. It was served with a fresh bouquet of flowers.

My husband had a photo sitting on our anniversary, so in protest I had scheduled a pedicure for myself. When I got out to my car, there was another gift waiting for me. It was a cute squirrel votive candle holder (I heart squirrels). It turns out that in addition to the tea set, Hubby had purchased five separate gifts, for our five years of marriage, which he presented throughout the morning. There were also five bouquets of flowers for the five years of marriage, which he placed around the house.

Isn't he sweet?

Thank you honey for a great weekend. Happy Anniversary!

Your Life In Six Words

2008-06-25T12:26:00.002-05:00

Queen Goob tagged me with a meme wherein I am to write my memoir in six words. My girl Queen set the bar pretty high though, because she came up with a great memoir: Laugh at life; it's all funny. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to top that, but here are some attempts nonetheless:

Stupidity is a qualification for management.
Life does not make any sense.
Spiders are everywhere, and they suck.
The stupid shall inherit the Earth.
Anything that can go wrong, will.
Chocolate will cure a bad day.
Please will someone make it stop?
I never said I was perfect.
Inspect the leftovers before eating them.
Never give up, never give in!
Laughter really is the best medicine.
Walking can be a dangerous undertaking.
Do I LOOK like I understand?
And how are you today, officer?
There is nothing wrong with forgetful.

But the one I think I've decided to go with is:

Through God, all things are possible.

Okay! Now it's my turn to tag some more ~~suckers~~ fellow bloggers. I tag:

Laura
Kristy
Colleen
Holly

Have fun guys!

Just Call Me Slip N' Slide

2008-06-20T13:35:00.005-05:00

Last weekend Hubby and I went canoing, and as I lay in the bottom of the canoe with my feet in the air listening to my husband's hysterical laughter and wondering how it was possible for one to fall backwards off one's seat in a canoe while reaching for a paddle, I realized that I have had a problem with equilibrium my whole life. When I think of my most embarrassing moments, they all involve me ending up face (or bum) down on some sort of painfully hard surface.

Like the time Hubby and I and a relative went out for dinner, and passed a portion of sidewalk that was raised as we were walking back to the car which I, of course, tripped over. I managed to stay upright for several more steps, and, for a moment, everyone (including me) thought I would recover, but alas, I had already passed the vertical point of no return, and after stumbling along for those few steps, gravity finally won out and down I went, face first. But unfortunately my misery was not to end there. You see, as I stumbled along in an attempt to recover my balance, I had somehow picked up momentum, so when I did go down, the leftover force resulted in me slip n' sliding on my belly along the pavement until I finally came to a screeching halt.

There I was, sprawled out on the sidewalk of a major street in downtown Minneapolis, looking like a baseball player who has just slid into home plate. And, unfortunately, I had not been able to finish my dinner, so the portion I had boxed up to take home was now strewn all over the sidewalk and me, much to the amusement of Hubby and Relative...and if memory serves correctly, some bystanders.

Then there was the time in high school when I demonstrated just why, exactly, one should be most careful when traversing the area immediately surrounding a pool. I was ~~cursed~~ blessed to have first period PE my freshman year, and to be in the class that was the last to enjoy use of our high school pool before it cracked and had to be drained and vacated for several years until the district coughed up money to fix it. Yes, because the stupid pool didn't have the decency to get all old and decrepit and start showing some cracks a few measly months earlier, thereby releasing me from the horror known as swimming in one's high school physical education class, I actually had to participate in this asinine activity.

Folks, I made it not one day without making a fool of myself.

I did manage to get through the actual swimming portion of the class without incident. It was when I attempted to exit the pool that disaster struck.

I was one of the last people out of the pool, so the area immediately around the ladder just outside of the pool was soaked with water. (Can you guess where this is going?) I managed to get both feet out of the pool and stand in an upright position just long enough so that everyone within eyesight could notice that I was, indeed, standing, before I somehow lost my balance, slipped, and fell square on my bum. The best part? My high school crush was probably about three feet away. I think this was the only time during high school that it even registered to him that I existed.

I had to attend make-up PE sessions for awhile that year because I refused to get back in the pool after that experience, but it was worth it.

You would think I would have learned my lesson about being careful around pools, etc., but no. A few weeks ago I was in the shower getting ready for work when out of the corner of my eye I saw something moving across the outside of the shower door. It was, of course, another eight-legged. Now our bathroom only has a standing shower, and it's one of those corner units with clear fake glass doors that go from floor to ceiling, and it's maybe 2 feet X 2 feet. Even though the spider was on the outside of the shower, I could not risk it coming into the shower while I was still bathing. I turned off the water and tried to exit the shower as gently as one possibly can when covered in soap suds and shampoo so that the Big Nasty would not be disturbed and subsequently tempted to move from where it had settled, making it that much harder for me to terminate it. I grabbed about half a roll of toilet paper, wadded it up (I have been forbidden from my preferred method of Dixie Cups for spider removal), smooshed it, and flushed its remains. Feeling quite proud that I managed to work up the nerve to kill the eight-legged in under 10 minutes (seriously--it takes me awhile), and that I managed to kill it on the first attempt and did not have to wonder about its whereabouts, as they were obviously in the wad of toilet paper, I resumed my bathing.

I think, however, that I had internalized some trauma from the experience of having to make close contact with a spider, because a few minutes after that, I saw something else out of the corner of my eye (which turned out, I think, to be a drop of water, but I didn't know that at the time), except this time it was on the shower wand, which was not only inside the shower, but In. My. Hand.

I screamed and dropped the shower wand, but in my panic, I forgot that I was a) soapy and b) standing in a shower with running water and that the combination of these two factors produces c) slippery conditions. My right foot slipped out from under me, and I did not have enough weight on my left foot to remain upright. I fell backwards against the door of the shower and slid all the way down, coming to a rest in a crumpled up ball at the bottom of the shower.

So there you have it. Some of my not-so-proud moments. Want to share any of yours?

Ladies, Please!

2008-06-13T12:38:00.003-05:00

There is an assumption, or stereotype, if you will, in our society that women are by nature cleaner than men. I am not sure where this assumption came from, but I am here to tell you that based on the vile messes and rank odors I have encountered in the third floor women's restroom of my office building this week, this assumption is not true. In honor of the horrors I have witnessed, I have put together some guidelines for women's public restroom usage:

1. Thou shalt flush thy toilet.

2. If thou has left skid marks, thou shalt flush thy toilet as many times as necessary to get rid of said skid marks.

3. If thou is unable to flush thy toilet, thou will alert all other restroom patrons and preferably a member of the building maintenance crew if one is available that toilet is inoperable.

4. If thou has used the toilet in such a manner as causes it to overflow, thou will alert building maintenance and other bathroom visitors of problem.

5. If thou insists on taking thy cup of coffee into thy toilet stall, thou will clean up any coffee that is spilled in said stall before exiting.

6. Thou will either throw thy cup of coffee away or take it with them when exiting the bathroom.

7. Thou will not attempt conversation with the stranger in the next stall, unless said conversation is imperative to attaining the necessary toilet paper for this particular restroom visit.

8. Thou will hang up thy cell phone before entering the toilet stall.

9. The floor is not a trash can.

10. Neither is the vanity countertop.

11. Thou will wash thy hands after exiting the toilet stall.

12. Thou will wash thy hands after exiting the toilet stall in a rational manner, without splashing water about so as to cover the entire vanity countertop, making it impossible for future restroom visitors to place their purses or other personal items on said counter without getting them wet.

13. If thou insists on having a pool party whilst washing thy hands, thou will at least wipe up the spilled water with a paper towel(s) before exiting the bathroom.

14. If thou is not going to be a lady and sit down on the seat, then thou should be a gentleman and put it up (and then put it back down again when finished).

15. If thou refuses to adhere to Guideline # 14, thou shall make sure toilet and stall are clean prior to exiting.

It's not rocket science, people.

Bureaucracy At Its Finest

2008-06-06T13:24:00.005-05:00

My friends, tragedy struck on Wednesday.

It happened in the place one might least expect it, in a place that had heretofore been to me a sweet haven of distraction from all the ills in life like bosses and spiders. Alas, my sweet haven will forevermore be tarnished by this great travesty afflicted by the most garish of villains: bureaucracy.

You see, Wednesday my husband and I had gone to Dave and Busters for an evening of frivolity and fun. We had finished our dinner and were making a beeline to the area where our most favorite of games stood in all its glory: Deal or No Deal.

Yes, some genius, somewhere, had the brilliant idea of making an arcade game based on the show, of which Hubby and I are huge fans (the arcade game, not the show). The game is surprisingly similar to the show. You are given cases numbered 1-16, which have various amounts of tickets in them. You have the option of playing the cheaper version, of which the top ticket amount is 200, or the more expensive version, where the top ticket amount possible is 400. The rest of the game is played exactly as you see on TV.

It. Is. So. Much. Fun.

But alas, we were stopped dead in our tracks by a most unwelcome sight: emptiness. That's right. The game had completely vanished from where it once stood. We looked around to see if it had just been moved, but the game was nowhere to be found. Heartbroken, we looked for another game to play to ease our disappointment. Shortly thereafter, an employee walked by and asked if we would like anything to drink, and we took the opportunity to ask about our most beloved game. Had it just been sent somewhere for repair? Did they really get rid of it permanently? Hubby and I had come up with many possible scenarios to explain its disappearance, but nothing prepared us for what the employee said.

"We had to get rid of it," she said. "The gaming commission decided that it was gambling, so they've been taken out of everywhere."

Say what?

"Yeah, the commission said that because it wasn't a skill game that it was gambling. The non-skill games aren't supposed to give tickets, and since this one did, we had to take it out."

So let me get this straight. I can go to the local Indian casinos and gamble my life savings away, I can hop on a plane to Vegas and bet our house on blackjack, but I can't win a few paltry Dave and Busters tickets on the Deal or No Deal arcade game because that somehow is seen as unhealthy?

What did the gaming commission think was going to happen? Did they think pasty white Midwestern 8-year-olds would start selling crack just so they could make more money to put on their Dave and Busters playing card? Did they think adults would blow a mortgage payment trying to get the coveted 400 ticket case? Has anyone on the gaming commission ever been to Dave and Busters? You have to go, like, 4,537 times before you have enough tickets for anything decent. And by the time you've got enough tickets for something decent, you've spent 6,000 times more to win the tickets than you would have if you would have just gone to Target in the first place and bought the item, so what with the cost of gas and all, no one is really going to develop any unhealthy habits around this game. It's just not cost effective.

But apparently, the gaming commission was so worried about society's ability to ward off an addiction to this game, they felt it was necessary to eliminate its existence.

If a gaming commission has nothing better to do than wage war on the arcade version of Deal or No Deal, it's time to evaluate how our tax dollars could be more effectively spent.

Brownie Points

2008-06-02T20:16:00.005-05:00

I became an avid fan of Sex and the City after the WB...oh, sorry, CW...started airing the edited versions regularly. There was something about these four characters that struck a cord--maybe it was their vulnerability, maybe it was their shoe addictions or maybe just the way they related to each other--but whatever the reason, I quickly got hooked on the show. Although I didn't see the series finale until well after it originally aired, I still had Sex and the City withdrawals after I had seen all of the episodes. But then the producers of Sex and the City did something that took some of the sting out of having to say goodbye to a favorite TV series.

They made a movie.

I have had May 30 circled on my calendar for quite some time. I couldn't wait for the movie to come out. I had been debating whether or not to beg Hubby to take me to see it, or to just go with a friend at some point when he was otherwise occupied. My plan on Friday was to come home and feel him out, and then based on his response to the "What do you want to do tonight" query make my decision.

But before I even had a chance to ask him, he gave me this:

He had ordered the tickets online the day before, and picked them up before I got home from work. Then he put them in the glass with the shreddy poofy stuff and surprised me with it.

Is he great or what? He took me to go see the movie, even though he knew he'd be one of, like, 10 other guys in the theater (and for the record, there were only 5 other guys in the theater), and even though it would never have been something he would otherwise have watched.

I'll pause here while everyone oohs and aahs over my husband's act of generosity.

Done? Then we can proceed to talking about the movie. I won't go into too much detail in case some of you have yet to see it, but I will say that it stayed fairly true to the series. The character interaction was the same, and it was just as funny as ever. The only surprise that I found was that I had never bothered to wonder just how edited the CW version was...let's just say it is now apparent that the CW version eliminated the "sex" from Sex and the City, and the movie definitely did not. So that would be one thing to keep in mind if you've only ever seen the edited versions like me.

Honey, if you're reading this, I had a great time Friday. :) Thank you.

Not Again

2008-05-30T12:20:00.002-05:00

Some of you might remember reading about my last encounter with a spider. For those of you who missed that post, let's just say that due to my extreme case of arachnophobia, I almost destroyed our bathroom in my attempts to dispose of an Eight-Legged Nasty. Since that time, Hubby has been extra alert to any presence of spiders in the house, and has been systematically eliminating them before I see them to prevent any ensuing disaster. So I haven't had any close encounters since that time, and was just beginning to slip back into a happy mode of blissful ignorance of all things eight-legged...until I got into my car on Wednesday.

It started out like any normal morning. I got into my car, backed out of our driveway, and began the commute to work. Then, suddenly, as I was stopped at a red light, I saw it. At first, I couldn't believe it, and thought I was seeing things. "Maybe it's really on the outside of the car," I thought. "There's no way it could have gotten in here. All the windows were rolled up in the garage last night."

And then it moved. And I realized that it wasn't a hallucination, and that it wasn't outside. No, it was a medium sized, plump Eight-Legged, and it was inside my car, crawling around in the space where the roof of the car meets the front window, which, in my car, is about 6 inches from the driver's head. "HOW DID THIS THING GET IN HERE?" I wondered.

I screamed and went to do the is-it-on-me-is-it-on-me dance, but then realized I. Was. Driving. The light has by this time turned green. There are people behind me. And I cannot have an arachnophobic conniption fit while driving if I wanted to continue to observe safe driving methods, like, um, avoiding crashing into anything. So I mustered all of my composure, managed to make it across the intersection and another 100 feet to the nearest parking lot, pulled in, parked, and then proceeded to get out of the car as fast as possible.

And then I had to figure out what to do.

I obviously couldn't leave it there and allow it to roam free in my car.

I wasn't sure I would be able to get my boot in the space where the spider was hanging out sufficiently enough to kill it. Plus, I didn't want people driving by to witness a crazy lady with one boot on one foot and the other one in her hand madly swinging at something inside her car.

I wasn't in a position to flush the Big Nasty down the toilet.

Which left me with only one other option. It is the least used of all spider-eliminating options, and only used when there is no other viable choice.

I would have to make contact.

I looked in the trunk for proper spider squishing material. There was nothing. I looked in my glovebox for tissues and then remembered there weren't any because I'd used them all up when I had pneumonia, and I haven't replaced them yet. I looked in my purse, and found a travel-sized Kleenex pack with three tissues left in them. I decided two would be sufficient to protect my hand from spider guts, wadded them up, and then carefully aimed the wad at the Big Nasty.

Bam! I went in for my attack, and then examined the tissue to gauge the success of the attack.

There appeared to be brown spider guts on the tissue, but there was no spider skeleton. I looked to see if it was still hanging from the window. It was not. I looked to see if it had fallen anywhere in the car. I couldn't find it.

Which left me with a grim possibility: I had failed to kill the spider on the first attack, and would have to go back in for a second attempt.

I aimed the wad again. This time I wiped it across the area where I had seen the spider, hoping this would result in the spider skeleton appearing on the tissue. But no such luck. I only got one leg. I looked inside the car again, but still did not see any evidence of a spider. "Well, where did it go?" I wondered.

I waited a few minutes, but nothing moved. I decided the odds were pretty good that I had killed it, so I got back in my car, and drove to work without further incident.

I have not seen the spider since. So either I killed it, or I'll see a seven-legged spider crawling around my car in the next few days.

Redneck Nation

2008-05-26T10:39:00.002-05:00

If a force of nature that could destroy your house and rip you into pieces was barreling toward you, wouldn't you want to know?

If the tornado sirens in your neighborhood had been going off for the past 2 hours, wouldn't you want the option of being able to turn on the TV to find out just, where, exactly, this tornado might be located? And headed?

I would answer a resounding yes to those questions, especially after yesterday when we had several tornadoes rip through the area. Our house escaped unscathed, but two of our friends, who live in Hugo, were not so lucky. The back window of one of their cars was blown out, and the siding on their house suffered significant damage due to the hail and winds. Fortunately, they were out of the area at the time, and so did not actually have to live through it.

Being from California, I have yet to get used to tornadoes. Some of the natives here will stand outside with video cameras until the thing is so close they can practically reach out and touch it. Not me. I run downstairs to the basement at the first hint of a green sky, and I stay there glued to the TV (assuming the storm hasn't knocked out the power) until I can see the sun again.

So yesterday, as I'm honoring my severe weather tradition, I am flipping through the TV stations to decide which one has the best coverage. As I'm doing this, I happen to land on Fox News. I never watch Fox News on principle, but the weatherman was saying something as I was cruising by that made me pause for a moment to figure out what was going on.

He was apologizing. Because the station had to interrupt it's regularly scheduled coverage to tell people that there were tornadoes on the ground. And by interrupt, I mean they had moved to a split screen format, so you could still see what had originally been scheduled to air at this time. You couldn't hear it, but you could see it. Apparently, however, that wasn't good enough for many viewers, because the weatherman was making repeated references to all the complaint calls the station was getting for interrupting their regularly scheduled programming for something as mundane as a tornado warning. Keep in mind, these storms went on to kill people. So it's not like all the news stations went into "Stormwatch 2008" mode for half an inch of rain. This was serious business.

What was their regularly scheduled programming, you might ask? NASCAR. A NASCAR race. And the race hadn't even started yet. It was all the pre-race coverage. I don't know about you, but I'd much rather know if a tornado is about to destroy my house than watch a video montage of a smiling Dale Earnhardt Jr.

I'm sure the parents of the child who was killed yesterday really felt bad that NASCAR fans' race viewing time was interrupted. Or the people who are still in the hospital, or those that woke up this morning in shelters because their homes were destroyed yesterday. I mean, what was Fox News thinking? Interrupting NASCAR to alert people of impending, life-altering destruction? Sacrilege!

But I guess nothing comes between a redneck and NASCAR. Not even a tornado or the safety of others.

Getting Edumicated

2008-05-20T12:51:00.002-05:00

After I finished my undergraduate degree, I swore I'd never go back to school again.

Four years later, I was back in school wondering what form of insanity overtook and motivated me to apply for graduate studies.

But I am happy to report that the hard work finally paid off, and I officially graduated with a masters in theology on Saturday. Yay me! No more reading 500 pages of text in a week, no more research papers, no more exams!!!

Now all I have to do is find a job to justify the substantial amount of money I just spent...

It's been kind of a crazy week what with family in town and all, so I'll get back into the swing of things as far as blogging goes later in the week. See you in a few days!

My Eyes, My Eyes!

2008-05-15T10:20:00.003-05:00

I would like to ask that each of you spend a few minutes thinking and reflecting on the following questions:

Do you have family pictures that you've set as your computer background or screen saver?
Do you have these pictures on a laptop in addition to or instead of a desktop?
Do you travel for work?
Do you use your laptop for business purposes?

If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, but in particular questions 2-4, then I must ask for the sake of all that is Holy that you comply with the following request:

If your "family" pictures include a picture of your significant other dressed in lingerie and posing suggestively on a bed, please please please take any and all necessary precautions to ensure that when you go to give a presentation on affordable housing at a church and you take a break from fiddling with the laptop/overhead hookup and said break is so long that your computer defaults to screen saver mode, that the screen saver image now being projected onto the giant jumbotron the church has set up specifically for your presentation is not, I repeat, NOT the do-it-yourself photo you took of your significant other posing suggestively on the bed in tight red lingerie. This will result in extreme embarrassment for you, and your significant other should they happen to be in the room, not to mention the dozens of people who innocently happen to be within eyesight of the jumbotron. And if, for whatever reason, you choose not to heed my warning, then please, if you are going to leave your computer unattended, at least monitor the jumbotron so that if your computer does go into screen saver mode and does project your Victoria's Secret photos, you will notice it sooner rather than later and be able to deal with it in a timely manner. Please do not get so engrossed in the buffet table that you are the only person in the room not aware of what is going on, forcing the rest of us to have to figure out a way to tactfully inform you that the entire room now knows your taste in lingerie. And women.

I'm still trying to shake that image out of my head a week later.

So You Think You Had A Bad Day?

2008-05-12T07:58:00.003-05:00

I know in the past I've complained a lot about my job on this blog, like here, here, here and here. But after talking to my brother on Friday, I realized that little things in the workplace like inept managers and male chauvinism really aren't that bad in the grand scheme of things.

My brother is a teacher at a private school that is dedicated to teaching students with "learning disabilities, emotional disturbances, behavioral disorders, Autistic Spectrum Disorders, Asperger Syndrome, and pervasive developmental delays." Except the students are light on the learning disabilities, Autism, Asperger Syndrome and pervasive developmental delays, and heavy on the emotional disturbances and behavioral disorders. And the terms emotional disturbances and behavioral disorders are really just politically correct phrases for a condition known as "I've been in jail so many times I've lost count and I'm only 15." And we're not talking jail time because they decided to "borrow" a parent's car so they could take it for a joyride and mowed down a couple of mailboxes in the process. We're talking assault, drugs, etc. His students are from broken homes, group homes--these are the type of kids that are almost destined to become felons because the situations they were born into are short on the options for anything else.

It's basically a glorified continuation school, and my brother isn't so much a teacher as he is a prison warden.

The students routinely attack each other, and, on occasion, the teachers. Fortunately my brother hasn't been on the receiving end of such attacks as of yet, although one of his students did draw a picture of him, complete with a butcher knife through his head, and then proceeded to announce "Hey, Teacher, this is you," in case there was any confusion. When I talked to him about it, he told me that this particular budding artist/student of his was the least of his worries. Nice, huh? My boss might insult my intelligence, but at least I don't have to worry about him killing me.

Anyway, that's not what made Friday such a bad day for my brother. No, Friday one of his students had enough of the Life he had carved out from himself and hung himself from a tree on campus. There were no parents to call--the student lived in a group home. There was no massive outpouring of grief or sympathy--this kid fell through the cracks too long ago for that to happen. The kid's entire legacy will be summed up by the paperwork my brother will have to fill out today.

I think I'll be nicer to my boss today.

The Parade of Stupid Marches On

2008-05-08T12:57:00.004-05:00

I've had my car for more than a year, but that didn't stop me from pulling up on the wrong side at the gas station this weekend. I didn't even realize what I had done until I had gotten out of the car. Then, because I was too embarrassed to get back in the car and drive to another pump in front of everyone, I quickly eyeballed the hose to see if it looked like it would stretch, and, since it did, I nonchalantly acted as though I had meant to pull up on the wrong side the entire time and proceeded to unscrew the gas cap, slide my credit card in the reader thingy, and grabbed the pump handle. I made it about halfway around the back of my car before being snapped back like a rubber band because the hose was about half as long as I thought it was. I had no choice but to put the hose back, wait for the machine to cancel the transaction, and then do what I was trying so hard to not do in the first place: get back in my car and drive to another pump. By this time of course, there were twice as many people at the gas station as when I first got there. Oh, and I forgot to screw the gas cap back on when I moved, so it was clanging against the side of my car during the whole process. As if I needed anything else to draw attention to what I had just done. I wish I could just say "It doesn't matter because I'll never see any of those people again," but since the gas station is on the corner of where our church is and there's a good chance that most of those people there thought that they would fill up quick on their way home from church just like I did, I'm betting the odds are pretty good that I'll see most of them again this Sunday.

I did something else the same day that was even more stupid, but it was so bad, I'm too embarrassed to write about it. Let's just say it's a good thing that 2 gallon milk cartons don't fit between the shelves in our kitchen cupboards, otherwise there would probably be a pretty rancid stank coming from one of them right about now.

I think I'm living proof that Alzheimer's is genetic.

Say What?

2008-05-05T15:03:00.002-05:00

This morning I was sitting in a co-worker's office preparing for an impending closing. Our CEO called my co-worker's line and asked a question, to which she responded "I don't know, you'll have to check with Mrs. R. She's sitting right here, hang on."

She then proceeds to hand me the phone. I expected him to ask me a question, but he did not. Here is the extent of the conversation:

Me: "Hey."
CEO: "I'm on my way." Click.

Huh?

I handed the phone back to my co-worker and relayed to her the conversation. She was taken aback, because our CEO had just asked her a very specific question, which he did not pose to me.

So I went back to my office and called him back.

Me: "Co-worker said you had a question for me?"
CEO: "Yes, I asked you if the title company would provide title insurance in light of the last minute escrow."
Me: "Oh. No, you didn't ask me that, you asked Co-Worker that and then she said you'd have to ask me and then gave me the phone. You're wondering about the title insurance?"
CEO: "I already asked you about the title insurance and you said they could do it."
Me (and I probably should have acted in a more subservient manner, but I just couldn't believe what was coming out of his mouth): "What?!? You asked Co-worker the question, and she said that you'd have to ask me. And then when she handed me the phone, all you said was that you were on your way. I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone here."
CEO: "I asked you about the title insurance, you said yes, and then I said I was on my way."
Me (trying to resolve the situation and not letting my impatience show but failing miserably): "No, you asked Co-Worker the question. We need to work on our communication, because I can't do my job if I don't know what I'm supposed to do."
CEO (screaming into the phone): "MRS R., I ASKED YOU ABOUT THE TITLE INSURANCE AND YOU SAID YES AND THEN I SAID I WAS ON MY WAY. I AM TIRED OF THIS CRAP FROM YOU."
Me: "Okay, well I did just happen to talk to the title company about the escrow, and while I didn't ask specifically about the title insurance because I didn't know I was supposed to, they indicated they would still close the deal. Bye." Click.

I went back to Co-Worker's office to tell her what had just happened. Having overheard my portion of the first conversation when I was in her office, she couldn't believe it. The only thing we can figure is that CEO didn't allow for the time that it would take her to physically hand me the phone, and that he just started talking to the air right after she said "hang on." And then mistook my "hey" for a "yes."

What I learned today: Always, always, always answer the phone with "Hello."

A Must Read

2008-05-01T09:12:00.002-05:00

I read something yesterday that was such a great story, I wanted to pass it on to everyone. It's a post that fellow Minnesota blogger Jeff at View From The Cloud wrote yesterday. It's one of the most romantic things I've ever read, and is 10 times better than most chick flicks. Actually, if it were a chick flick, I would own it on DVD and would probably be just as obsessed with it as I am with the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice.

Anyway, I would highly recommend that you take a few minutes to read it. The post can be found here. Enjoy!

Dixie Cups Are Not The Equivalent Of Poo

2008-04-29T11:36:00.003-05:00

Some of you know that I am extremely arachnophobic (for those that don't, there's your useless piece of information for the day). I hate spiders. Hate them. Big, small, hairy, spindly, I do not care, if they have eight legs, they are the spawn of Satan as far as I am concerned. My arachnophobia is so bad that if I am within 10 feet of a spider, I become paralyzed. I just stand there, staring at the thing until it either goes away or I figure out a way to dispose of it (and by figure out a way to dispose of it, I mean yell "HUBBY" hysterically at the top of my lungs until my husband comes and kills it for me).

But sometimes, Hubby is not always present when I have a spider situation, and I am forced to deal with it myself. This usually involves my pretending that the spider does not exist (this is possible if the spider has situated itself in a nice corner somewhere, and doesn't seem interested in relocating any time soon), or, lately, and since I always seem to encounter spiders in the bathroom, my trapping them in a Dixie cup and then shaking them into the toilet bowl where I then flush them to their watery death.

So yesterday morning when a big nasty spider had the audacity to drop from the ceiling within a couple of feet of where I was standing, I immediately grabbed a Dixie Cup (after I finished screaming of course, and checking myself to make sure that no trace of web/spider had actually made physical contact) and caught the little bugger mid-drop. I then rushed to the toilet to get rid of the Big Nasty before he could escape.

And do you know what that spider had the nerve to do? He attached himself via spider web to the cup, so that when I went to go shake him into the toilet, he just hung their in mid-air. So I shook him again, and this time he started to climb back up his little web of survival and headed straight for my hand, which was still holding the cup.

This resulted in my second arachnophobe freak-out of the morning. I have now lost all sense of calm and rationality, and I am just trying to kill the Big Nasty at any cost. I begin madly shaking the cup, and think that I've managed to get the Big Nasty into the toilet, so I flush, but then realize that the Big Nasty is STILL attached to the cup and is now dangerously close to ME. I completely freak-out, and drop the cup into the toilet.

And then after I drop the cup, I realize that the toilet is still in the process of flushing.

I have a split second to think "It should be okay--the Dixie Cup won't fit down the opening in the toilet bowl that leads to the pipe" before the Dixie Cup disappears along with Big Nasty into the watery unknown of wherever it is that toilet bowl flushings go after you flush.

Yes, people, I have just flushed a Dixie Cup down the toilet. And I have no idea what to do about it. And I am late for work.

But then I have an idea. I take out another Dixie Cup, and examine it carefully. "Yes," I think. "This is about the same size as some poo. Maybe it could fit after all."

So I give the toilet another flush to see if the Dixie Cup appears to have made it safely through the plumbing, or is still stuck somewhere in the pipe. And I really should have just left well enough alone.

The Dixie Cup was obviously still stuck somewhere in the pipe, because the water reaches almost overflow level, and just when I think I better start getting some towels to clean up the impending mess, the water is suddenly whooshed down the bowl, the toilet starts making weird gurgly noises, and bubbles start coming up from where the water is supposed to go out.

I get the plunger, hoping that maybe if I can't help the Dixie Cup along to its final destination, then maybe I can at least get it to come back to its point of origin. But the Dixie Cup is definitely stuck.

I do not have time to call a plumber, so I decide I will have to call one after work. I put a note on the toilet seat in case Hubby beats me home, and then try to figure out how I'm going to tell him that I screwed up our plumbing in a manner worse than most kids could manage. I decide I will call Hubby (who had to leave early this morning to take my car in for a 6:15 a.m. maintenance appointment that I took the liberty of making for him) when I get to work, and that way maybe he'll have some time to cool off before he gets home.

As I am walking out the door to go to work, I see Hubby coming in from the garage. Oh goody! The appointment was quicker than the estimated time we were given, and Hubby had enough time to come home before heading to work himself! I have no choice but to tell him in person. From the look on his face, it appears that Hubby can't decide whether to laugh or cry. He just tells me to have a good day at work and he'll see me tonight. Off to work I go, wondering how many hundreds of dollars that Dixie Cup is going to cost me.

I got a call later in the day from Hubby. He was able to fix the toilet. He wasn't even that mad about it, but I did get a lecture on alternative methods of spider disposal.

So all things considered, I think it worked out pretty well.

But that, people, is why Dixie Cups are not the equivalent of poo.

It's A Boo

2008-04-28T13:00:00.004-05:00

It snowed this weekend.

I'm Not THAT Stupid...

2008-04-24T11:34:00.002-05:00

This morning my boss came in to dictate a document (I should probably mention that my boss is of grandfather age and cannot use a computer and is not interested in learning how to use a computer so everything he wants typed he dictates to me and I type--I know, I know, great use of a college degree, huh?). He created (and by created I mean plagiarized) this document by using a document that we were given by another company as a model, so every time the original document capitalized something, he wanted it capitalized in our version as well, and every time there was a comma, he wanted a comma in our version as well. This is what the initial dictation session sounded like:

Boss: "For value received--and all of that should be capitalized, and then make a line so we can fill in the company name later--comma a Minnesota limited liability company--and then borrower in parenthesis and put quotes around borrower and capitalize the b" and then he continued to dictate for about a paragraph until he got to this part:

Boss: "in lawful money of the United States of America--and capitalize the u and s and a in United States of America."

Me: Snort (and then tried to hide the fact that I was openly laughing at him for telling me that the name of our country needs to be capitalized with more snorting).

I mean, really? Are you kidding me? Don't you learn about the relationship between capitalization and proper nouns in, like, first grade? Did he think I didn't know this?

I'm not sure if he really thought I am so stupid that I needed clarification in this area, or if he was just mindlessly reading what he was dictating and didn't realize that he was stating the obvious. Either way, I've decided I've earned something chocolate for lunch.

What Did You Do For Earth Day?

2008-04-23T10:12:00.002-05:00

Some people plant trees in honor of Earth Day. Some people teach their children easy ways to be environmentally conscious. What did my husband do?

"I didn't fart as much."

I'm so proud.

These People Be Crazy...

2008-04-22T12:56:00.003-05:00

Based on the driving skills we’ve seen our fellow Minnesotans exhibit over the last few days, I am seriously lucky that I can sit here and blog right now instead of being holed up in an emergency room somewhere. I’m not sure if it’s the sudden sunshine that has everyone all loopy-loo or if seasonal allergy medication is causing for some impaired judgment issues, but Jeff over at View From The Cloud recently had a post on this very same topic, so something has to be in the air.

This weekend we were almost sideswiped by a woman who didn’t seem to understand that the lane she was in did, indeed, continue past the intersection. We went to cross the intersection after waiting at the red light (and given the amount of time we had to wait there, I have no idea how she did not manage to at least glance in the direction in which she was headed and notice that there were two lanes ahead of her) and suddenly, in the middle of the intersection, there she was, right in the very space that our car was occupying. The road curves at that point, so we knew she had just completely misjudged where her car needed to be if she wanted to end up in the same lane on the other side of the intersection as she had been in before she arrived at the intersection. Hubby honked, but she never even flinched. I wonder if she’ll ever even realize what she did.

Then last night we had a similar experience, thanks to the wonderful freeway interchanges known as clover leaves, or as I like to call them, suicide circles. These interchanges have about 50 feet of road where cars that are both getting on and getting off the freeway have to merge. So basically, you have, like .05 seconds to get on/get off the freeway, at 60 mph, while dodging not only the other people trying to do the same thing but also the people who are already on the freeway who were going 50 mph but are now going 237 mph because they will be seriously inconvenienced if you happen to merge in front of them, all while trying not to get killed. Clover leaves are a ridiculous design but because they’re one of the cheapest types of interchanges to build, we have an abundance of them here.

Anyway, we were on just such an interchange, and happened to hit our 50 feet of straightaway just as a guy in an SUV was trying to get on the freeway we had just gotten off. The guy was somewhat behind us but still about halfway even with us when he started to merge, so my husband sped up to avoid being hit, and at the same time turned on his turn signal to let the guy know that we wanted to come over. You would have thought that we had tried to drive a tank over his SUV instead of maneuvering a VW Bug through traffic with the way he honked at us. What’s funny is that this guy apparently thought we might crash into him (even though HE was the one who came close to hitting us), but when a gargantuan SUV and a VW Bug collide, really, who’s going to win that battle?

In addition to the above, I have seen people SLAM ON THEIR BRAKES and put on their turn signal in the middle of the freeway when they realize that the exit they want is now directly perpendicular to them rather than in front of them. Is it too much to ask that you get off at the next exit in a sensible manner and turn around? I have also seen many, many people doing 40 mph in the fast lane on the freeway (or 20 mph under the speed limit on any given street) because maintaining an appropriate speed while talking on a cell phone is NOT a skill that is well developed here.

I never thought I'd miss Los Angeles traffic, but I would so rather share the road with someone who will take out four lanes of traffic at once before you even know what's happened rather than someone who will come to a screeching halt in the middle of a 60mph highway, turn on their signal, and wait for all the nice people to let them over. Traffic laws are useless without common sense.

A Post That's Actually Positive About Minnesota

2008-04-17T14:28:00.003-05:00

Woo-Hoo!

The snow is gone, the snow is gone, the snow is gone, the snow is gone!!!!

Well, people, it's been a record week for the Twin Cities. We had two whole straight days where we hit at least 60 degrees!!!! Considering it had only made it to 60 degrees two or three times so far this entire year, I'd say we're doing pretty good! I'm especially pleased that almost all of the snow is gone. I wish it would stay gone permanently, but I'll take the next 6 months or so of snow-free weather in a heartbeat. I'd like to thank you all for your wishes of warm weather. I think it worked!

I've been slow to post this week because we had a great weekend, and I've stalled returning to reality as long as possible. Our trip to the Lowell Inn was fantastic. I loved the Victorian setting and decorations. Every room is different, and I'd love to go back and stay in some of the other ones just to see how they're decorated.

The weather never did really cooperate, but I love Stillwater so much it didn't matter. Friday we ate dinner at an old fashioned diner in town called Lily's, and then Saturday we visited the historic courthouse, had lunch in a tea shop (yum), did some shopping on Main Street (yes, Stillwater still has a main street--it's mostly touristy now, but I still love it), took a tour of the limestone caves, and drove around to gawk at all the old Victorian houses for sale. (Anyone have $1.4 million they want to donate for my dream home? Okay, okay...I'd settle for $700K. Anyone?)

We ate dinner at the hotel Saturday night, and lounged around Sunday before having to come home. :( It was just a really relaxing weekend and it was over all too soon. Thank you honey for a fabulous birthday gift!

When Will It End?

2008-04-11T12:50:00.002-05:00

I don't know what came over me this morning.

I saw this woman dumping stuff on our lawn, and I just snapped. I'm talking insanity of previously unreached proportions. I think I might have even foamed at the mouth a little. "Who does she think she is?" I fumed. "Doesn't she understand that this isn't her personal dumping ground?"

I screamed at her to pick up her stuff and leave, but she didn't listen to me. She just kept on dumping it there, oblivious to my misery. I've seen her around here before, doing the same thing. I don't know what to do about it. According to the locals, she's been doing it for years, and no one's ever been able to stop her.

So I did the only thing I could do. I shook my fist at her and shouted "Some day! Some day I'll show you! Some day I'll invent a machine that controls you and your ways, and then we'll just see if you can manage to make it snow in April!"

Stupid Mother Nature. Stupid snow. Stupid winter.

Why Do I Even Bother?

2008-04-10T15:41:00.002-05:00

Today my boss tossed a 10-year-old partnership agreement on my desk (in this partnership, there is us and the limited partner) and told me to contact the limited partner and request information needed for a refinance. He gave me the name of the limited partner and its president's name from 10 years ago. Based on the amount of turnovers and mergers in this field, I knew I was about to embark on a search for a needle in a haystack.

First I tried Google. The search came up with a lot of similar names, but not an exact match. So I tried the Minnesota Secretary of State Web site and various online yellow pages. No luck there either. So then I sat and flipped through the extensive partnership agreement, hoping to find letterhead or notes or something that would have some contact information on it. I came up with an address, but no phone number. Oh, and also I found a different name than the one my boss had given me. Shocker. I don't know why that didn't occur to me earlier.

I Googled the other name, and realized why I hadn't been able to find them in any Minnesota related searches. They're a Florida company. Alrighty then. So I went to the State of Florida's Web site and did a business search, hoping to verify the address that I had was current, or find the current one. Yeah, they had several addresses listed. None of them matched the address my boss had given me. And no phone numbers for any of them, of course. Oh, and there had been a merger in 2003, so I was still searching the wrong name.

I did a reverse directory search on one of the addresses, but didn't find anything useful. So I searched the third name and finally found a Web site. The company had offices all over the world except at the address my boss had originally given me. So I called the number of the office closest to the 10-year-old address. I went through a slew of automated menu options, and then waited on hold for a human.

Human told me to call the Boston office.

I called the Boston office. I got more menu options, and then got to listen to more elevator music while I waited for a real live person. Unfortunately, this was an effort in futility, as the human at the Boston office told me that all of their limited partnership accounts were now handled out of the Dallas office.

I called the Dallas office, went through their automated menu selections, waited for a human, and then finally got to talk to someone. This person searched our company name and the company name of the limited partner and their address, but could find no record of our agreement much less the name of the person who was now handling our account. She asked if she could put me on hold while she looked into it. I waited for 10 minutes, and would probably still be waiting if I hadn't been disconnected.

The above process took about an hour. That's an hour of my life I'll never get back. At least I got paid to waste my time.

He Doesn't Always Make Ham, Hot Dog, Cheese, and Olive Sandwiches

2008-04-08T14:30:00.004-05:00

This weekend I was complaining to my husband that my mother forbid me to post what I thought was a cute and funny story about my father because "we don't want to be on your blog." I was...well, I was not happy that I had lost a perfectly good piece of blogging material to censorship. Anyway, in response to my exasperation, my husband made a half-joking comment about how it was sometimes embarrassing to be the subject of someone else's blog, and then asked me if I wanted a hot dog, ham, cheese, and olive sandwich.

So this post is for you, honey. Here's 10 of the many reasons why my husband is awesome:

1. He does most of the cooking (and aside from the culinary debacle mentioned above, it's usually really good).

2. He will do the dishes and other household chores just to be nice.

3. He buys me flowers just because.

4. He picks out clothes for me and then surprises me with them (he usually does really well with this too).

5. He didn't get mad when he told me that he was comfortable spending a certain amount of money on last year's trip to Europe and then I went and spent more than double that amount...(I don't know what came over me, I swear.)

6. He called me every day from work when I had pneumonia to check up on me and see if I needed anything.

7. He's taking me here for my birthday.

8. When his car officially became beyond the point of repair, he took my old car and let me drive the new one.

9. He gallantly volunteered to take care of me when the Alzheimer's officially sets in so I don't have to worry about whether I will have a male or female aid taking care of me at the nursing home.

10. He good-naturedly puts up with me posting stories about his making ham, hot dog, cheese and olive sandwiches.

Some Men Should Come With A Warning Sign

2008-04-03T14:35:00.005-05:00

My job is a wealth of blogging material, as you will come to find out. I had debated telling you today about my former supervisor who we think faked having ovarian cancer, but I've decided to save that for another day and instead blog about a dear co-worker of mine and her recent boy trouble, because I am having trouble being there for her as a friend, considering the mind-boggling situation she has managed to get herself into. I'm hoping someone out there might have some advice.

Co-worker met Man in a bar a couple of years ago. Co-worker was immediately attracted to Man. Co-worker found Man fun to be around and easy to talk to. Co-worker and Man had several dates over the course of several weeks, and all seemed to be going well until Man started exhibiting multiple red flags that should have sent Co-worker running for the hills but did not.

It turned out that Man had several DUI's, did not have a driver's license, and had to take an alcohol test every morning and call in the results because of his DUI's. Man was not the type to make his child support payments, probably due in part to the fact that Man had BAD credit problems. BAD. The worst. So bad that Man got kicked out of the apartment Man was sharing with a friend, and showed up on Co-Worker's doorstep on CHRISTMAS DAY and asked to move in because Man had no place else to go. They had known each other about a month, and prior to this there had been no discussion of them living together. Co-worker however felt bad turning him away on Christmas day, so in moved Man.

Man assured Co-Worker he was trying to change, and Co-worker rationalized her decision by saying that Man's honesty was a testament to his character. At first, things went relatively well. Man cooked, cleaned, and paid rent. However, as time went on, their relationship rapidly deteriorated. Co-worker discovered Man was manipulative. Man would stay out all night with his friends (one of them a married woman who Co-worker later found out he was having an affair with). Man would not invite Co-worker, and would not call Co-worker to let her know where he was, even though Man and Co-worker were still dating at this point. After a few months, Co-worker had had enough, and kicked Man out. Except Man did not leave. Man immediately apologized, said he was sorry, and begged for forgiveness, said he would change, and agreed to work on their relationship. Co-worker, still attracted to Man, gave in.

Man of course did not change, and as soon as a few days later was acting as though nothing had ever happened. Things continued in the same dire state for several more months, during which Co-worker began to suspect Man was getting him a little something something on the side. This is where things went from bad to beyond my comprehension.

Co-worker, instead of just kicking out Man for good and washing her hands of his loser-ness, began an obsessive quest to gather proof for the whole world just how much of a low-life rotten scum bag Man really was. Co-worker followed Man around, trying to catch him cheating (which she did). Co-worker went to where she knew Man would be hanging out, trying to catch him cheating (which she did). Co-worker set up fake profiles on dating Web sites that she knew Man subscribed to hoping to lure him in with pictures of hotties and prove that he was not only cheating on her, but also on the married woman with whom he cheated on her with in the first place (which she did). Co-worker even contacted the husband of the married woman Man was doing the nasty with, and told him what she knew.

And that is an extremely edited version of the lengths that Co-worker went to. There are so many more sordid details, but if I were to include them all, I'd probably crash Blogger's server. Suffice it to say that Co-worker made many many decisions I and everyone else in her life vehemently disagreed with, but she was bound and determined to expose Man for what he was. I think she thought it would make her feel better. Of course it didn't, and not only that, but Co-worker sucks as a spy and got busted by Man in every single one of these endeavors. So to add insult to injury, now Man publicly refers to Co-worker as his "psycho stalker" (they live in the same small town).

Co-worker is devastated about the whole thing, and is often in tears over why she wasn't good enough even for the worst of losers (the ladies here in the office repeatedly tell her she should take this as a compliment, but she doesn't see it that way). This has been going on for quite a while, and I don't know what to say to her anymore. I could use some suggestions.

Figure Skating Faux Pas

2008-04-01T13:53:00.003-05:00

I promised myself that I would never post an e-mail forward in one of my blogs, but then I got this today. I thought it was hysterical. I think I found it so funny because this happens more frequently than it should in Minnesota, and every time it happens, I feel a little less pity for those involved and a little more exasperation at the absence of common sense. I hope you enjoy.

On Housework, Homeownership, and Murphy's Law

2008-03-31T11:55:00.004-05:00

Why is it that I have to clean my house in order to clean my house?

In order to sweep the floors, why must I first pick everything up off the floor so that the broom can connect with the tile? The same thing goes for vacuuming. Why must I first tour the house and pick up all the laundry that has yet to make it into the laundry basket before I can begin sorting laundry? Likewise with the dishes: why must I first tour the house to pick up any cups, silverware, plates, bowls, etc., that have been left lying around? And why must I must first put away DVD's, CD's, miscellaneous papers, household files, pens, pencils, newspaper, and a variety of other items that continually litter our dining room table, coffee table, end tables, desk, and any other place with an open area that looks as though it could suffice for storage, so that I have unobstructed surface areas to actually dust?

Why is it that what should be simple household fix-it projects are never that simple?

When your father-in-law says that the leaking bathtub faucet can be fixed by just "turning it here and tightening it," and your husband proceeds to do exactly that, why can't the stupid thing just turn and tighten like it is supposed to? Why does the part that is supposed to turn not turn, and the part that's not supposed to turn does actually find a way to turn, causing the little tiny pipes that connect the faucet to the main pipe to break off, thereby resulting in an even bigger mess than what you had to begin with?

Why is it snowing outside, even though on my calendar it clearly indicates that we have now entered the season of spring? Did you hear that Mother Nature? Spring. S-P-R-I-N-G. As in flowers blooming, not 6 inches of snow falling.

Why did our snowblower break during the last snowstorm?

I Love My Job, I Love My Job, I Love My Job...

2008-03-27T10:40:00.003-05:00

Some days I honestly don't mind going to work.

Today is not one of those days.

We have a closing this morning on one of our units. When we close on a unit, we gather our subcontractor invoices and payoff amounts from the bank that gave us the construction loan on the project which are then paid out of our proceeds, and then send it to either the title company or law firm handling the closing so they can prepare the necessary closing documents (the fun stack of paperwork you get to sign when you buy a home). We've known about this particular closing for almost a month. That means we've had a month to prepare and get all the necessary documents in order, which all of us did to the best of our ability.

Except for my boss, the guy who has the final say, and whose signature we need on the HUD and some of these closing documents to make them valid.

Yeah, he decided yesterday afternoon that about 4:30 was a good time to sit down and finally deal with this closing, which was scheduled for 10 a.m. today. This was after he wasted about 3 hours yesterday talking about everything but work-related issues with the other executives. And by everything other than work-related topics, I mean sports. And sports. And, oh yeah, more sports.

Did he decide at the last minute he wanted changes to some of the documents? Of course. Did he also want additional documents created? Of course. Were some of these changes absolutely necessary? (Are they ever?) Did some of these changes cause more last minute problems than they fixed? Oh yeah.

Guess who got to stay late to deal with it? Yep, that would be me. Guess who got to come into work early to finish dealing with it? Yep, me again. Guess who got to try and explain his less-than-orthodox changes to the law firm handling this closing? Yeah, I got that fun job too. Guess who got reprimanded and lectured by her supervisor for not catching a typo? (Of all the documents I've been madly generating this morning and last night, I had one that had a typo. One. And it was a typo. Singular. I wanted to tell him that maybe if he hadn't left everything until the last minute so that all of these issues had to be addressed in a severely limited amount of time, he would have been more apt to have a 100% error-free finished product instead of a 99% error-free finished product. And that if I worked for one of those sports organizations he had been so busy discussing yesterday with a 99% success rate, I'd be the highest paid and most well known athlete ever. Oh, and you're welcome for my staying late and coming in early to compensate for your inefficiency.)

It's not even that I mind coming in early or staying late when necessary. What bothered me was the assumption that of course I just naturally could stay as late as he needed me to, as though I have no other obligations in my life that might now need to be rearranged at the last minute because of him. It bothered me that it was left until the last minute because he didn't feel like dealing with it, not because he was too busy with other obligations to deal with it. It bothered me that about 50% of what he wanted done wasn't even necessary in the first place (and some of which had to be undone this morning by the closer). And it bothered me that he could have cared less about all of the above.

Oh well, I guess we all get our own little personal versions of the Devil Wears Prada at some time or another.

Cabin Fever

2008-03-23T19:15:00.005-05:00

So far spring is a big disappointment:

You would think that it would stop snowing since it's, you know, technically spring, but no such luck. Oh well, we had a white Christmas, I guess it's only fitting that we had a white Easter as well. At this rate we'll be lucky if we hit 50 degrees in time for Memorial Day weekend...

A Parade of Stupid

2008-03-19T13:30:00.003-05:00

I amaze myself sometimes.

Like the other night when I was driving home from church, I couldn't figure out why all these people were flashing their brights. There was enough traffic where it didn't occur to me right away that they might be flashing them at me (I know, how clueless is that?). So what are my initial thoughts? "Stupid MN drivers," I think. My disdain for MN drivers runs deep. They're even worse than CA drivers, which speaks volumes. I'll have to post on this someday, but for now, it doesn't matter what I think of MN drivers, because that is not the point. The point is that I mentally cursed the lot of them for a variety of general bad driving offenses before finally realizing that the reason that every car I passed flashed their brights was because I didn't have my lights on. And it was pitch black outside. Oh, and it was snowing too.

Then yesterday morning a co-worker asked me for some information on one of our properties. She gave me the correct address to the property. I had been working on another property, however, so when she messaged me the address, my little brain didn't even register that it was a different property than the one I had been working on. So then I proceeded to rant about how I had already provided this information to the person who had asked her for it, and then she, in turn, trying to be a good co-worker, corrected this person for asking for the same information twice, and informed them that I had already provided them with this information, and that it was still sitting on their desk. It was only after all this occurred that I realized my mistake.

But the best was yesterday morning's wardrobe malfunction. I was wearing black dress slacks that had a button, two hooks, and a zipper. I remembered to fasten the hooks and the button before leaving the house, and then walked around the office for an hour before realizing that I had failed to dress myself entirely.

Oi vay.

Comments

2008-03-18T10:58:00.002-05:00

I've never specifically addressed this before on this blog, so I will do so now. I moderate my comments. I do this because a) it's my blog and I can, b) my mother reads it, and c) I'm particular about what type of language is used and prefer to keep this as G-rated as possible. I appreciate the opinions of others, and enjoy reading them. I know that we will not always agree, but part of what I enjoy about blogging is getting to read the insights/opinions of others and learning new perspectives.

That being said, there is a way to state your opinion that will result in my publishing it, and a way to state it that will result in my rejecting it. Comments that include profanity or references to adult topics when I'm blogging about something completely unrelated will not be published. Comments that make derogatory references to an entire group of people will also not be published.

I received a comment today on my post about the video game. The writer said that he did not understand why I objected to the game. Fair enough. I realize that by many people's standards, my definition of what is inappropriate is extreme. However, this person went on to joke about a situation that he felt would justify concern on my part. Unfortunately, although unintentional, the humor of the comment came at the expense of an entire community of people, so I chose not to publish it. Maybe that was too extreme too. But it's my blog and, therefore, my call.

So there you have it. To those of you with the patience for my neurosis, thank you, and I look forward to reading your future comments.

One Month Later

2008-03-17T10:54:00.002-05:00

It's been one month since my grandmom died. Part of me feels like it's been much longer, but then the other part of me still half expects to see her at the nursing home the next time we're in CA.

My grandmother didn't want anything big in the way of a funeral, so we had a burial for her and then a memorial luncheon. My mom had prepared a collage of pictures of her for the luncheon, as well as displayed some of her artwork she had done before the Alzheimer's set in. It was good to see the pictures and artwork again. My grandmother had Alzheimer's for so long that I had forgotten what she looked like beforehand. She had a really pretty smile. In the pictures she looked so happy and full of life--it was almost like looking at a different person than the shell of the one we'd come to know over the last 10 years.

My grandmother loved art and had wanted to go to an art school when she was younger, but her father didn't think that was any way to make a living, so she went to secretarial school instead. Years later, after I was born, she went back and got her associate's degree in art. Some of the pieces my mom had displayed at the luncheon were one's I'd seen at my grandmother's house growing up, and I hadn't even realized she had made them. There were several pictures and sculptures, one of a cat that I had always thought they had bought. There were some familiar pieces too, like the charcoal drawing she had done of apples that hung in their living room for years. Hubby likes art, and I always wondered what kind of conversations he and my grandmother might have had if she was able.

The suddenness of her death has worn off--even though she had Alzheimer's, I always thought there'd be more warning before she died, and that she wouldn't just get a cold and be dead within a day. There's a sense of relief now that's more prominent. Relief that it's finally over, and that she's not suffering anymore. I still feel cheated out of the last 10 years, and I'm not really sure how long that's going to last. But overall, everyone in the family seems to be coping well--we were worried about how my grandfather would react, but he seems to be holding up pretty well. Thank you everyone for your prayers and support during this time.

How Not To Hide Something From Your Wife

2008-03-13T09:56:00.003-05:00

I've noticed a couple of funny things lately. For instance, when I go downstairs when my husband is playing his XBox 360, sometimes he quickly switches it over to the TV before I get within eyesight of what is on the screen. Also, if I have appointments or meetings that don't pertain to him, he has been asking how long I'll be gone, what time I'll be home, etc. That's odd, because usually if I tell him I'm getting my hair done or my legs waxed or something, all I usually get is an "Okay," which he says without turning his head away from whatever it is he is doing, because that's just how interested he is in my beauty regimen. After a few weeks of this, I began to get suspicious. So then, naturally, I started snooping. It didn't take too long to find out that he had purchased a particular XBox 360 game, to which I had previously voiced objections.

The game in question is one in which almost naked anime chicks wrestle. They wrestle because the makers of the game had to have them do something, because otherwise it would just be blatant anime smut. Sometimes when they wrestle, certain things become...exposed. Depending on how you wrestle, you can "unlock" other costumes for the fighters, like schoolgirl or nurse. (See where this is going?) As IGN, a popular gaming site, put it, the makers of this game weren't so interested in creating a high quality wrestling game as they were in "creating interactive girl-on-girl action." When I first found out he was researching this game a few days after I bought him the XBox 360, I voiced my objections. Surely there are other wrestling games one can purchase, if you really want a true wrestling game, right? Why does one need the game with the half-nekid chicks? I just don't see the point. Well, I take that back. I do see the obvious point, and I object.

When I discovered that he had bought the game AFTER I had asked him not to, I was pissed. Mr. Slick had been researching game cheats online, so I went through his stack of XBox 360 games to find the game. I found out that my darling husband had two stacks of games: one, the much larger one, was out in the open. The other consisted of three games: the game in question plus two others he must have thought I wouldn't like, and was hidden under a box under a table, separate from the others.

So he bought the game after I had asked him not to, hid the game, then tried to play it on the sly. On top of that, he researched game cheats on our home computer, on which I have a monitoring service (long story), which he knows about.

I decided that rather than confront him, I would keep quiet and just hide the game. So I did. I took the game disc out of its case and hid it where I knew he wouldn't find it. Then I waited for him to notice it was missing, which he did last night. When I came home from my hair appointment, the first thing out of his mouth was: "Hey, did you do anything with my games?"

I told him I only did something with one of his games, the one I asked him not to buy. To which he responded that maybe I should just go through all of his games and get rid of all of the ones I found offensive. Then he decided that instead of doing that, maybe I should just get rid of the XBox 360 and Playstation 2 entirely. (In the middle of this conversation, we got a phone call. Husband answered it downstairs. I asked who it was when he came back up, and he told me to check the caller ID because didn't I prefer checking up on him?) Then he went downstairs and didn't say anything to me the rest of the night.

I told him I was upset about the one game, because I had asked him not to buy it, and then he went and did it anyway and tried to hide the evidence. His response was basically that I'm psycho and controlling. I, however, don't think that my objections are unwarranted, nor that my hiding the game was that out of line.

But I don't know, maybe my reaction was over the top. It is just a video game...it's not like he had a brothel hidden in our basement. What do you think?

Bon Apetit!

2008-03-11T12:50:00.002-05:00

I still don't have much of an appetite what with being sick and all, so last night we had fend-for-yourself dinner night. The only thing that sounded good to me was an English muffin with lots of butter, yummmmm, butter. I came upstairs to make myself dinner and found that Hubby was creating a yummy sandwich in the toaster oven. He had sliced a bakery roll in two, and then heaped one half with melted cheese, and then the other half with ham. It smelled really good, and I was almost ready to ditch my English muffin and ask Hubby for a bite of his sandwich when I noticed something.

Hubby had sliced a hot dog long-ways into three sections and laid it on top of the ham. So he had a ham, cheese, and hot dog sandwich.

I asked him why he ruined what could have been a really yummy sandwich with hot dog. He said "It's good!" I told him he was crazy, but even I didn't expect what came next.

"You know what would be good on this?" he asked me. I didn't really have an answer for him, because, really, what does one add to a ham, hot dog and cheese sandwich? But that was okay, because Hubby already had something else in mind.

"Olives!" he exclaimed gleefully, and went downstairs to the cellar to get a can.

This is the same guy who made steak goronzola and chocolate mousse for Valentine's Day. He has now made himself a ham, cheese, hot dog and olive sandwich.

How do you come up with that combination? When you're looking in the fridge and you see the hot dogs lying next to the ham lunch meat, do you just think "Oh, ham and hot dogs, I haven't had that for awhile?" Because I never would have thought to combine the two, even if it was the only food we had available in the house. To me, hot dog is a stand alone...meat (yeah, we'll just call them meat). You put ketchup on them, maybe mustard and relish, but ham? And then top the whole thing with olives? Huh?

You Know It's Cold When...

2008-03-09T13:09:00.006-05:00

...even the stupid water falls freeze. But they are quite pretty that way, aren't they? Hubby took these pictures yesterday at Minnehaha Falls.

Here's a view from the side.

And here's a view from the front.

Here's a view from behind the falls.  I'm not sure Hubby was supposed to be back there, but I'm kind of glad he went.  :)

Now there's something you don't see everyday in CA.

Can This Month Get Any Better?

2008-03-06T09:43:00.003-06:00

So when we got back to American Siberia, I got a little cold (as in germs, not weather, although come to think of it, that would be applicable too). At least, I thought it was a little cold. It started out with a dry cough, which I at first thought was due to something in the air or something in the CA air (it's not uncommon for both Hubby and I to cough for a few days after a CA trip--one of the nice positives about American Siberia: fresh air). But then I got a slight fever. No worries I thought. But then the slight fever turned into a pretty nasty fever, I started vomiting, getting night sweats, aches/pains and congestion. Fantastic, I think. I have the flu! Normally I try to stay away from pills when I'm sick and just let the germs run their course, but I felt so crappy that I took an Advil to make the fever go away. And then another Advil. And another, and another, and another, until five days had passed and the only thing that had gone away was the Advil supply. Okay, time to go to the doctor.

I hate the doctor. I actually went to two last night, and my first experience demonstrates exactly why I avoid going at all costs. I show up for my appointment, after explaining all of my symptoms to the woman making the appointment and the nurse who brought me into the exam room. The doctor's office was packed and the exam rooms were close together, and I could hear the doctor that I was going to see talking to another patient before he came in. This patient sounded like he was complaining of flu-like symptoms as well. The doctor told him that he really didn't have the flu, that all of his symptoms were due to the change in weather and the pressure that can cause on your sinuses. (We actually got above freezing this weekend before the temperature dropped again--so basically the "temperature change" the doctor was referring to was: this weekend was cold. This week is really freakin' cold.) The other patient pointed out that he had a fever, to which the doctor replied that if this patient had the flu, his fever would be 104. (Really? 'Cuz I've had the flu lots and your temperature doesn't always stay at 104.)

Then this doctor comes out of that exam room, and speaks to the nurse about me before coming in. Then I hear something I can't believe: he diagnoses me before he even sees me. He tells the nurse that "I already know what she has. She's got ______________ (insert fancy schmancy medical terminology here which I'll get to later)." Sure enough, he comes in, listens to my lungs, looks in my ears, and spends a lot of time looking in my nose. He asks if I am experiencing fatigue. I say yes, kind of surprised that he asked, because aren't you always tired when you're sick? He tells me that all of my symptoms are due to the congestion that's sitting in my nose. I ask him if nose congestion can cause a fever and all of the other symptoms that I've experienced, even if it was one of the last symptoms to appear. He repeats that my symptoms are due to my nose congestion, and that this will also cause fatigue, which is what I came in for after all, right?

I couldn't believe what I was hearing at this point. I told him, no, I came in because I've had a fever for five days that will not break despite my taking obnoxious amounts of Advil. He told me that Advil won't make the fever go away, that I'd need an antibiotic. I'm not sure if this is accurate. I've taken Advil before when I've been sick, and it has helped the fever go away and kept it away. But then he prescribed the same antibiotic that doctor #2 gave me for a much different diagnosis, so maybe doctor #1 wasn't completely off his rocker. He also prescribed a nose spray which he was very adamant I take right away. As an aside, this is the third time between the two of us (Hubby and I) that we have seen this doctor. The last time I saw him, I went in for an earache. He told me I had post-nasal drip. Hubby saw him because he had a cold. Hubby was also diagnosed with post-nasal drip. Guess what was prescribed for post nasal drip? Nose spray! I think the guy is getting a kick back...

Anyway, he told me I had vasomotor rhinitis, which, when I googled it at home, is basically the medical word for a stuffy nose.

A stuffy nose. A stuffy nose can cause fever, aches and pains, cough, night sweats and vomiting? I think not. Now, I'm not a doctor, but I think I have pretty traditional flu symptoms, which, based on their longevity, could have been many different things. I was not tested for any of them. There was no blood work, no x-rays, nada. Just the extended nose examination after the pre-exam diagnosis. I call Hubby who comes home and I go to the urgent care of a different clinic. I see another nice doctor who takes one look at me, listens to my symptoms, and sends me down for x-rays and blood work.

Yeah, I have pneumonia.

What's really scary about doctor #1 is that he told me that he sees "9 or 10" of these "cases" a day. That's great. How many other people are getting misdiagnosed by this guy?

So now I'm on bed rest until Sunday, and I'm really hoping the antibiotic doctor #2 put me on does the trick, because I'm tired of being sick. And I'm seriously considering filing a complaint against doctor #1.

Plane Etiquette

2008-03-02T10:20:00.003-06:00

Sorry it's been so long since my last post. We were in CA this week for the funeral. Normally this is where I'd do a nice, touching, memorial post about my grandmother, but I'm just not ready to talk about that yet. So instead, I've decided to do a post dedicated to all those who helped make our time spent flying the friendly skies these past few days all that much more excruciating.

1. When the announcement is made that your plane is starting to board, put down your drink and get your heiny out of the airport club lounge and join your fellow passengers asap. Do not take so long in meandering over to the appropriate gate that you actually delay the flight. Do not wait until the airline has to actually threaten to give away your tickets in their effort to motivate you to do as you're told. Chances are, you booked the flight, and selected the flight time, and, even if you didn't, THE BOARDING TIME IS PRINTED ON YOUR BOARDING PASS. If you can't figure out what time you need to board your plane, please find another method of transportation. The rest of us have better things to do than wait on you.

2. If properly stowing your carry on luggage is proving to be a bit too challenging for you once you are on the plane, please step aside and let those behind you pass so that they may find their seat and get situated. Then you may rearrange your carry on luggage to your heart's content. Do not take five minutes trying to put your carry on suitcase into an overhead compartment, only to realize that it does not fit and that you will have to move it somewhere else. Do not take an additional 10 minutes to find somewhere else to put it, all the while holding up 20 other passengers who are standing behind you waiting to get to their seat because it has not occurred to you to let them pass. Do not take your time taking off your coat in the center aisle once you have finally found space for your carry on luggage. Do not, after all of this, begin to sit down, only to realize that you would like to put your cane in the overhead compartment as well, and then jump up just as those who you've kept waiting have been finally allowed to begin to find their seats, and who now have to stop yet again and wait for you to find just the right spot for your cane. If you are doing all of the above as the flight attendants are making announcements urging people to quickly stow their luggage and sit down, THEY ARE TALKING TO YOU. If the captain makes an announcement prior to take off saying, "We're going to be a little late getting out of the gate here today, folks. It took us longer to board than we thought" HE'S TALKING ABOUT YOU. Also, if it's taking you longer than it should to load your suitcase in the overhead compartment because you're struggling to lift it, either pack lighter or check your bag.

3. If you have physical issues that require you to take more time to deplane than the average person, please sit in your seat until all other passengers have gotten off the plane before doing so yourself. Please do not stand in the center aisle and put on your coat while those who were seated behind you stand and wait. Also, please note that putting on one's coat should not require ten minutes. If the state of your physical being presents airline seat to passenger space ratio issues that require you to have to stand in the center aisle to put on your coat, please at least return to your seat after you have done so, so that those behind you may pass. Please do not continue to gather your things, arrange them just so, and then slowly shuffle off the plane. And for Pete's sake, please do not then slowly shuffle into the bathroom and stand in the worst possible location, spreading your crap around and taking up as much space as possible, thereby once again forcing the rest of us to either move around you or wait for you to move, especially since by this time we all really really really have to pee because it just took us 20 minutes longer than it should have to get off of the plane because of you.

4. Please be careful when adjusting your seat back. Please do not lurch your seat backward at top speed, using your 6 foot 4, 230 pound frame to expedite the process. This only results in the chair over-extending from the sheer force of your efforts, and bonking the head of the passenger seated directly behind you as she is leaning over searching for her MP3 player. There is no reason to have to lean back in your chair at warp speed. And my head still hurts.

5. When the flight attendants ask you to do something, do it. Do not make them come back and ask you to return your seat back to its original position five times before actually doing so, and then only doing it because the flight attendant is now pushing your chair forward and refusing to leave until you comply. I don't care if you're not comfortable. It's a plane. It's uncomfortable by default. If you can't accept that, don't fly.

Some people are just a special kind of stupid.

And The Saga Continues...

2008-02-22T15:03:00.004-06:00

We received more specific information today on what, exactly, the hold up is with planning my grandmother's funeral. The hospital mistakenly gave the funeral home the name of the ER doctor on duty the night my grandmother was admitted to the hospital, instead of the name of the doctor who actually treated her once she was admitted to ICU, as I told you all yesterday. Then the funeral home guy that apparently has our family's "account" was out of the office for some reason Tuesday and Wednesday, so it wasn't until he off-handedly mentioned to my mother yesterday who he was trying to get ahold of that the mistake was caught. He finally got the contact information for the right doctor...who was out sick yesterday. My mom called the funeral home this morning for an update, and when she found out that there was none, decided to call the hospital herself to find out what it is that they are (not) doing over there. The woman she spoke with very nicely told her that the doctor had indeed faxed the required paperwork to the funeral home, and that my mother shouldn't be calling the hospital, as that was the job of the funeral home.

WELL MAYBE SHE WOULDN'T HAVE TO CALL THE HOSPITAL IF Y'ALL COULD COLLECTIVELY GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER!?!!!!

I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me there...

My mother calls the funeral home back, and surprise, surprise, the funeral home says that no, actually, they have not received any paperwork from the hospital, but they assure my mother they will stay on top of it. About an hour later they call my mom back and tell her that the reason she had been told that the paperwork had been sent was because the hospital had confused my grandmother with another patient.

Shocker.

Finally, finally a little later the right doctor faxed over the necessary paperwork. Except it was written in the fine penmanship doctors are so renowned for, and the funeral home couldn't read it. So they had to call him back to get clarification. That actually only took another couple of hours instead of a couple of days (another shocker), and now the funeral home has to send it to the state, who has to ratify it, and send it to the doctor for yet another signature, and then once the state receives the signed paperwork back from the doctor they can send it back to the funeral home, and we can actually bury Grandmom.

Maybe we can still bury her Monday, maybe we can bury her Wednesday. It's still up in the air. That's okay, Grandmom can just ferment awhile longer, which, I'm sure she absolutely loves, since she was the biggest hygiene enforcer in my life growing up and made me wash places I didn't know dirt could get to when I was a kid, so I'm sure she doesn't mind a little prolonged decay...

Idiots.

Anyway, thanks everyone for listening to me these past couple of days. I know it's been oh so uplifting. I'll stop griping eventually, I promise.

You Seriously Just Can't Make This Stuff Up

2008-02-21T15:18:00.008-06:00

I would have thought I'd be in CA by now, attending or soon to attend the funeral of my grandmother. But no, I am still in American Siberia, checking my phone and e-mail every five minutes to see if my mom's called with a funeral date. We're still waiting to find out when the funeral will be because of--you guessed it: bureaucratic red tape and the people who operate it.

Apparently in the state of CA, one needs a burial permit before one can bury someone. Prior to obtaining the burial permit, one must have a death certificate. A death certificate apparently has to be signed by a doctor or other medical professional, like a county coroner, before it is considered official.

When the funeral home contacted the hospital at the beginning of the week, they were given the name and number of a doctor to call for the signature, who they were told by the hospital was the attending doctor at the time of my grandmother's death. The funeral home attempted to call the doctor, to no avail, and finally found out that the reason they had been unable to reach him was because the doctor was on vacation.

What? Vacation?!?

That seemed a little bizarre to me, because I would have thought that even a relatively new doctor would have had the sense to inform a family whose loved one had just passed that they would need to make other arrangements for the execution of the death certificate if said doctor knew he was leaving on vacation the next day. The more I thought about it, it seemed less and less bizarre and more and more infuriating. The funeral home was at this point trying to convince someone at the hospital to find them another doctor to sign the certificate, but that wasn't expediting the process at all. It was Wednesday at this point. My grandmother died Sunday. We had originally been told the funeral would be Friday or Saturday, but were now being told Monday of next week at the earliest. "What is wrong with these people?" I thought to myself. Our loved one has died. We would like to bury that loved one. How hard can it be to find a doctor to sign a death certificate? It's not like it should be that difficult to find a doctor in, you know, a HOSPITAL. It doesn't have to be a "special" doctor. Any doctor will do. Crap, at this point, we'll take Dr. Phil.

Today my mom calls me to tell me that the hospital informed the funeral home today that oops, so sorry, the name we originally gave you wasn't the name of the attending doctor after all. So the funeral home wasted two and a half days trying to track down some doctor that had never seen or heard of my grandmother, and who was probably skiing in Vail at the time of her death.

Seriously, how do things like this happen?

Rest In Peace

2008-02-18T10:49:00.002-06:00

I have a confession. I wasn't paying attention in church yesterday. My mind was going in a million different directions at once, thinking about all that I need to get accomplished in the next two weeks: research for my practicum, studying for and actually taking my comparative exams for my Master's degree (the comps are basically my school's theological equivalent to the bar exam), and all of the other family/life obligations that are on our calendar during that time frame. And then, for some inexplicable reason, my thoughts turned to my grandmother. She has had Alzheimer's for years, and I began to think that she would probably die within the next two weeks. This thought came out of the blue. There was no reason for it, nothing had occurred that would prompt such thinking. I felt that it was an awful thought, and so I tried to stifle it. But it wouldn't go away. For some reason, I just had this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that she was dying. I told myself that I was being ridiculous, and that perhaps if I was going to start hearing voices, I should seek professional help.

When I got home, there was a message from my brother, saying that if I hadn't talked to my parents for a couple of days that I should call him. I knew immediately that something was very, very wrong.

My grandmother had gotten sick the night before, and been taken to the hospital. This, in and of itself, wasn't that surprising. She's had trips to the ICU before, and each time made it out okay. She had a fever, was throwing up, and was diagnosed with a UTI. She was given medication and put on a breathing tube, and by Sunday morning, it appeared that her health was improving. The doctor did recommend that since her wishes were to never be put on any form of life support, that the breathing tube be removed. He did this not only to honor her wishes, but because he felt that she would be able to breath on her own. She was doing okay for a few hours, although the hospital did have to pump fluid out of her lungs at one point. My parents went down for lunch thinking this was just another hospital stay courtesy of Alzheimer's. When they came back up, the doctor told them she was dying. This was about 2:30 in the afternoon. That sinking feeling I had in church occurred about 4:30 p.m. I talked to my brother at about 5:30 p.m. By 7:30 p.m., she had died.

Part of me feels relieved at her death, and that in and of itself is a hard thing to accept. For anyone that has never watched someone die at the hands of Alzheimer's, it is death by inches, and it takes years. Rather than take your physical health first, Alzheimer's instead prefers to decimate you mentally, leaving you unable to remember simple things, although it does allow you in the beginning to be aware of the fact that you are unable to remember simple things. Then it takes your ability to say simple things, regardless of whether there are still things you'd like to say or not. Once it is convinced that it has properly imprisoned you in your own body, it then attacks your body as well. It breaks the communication between your body and mind, so you can't tell for instance when you're tired, which is why Alzheimer's patients wander. They just keep walking because they don't know they're tired. Incontinence? Check, Alzheimer's causes that too. When there's nothing left for Alzheimer's to take, the patient gets to sit listlessly in a wheelchair, unable to speak or care for themselves, until something like a common cold mercifully comes along and kills them because their bodies no longer understand how to or are capable of fighting it off.

Oh, and Alzheimer's likes to skip a generation, which means I'm up next.

So even though it sounds weird to feel relief at someone's death, there is a part of me that is glad, because it means that she is no longer suffering. But I'm still sad at her passing. I'm sad that I never said goodbye to her while she still able to understand. I'm sad we spent the last 10 years just staring at each other because that's all we could do. But I am glad that she is free.

Valentine's Day Recap

2008-02-15T13:31:00.002-06:00

After last night I feel obliged to do another Valentine's Day post to set the record straight, because we actually didn't end up having our traditional Valentine's Day.

I had a leg wrap/massage and pedicure scheduled at a local spa I've been wanting to try for some time now. It was almost a perfect evening. The spa was really nice, and decorated/laid out in a way that had a calming effect. And their locker room was awesome. The only thing that took away from the experience was one little comment made by the technician doing the leg wrap/massage. She had just retrieved me out of their lounge to begin the service, took one look at me, and asked "Oh, are you pregnant?"

Hmph. Now, I know I have gained weight, but I was wearing an oversized, loose fitting robe that certainly wasn't accentuating any perceived baby bump. "No, I'm not pregnant, that's just where I store all the Godiva." (Okay, I didn't really say that last part...but I wanted to.) Then she tried to blame her gaffe on the robe by pointing out that it was oversized and loose fitting, and would I like one that fit better? I politely told her no thank you, but what I really wanted to say was "Would you please stop talking now?"

I do, however, think she was embarrassed, because I got a head massage during the incubation period of the wrap that wasn't in the service description. So either they've added it since their material was last published, or I got a free head massage as compensation for being insulted.

After my otherwise very relaxing evening at the spa, I came home to find that Hubby had bought me flowers and cooked my very favorite dinner, steak gorgonzola, and served it on china and everything. He even grated the garlic rather than chopped it because he thought that would give it a better flavor. Did you hear me people? He. Grated. Garlic.

When I have a recipe that calls for anything more difficult than chopped garlic, I think "forget this," and substitute garlic salt.

And for dessert there was chocolate mousse...that he put in a cake decorating tube and then squeezed into sundae dishes so that it would be pretty when he served it.

Okay, so maybe Valentine's Day wasn't as overrated as I thought it was going to be. I hope your Valentine's Days were equally enjoyable!

The Married People Version of Valentine's Day

2008-02-14T13:08:00.003-06:00

I was just talking with a single co-worker of mine, and she was lamenting that she and a friend had canceled their Valentine's Day "ladies night out" plans because her friend didn't think she'd be able to stomach sitting at dinner and watching all of those happy couples make googly eyes at each other.

So in my effort to be a good friend and try to avert any feelings of singlehood depression that might be overwhelming her at any moment, I tried to give her a different perspective of Valentine's Day, one that is a little more realistic, at least in my experience anyway.

1. Only a fraction of the couples in that restaurant will be giving each other googly eyes: the ones who have been planted there by the Hallmark companies to perpetuate the Valentine's Day syndrome. The rest of us will be cranky after a two hour wait at our favorite restaurant that for whatever reason doesn't take reservations, which we endured because of some unexplainable, automatic, obligatory response to February 14, and we will have no desire to make googly eyes at anyone by the time we are actually seated, no matter how in love we were with them before we got to the restaurant.

2. The couples that you see eating might be thinking how nice it is to have a night out with their special someone. However, it is equally likely that at least some of them will be thinking that the meal they waited 2+ hours for really isn't that good, and they will be wondering who decided to implement this "Valentine's Day" in the first place, and why such a thing is necessary when we could eliminate Valentine's Day entirely and let individual couples arbitrarily choose any random and mutually acceptable day(s) in which to celebrate their love for one another, which would result in a fraction of the wait time for a table.

3. For those couples with enough stamina left after waiting for a table to actually engage in conversation, not all of these conversations are going to consist of whispering sweet nothings into one another's ears. Some of it is going to revolve around such romantic topics as: when do you think you will get around to fixing the bathroom sink? and: did you remember to take back the rental videos on your way to work this morning?

4. Single people aren't the only ones not having sex on Valentine's Day. After the two-hour wait to eat, the time it took to eat, on top of the 8+ hour day you put in at work, some couples decide to throw in the towel and give up their oh-it's-Valentine's-Day-isn't-this-romantic charade and do all they've really wanted to do since the alarm went off that morning: go back to sleep.

Of course, for those of you who have been married oh, three years or less, or are still in the dating phase of your relationship, you probably have no idea what I'm talking about. For those of you that can relate, know that you're not alone. Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Urban Outfitters, Not Just For Outfitting

2008-02-11T15:05:00.000-06:00

Hubby and I went to the Mall of America for dinner Friday night (yes, people, our Friday night fun was at the mall--it's the dead of winter and it's the Midwest, what can I say, we make the most of our options), and we had about half an hour to kill while we waited for a table. The little remote control "Your table is ready" alerting device had a whopping radius of two whole stores on either side of the restaurant, and seeing as how we didn't want to spend half an hour at the "Crepe Stand," we headed on over to Urban Outfitters to eat up some time.

Man, I have not been to Urban Outfitters in a long time. I did not remember them having such a wide variety of items other than clothing. They had books, apartment furnishings, and some items that, well, I'm just not sure what purpose they served. Here are some of my favorites:

A portable desktop Ping Pong set. Because you never know when you might get the urge.

A Finger Drum Set. For when the battery in your IPod dies at the office.

A toilet brush designed after everyone's favorite wooden boy, Pinnochio! No bathroom is complete without one!

This one is a little hard to see, but that's okay, I'll tell you what it is: a thumb wrestling ring! Tired of wrestlers who use their whole wrist/arm to win thumb wars? Put 'em in the ring and see how they do!

And finally, my favorite:

A Gummy Tapeworm! Who needs dessert at Tucci Benucch when you can have a sugary replica of a parasite?

"Hey, How'd She Do That?"

2008-02-10T13:45:00.000-06:00

This is a picture of two of our cats trying to figure out how the third one got "inside" the TV...they know how to open doors, but apparently haven't figured out the concept of "slide show" yet...

I wish we had gotten this on video as well as with the digital camera. They were literally trying to get on the side of the TV, were running back and forth in front of it, pawing at it, and meowing for a good 10-15 minutes trying to figure this one out. Eventually they realized that not only was cat #3 on the TV, but simultaneously in the same room with them as well?!? and they either figured it out at that point or got so confused they stopped trying, because that was ultimately the end of it.

Best. Diet. Ever.

2008-02-08T11:10:00.000-06:00

I'll admit it. I was the stick thin girl in high school that everyone thought was anorexic who now gets asked by strangers when the fat around my middle that they mistake for a baby is due. Most of the weight gain is due to the pill, although I would be lying if I denied that my steady diet of sugar and fried foods and complete apathy toward exercise weren't also factors. I've been trying for years to lose 15 pounds, but since I refuse to give up chocolate candy, chocolate candy bars, chocolate cake, chocolate donuts, hot fudge, brownies and anything Coldstone, I haven't been real successful.

And then I watched this video yesterday. I think these reporters at CBS 11 successfully cured my lifelong chocolate addiction in under five minutes! A warning: this video isn't for the squeamish. But for those of you serious about shedding a few pounds, we might be on to something here! Every time I am craving chocolate from now on, I am just going to watch this video instead! It uses sheer repulsion to abate hunger pangs (or chocolate cravings). It is amazing how effective it is. I haven't wanted chocolate for an entire day and counting after just watching this video once. At this rate, I'll be back down to a size 4 in no time!

Lab Tests Reveal More Than Just Sweets in Candy

Tweezers, Thy Name is Evil

2008-02-07T10:33:00.000-06:00

I used to like my eyebrows. I used to get compliments on my eyebrows. Then, for some inexplicable reason in college, I got bored with my eyebrows and decided it was time for a new shape. That was eyebrow disaster number one. I spent the next several years slowly trying to get my eyebrows back to their original shape with a little pluck here, a little tweeze there (I have never been brave enough to wax my eyebrows), but it wasn't working, so I decided recently that I would be better off just growing them all back in so that I would have a clean slate to work with. This was the beginning of eyebrow disaster number two.

I made it a couple of weeks without tweezing before I officially lost all patience with the forest growing above my eyes and had to tweeze. Had to. It started out innocently enough. I eliminated all hints of a unibrow, and then began the process of un-bushy-ing each individual eyebrow. And that's when it happened. I don't know how it happened, but it did. I got tweezer happy.

At first, one eyebrow just appeared a little thicker than the other one. "This won't do," I thought. "Eyebrows must be symmetrical." So I plucked a few more eyebrow hairs out of the offending brow.

Unfortunately, I must have plucked out some key hairs by accident, because it changed the shape of the arch I had worked so hard to create. So I had to pluck a few more eyebrow hairs from the middle of the brow to get the arch effect I was looking for. But I miscalculated on which hairs to pluck, and only succeeded in creating a pointy-looking effect. I hate pointy eyebrows. There may only be arches, no points. So I plucked a few more hairs from the top of the eyebrow. I really should have put the tweezers down at this point, but I had to get rid of the point.

I stood back to examine my work in the mirror. ARGH!! There was still a point! I selected a few more eyebrow hairs from the top of the brow to eliminate, determined to completely erase the point. I stood back once more to observe my progress, however, what had happened could not be described as progress by any stretch of the means.

I had gotten rid of the point, but in the process had also gotten rid of an entire portion of eyebrow. There was now a visible hole in the middle of the brow. I couldn't believe I had been that careless. I tried to smooth the eyebrow in such a way as to cover the gap, to no avail. I stood there motionless as I tried to come up with a solution. I didn't, so I numbly continued to get ready for work.

Some people need to freeze their credit cards in blocks of ice. Me, I need to freeze tweezers in blocks of ice. Tweezer happy. It's a disease.

I'm just glad my bangs ended up being long enough to cover my eyebrows.

Has This Ever Happened To You?

2008-02-05T15:17:00.000-06:00

I innocently was visiting the Web site of one our our realtors today, in the hopes of finding a current e-mail address for him--at least, I thought I was visiting his Web site. I apparently made a small typo when entering his Web site address (His address? MinnesotaSrealtor.com), and boy was I surprised when a porn site popped up. For those of you who have ever mistakenly found yourself on a porn site on a company computer, you know that my immediate reaction was something along the lines of "OHMYGOSHMUSTGETTHISOFFCOMPUTERBEFOREBOSSWALKSINAND
SEESIT" followed by an immediate state of shock wherein your brain says "MUSTCLOSEWINDOWNOWNOW
NOWNOWNOW," but rather than listen to your brain, your body instead decides to fall over backwards out of the chair, and as you attempt to pull yourself up off the floor, you only succeed in knocking over all of the office supplies you keep on your desk as you wildly grab at the air in your hasty, desperate attempts to find the mouse and SHUT THE WINDOW. As your boss walks in to see what all the commotion is about, you decide your only option at this point is to madly pretend to be searching for a very, very, very important document amongst all the papers that are now strewn across your desk, because if your boss is watching you franticly search for something, surely he won't be looking at your computer screen? Right? Rrrriiiiiiiigght.

Just as you are thinking this, you realize that there is something worse than your boss seeing porn on your computer. Much, much worse. Your boss glances in the direction of your computer screen, but then DOESN'T SAY ANYTHING. Did he not see the porn? Or did he see it and DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING and will forever from this point on think of you as the employee who looks at porn on company time? You will spend the next two months trying to figure out what he did or did not see, during which time you will not be able to make eye contact with your boss and will blush every time the two of you are face to face.

Of course, now that the worst has happened and you think your boss did, indeed, see what was on your screen (or did he?), your brain and body figure out how to communicate again, and you successfully close the window.

And then when it is all over, and you have finally managed to banish the "adult oriented content" from your monitor, you wonder who decides to launch a porn site related to Minnesota realty? My small typo that I mentioned earlier? I left out one letter in that address. One. What intelligence-depraved pervert buys a domain name that would lead a normal person to believe they're visiting a site about real estate in Minnesota and fills it with pornographic content instead?

Why I Don't Shop at Wal-Mart

2008-02-04T10:25:00.000-06:00

So, supposedly this was a real cake ordered from Wal-Mart. Can you imagine the sheer stupidity of the person taking the order? It takes a special person to think that when someone says "and underneath that" when describing what they want written on a cake that the person doing the ordering actually wants the words "underneath that" to appear on the cake. In ebonics.

Mad Props To All Moms

2008-01-30T15:42:00.000-06:00

I hardly ever get stomach viruses. Seriously, Hubby brings home all sorts of fun and interesting germs from the nursing home all the time, and I hardly ever get them. So I wasn't too worried when the latest stomach thing started making the rounds until I woke up at 4:30 a.m. Saturday with a mad urge to use the facilities. I knew I was in trouble when I was on my fourth trip in an hour and I was feeling worse instead of better. As I was cleaning projectile vomit off of the toilet seat, floor, walls and myself while slumped over in pain from the severe stomach cramps this thing was causing (all for naught, as literally three seconds after I finished round 2 started), I wondered: how on earth would I have done this if I had kids?!?

It is now day 5 and I still have a long way to go before I am 100%. I can barely function, which is due largely to the fact that I have barely eaten since Friday night. And now Hubby is sick, so I lost my caretaker and have to fend for myself. I would feel sorry for myself, except I know several women who just went through the same thing, except with kids for an added bonus.

So for all you moms out there, I bow down before you. You are my heroes. I don't know how you do it.