Inane Chatter

I am, I am!  Tomorrow is Les Mis.  YAY!  Tonight, I pick Sparky up from the airport.  Yay!  Also, it’s Friday (yay!) so PRESUMABLY, I can sleep in a bit tomorrow.  Got up before 5 this morning, people.  (John is not pleased.  I tried REALLY hard to have everything I needed in the guest room so I wouldn’t wake him while I got ready, but I needed one little thing and, of course, I needed it 15 minutes before his alarm was going to go off.  Sorry, John.)  We’re having a kick-off meeting this morning, and I was in charge of bringing bagels, and traffic has been HORRIBLE this week, so I figured I’d just get out the door earlier.  Guess what?  I over-corrected.  I was up the elevator and in my little conference room by 7:20.  Just a little bit earlier than necessary.  A tad.  Still, it’s better than the alternative.

Can someone please get Maroon 5′s “Moves Like Jagger” out of my head?  I don’t like it.  I keep trying to force it out, but it creeps its way back in every time I think I’ve won.  Stupid little whistling part.

I have been busy.  Good busy and bad busy.  The bad busy parts stress me out.  The good busy parts are things I could do all the time, every day.  And if I could get rid of the bad busy parts, I’d have time for things I like to do when I’m not doing the good busy parts, like playing on the internet.  Like READING.  John looked over at my book the other night, noticed I wasn’t even halfway through it, and told me it felt like I’d been reading that book forEVER.  I’m not sure in exactly what way how long I spend reading a particular book affects him, but if he noticed I haven’t been reading much, then I really haven’t been reading much.  Tragic.

I spent most of the last three days (all weekend and much of Monday) working on my statistics project.  (This is one of the good busy things.)  Nothing about it was hard, but there were a lot of pieces and the instructions were confusing.  I tried to get clarification from my professor, but since I never heard back, I made some decisions based on what the instructions would have said if I’d written them.  I hope they were the right decisions.  I turned it in late last night.  One big task done.  Yay!  Actually, that was the main good busy thing.  The one that took most of my time.  I talked to Corey finally (he’s going to disown me if I put him off any longer) – hooray for change!  Also, I, uh, bought more wine from my favorite local wineries and went to Borders.  Again.  These were very important errands.  Really.  Oh, and I saw Crazy, Stupid, Love Saturday night with a woman I know from the gym.  It was cute.  Ryan Gosling’s ears are too small to be believed.  Seriously tiny ears.

I did one other kinda major good busy thing this weekend.  Big accomplishment for me.  (Big.)  I ran 10 miles Sunday morning.  Ten whole miles.  I wasn’t very fast, and I walked a little bit, but I did it.  I am no longer afraid that I won’t be able to finish the race in October.  I did it.  The last mile was really hard (it wasn’t early morning anymore and the sun was high and the shade had disappeared and I’d been running for nearly two hours and it was my tenth mile), but I realized as I started it that I’d never run this far before (8 miles – two weeks ago – was my longest run until Sunday morning).  And with every step I took, I was running farther.  Each step was one more than I’d ever run before.  There aren’t very many times I’ll be able to say that.

So that was my weekend.  The good busy stuff is all cool and great (now that I’ve turned in my statistics project), but it doesn’t end there.  I have two more quizzes and a final to complete by next Thursday for statistics, and my next calculus class (differential equations this semester) started yesterday.  I’m so glad my classes only overlap by a week and a half.  Any more than that and I’d be seriously considering quitting my job.  I don’t know how people manage working full-time and going to school at the same time.  With just one class at a time and no extra-curricular work activities (don’t get me started), when I can leave work at work, I can manage.  Anything more and my head starts to spin, Exorcist-style.  (It’s not pretty.)  But yesterday, even though it was a Monday and I had work to do and a project to finish, was a really good day.  The weather was perfect, I had the windows open to catch the very breezy breeze, I got a lot done, my legs didn’t hurt from the run the day before, and my strength class that night was calming.  (I really like my gym.)

———Break for earthquake———

This post was going to have an ending, but then there was an earthquake.  Nothing else got done today.  The earthquake ate my ending.

This particular Tuesday has a weird vibe.  It’s just after 10:30am.  I’ve been to the gym and joined two conference calls (a daily occurrence now – who the hell wants to start every day with two conference calls?).  Neither of those things are out of the ordinary.  I had some coffee.  Haven’t eaten anything yet, which may be contributing to the feeling (I can hear a croissant whispering my name), but what else?

Part 1: The windows are open.  It’s August.  It’s supposed to be hot and sticky and grossly muggy.  I’m not complaining – I’m thrilled to hear the breeze in the trees and the summer insects buzzing or droning or cricketing or whatever is they do, thrilled to have turned the A/C off for the first time in months.  It’s just weird.  Makes it feel like early fall and I’m not quite ready for early fall.

Part 2: I’ve already talked to Mom and Dad.  Before breakfast!  It’s throwing my whole schedule off.

Part 3: I have gotten things DONE already.  Left messages, rescheduled appointments, refilled prescriptions…I’m on a roll.

[Several hours later]

I was on a roll.  A few hours ago, the sunlight was mid-morning fresh, the birds were chirping, and the breeze was breezing.  Since then, I’ve gotten bogged down in the things I’m supposed to be doing (I was doing them before, but everything was light! and cheerful! and oh, what a beautiful morning!), the cool fresh air that was tickling my elbows turned hot, and the sunlight turned stale.

I can still turn this around.  There’s time.  The solution?  Lunch!  A turkey sandwich with cucumber slices on toast.  Seriously.  I don’t think I’m asking too much of one sandwich.  I get cranky when I’m hungry.  Lunch will save the day.

It’s been a busy weekend.  Kind of.  Busy in a good way since I was able to do a bunch of things I wanted to do while still getting most of the things I had to do done also.  Except for the store.  Didn’t make it to the store.  But I did lots of other things, and I got up early (too early – I’m a little tired) both days.

Yesterday, I went into DC to meet a family from France (you’re welcome, Mom) at Eastern Market.  We met at nine, chatted for a while (I’m afraid I babbled at them), wandered the market a little, and then I sent them off to the Capitol, the Archives, a couple of museums, and Kramerbooks.  Nice people.  It was only a little awkward. I wandered the market by myself for a few minutes after they left (bought some cute jewelry, peaches, and sausages) and then I poured myself into the car to go home.  It was only maybe 10:30 or close to 11, but it was crazy hot.  I was melting.

I went back out shortly after I got home, though not into the sun.  It was time, once again, to make the trek (less than a mile – great trek) to my new favorite nail salon (the one I went to in May that’s all crisply white and peaceful and wonderful).  I got the spa pedicure, just because.  They slathered my legs in a purple mud mask that had a chilling effect from the knees down and then wrapped both legs in hot towels.  What a totally weird feeling.  Chilling cold on the inside, but wrapped in steamy hot towels.  Kinda neat.  My legs feel super smooth.  While my nails were drying, I got distracted by the display of nail polishes on the wall.

I’m itching to organize them by color.  Is that weird?  When I ‘m deciding what color to use, I always grab a handful in the same color family and then choose the exact shade I want.  It’d be much easier if they were already on the shelves that way.

After nearly two hours in the salon (feet and hands – it was wonderful), I came home only to turn right around again and head to Target and Borders with John.  Oh!  So Borders is closing.  I’m sure you’ve heard.  That’s depressing.  It was packed yesterday afternoon, too.  All those depressed people taking advantage of the liquidation sale.  I picked up the new George R.R. Martin book, even though I’m super annoyed with him.  It’s been six years since the last book in the series came out, and at the time, he was saying that he’d basically already written this one.  SIX YEARS.  I’ve already had one author die on me before finishing a series.  I see no reason to encourage him to take six years between books, with no end to the series in sight, no matter how good I think the series is.  You may not believe me, but I really wasn’t going to buy this one until it turned into a bargain book or until the next next one came out.  But it was 40% off, and I have the others in hardcover (I cared more WAY back then, and he hadn’t jerked his fans around as much yet), so I caved.  I feel slightly ashamed of myself.

Anyway, today I got up early to run (attempting (and failing) to beat the heat, although today was nothing like yesterday), helped John with the lawn, saw the last Harry Potter movie (more on that later, I think – it was both really cool and not what I’d hoped for), and now I would like a nap.

…starts now.  I’ve been eating and breathing statistics for over a week.  I took my midterm this afternoon,  I’m home now, John’s in charge of dinner (I think), and I don’t have to jump right into the next statistics chapter just yet.  I have a glass of wine, random French jazz in the CD player (CDs Mom burned and gave me – no idea what the specifics are, but I was in the mood for something unusual and mellow), and a new book.  And I’m going to slice some cantaloupe.  Cantaloupe will get me through this heat wave.

Have I told you the story about getting pulled over by the police right after getting my first car?  Some of you know this already.  Here’s the short version:

I was 16 years old, it was summer, and Mom and Dad had just bought me my first car (a 1988 black hatchback Toyota Corolla named Cricket).  They immediately went on vacation near the Finger Lakes in New York.  Far far away from home in Lexington, KY.  Corey was I-don’t-know-where, but not living at home anymore, so it doesn’t really matter, and Mel and I were staying by ourselves.  One day, I went to pick her up, and on our way home, we got pulled over.  I was freaking out, Mel was trying to get me to breathe, and I noticed the police officer look at the back of my car as he came to the window.  I knew I hadn’t been speeding (I was a paranoid beginner driver), so I thought maybe I had a tail light out or something.  Short version, right.  My sticker (the one that has the year on it) looked to the police officer like it had been torn off somehow.  I didn’t have the registration in the car (too new, I guess), and he gave me a citation and told me to take care of it.  This was before cell phones, so I couldn’t call Mom and Dad, and when they eventually called us (it must have been that night, but in my memory it took them three days), they told me to check the mail for the registration and sticker.  Nothing yet.  The next morning, I was on my way to pick Mel up again, and as I made a left turn out of our neighborhood, I got pulled over again.  As the police officer got out of her car, I saw her check the license plate just like the last guy, so I had the citation from the day before in my hand when she got to my window.  I explained everything, showed her the citation, told her I was taking care of it, and she let me go.  But this was traumatizing.  Pulled over twice in two days, for something that I maintain was not my fault.  John wants to know why I was driving the car without the registration and I can only claim ignorance.  Registration?  Stickers?  My parents gave me the keys.  I didn’t ask any questions.  End of story: the registration came in the mail, I put the sticker on the plate, and took care of the citation downtown.  I’ve never gotten a ticket (that one I thought I’d get from the red light camera in DC never came), and I’ve only been pulled over once (for rolling through a stop sign in my neighborhood), and the deputy sheriff let me off with a warning.

Fast forward to today.  Right after I left work, I mean right after I left – it was after the very first turn I made – I heard the whoop of the siren and saw flashing lights.  I pulled over.  The very nice Deputy Sheriff Diaz came up to my window and told me my registration is expired.  I said something clever like, “Oh?”  He asked me what I thought he was pulling me over for, and I said, “I thought maybe I” stop talking stop talking stop talking “ran that stop sign.”  Damn.  I’m incapable of shutting up.  Thankfully, he said “No, you were fine there.”  And then I remembered that I had to wait for traffic to clear before making that right, so I must have stopped.  Anyway, he asked for my registration, and I went rummaging for it even though at this point I knew damn well I hadn’t renewed it.  John and I had just talked about it a few days ago.  Why didn’t I do it then?  Whatever.  I played dumb a little and discovered last year’s registration.  It expired in May.  Ouch.  He took my license and sat in his car looking up whatever they look up that takes so freaking long.  I was watching him in the rearview mirror and after a while, I saw an unmarked car with lights going pull up behind him.  What the hell?  Did he call in for back-up?  What’s going on?  Since I was staring at the flashing lights behind me, I didn’t see him come back, so when he appeared at my window again, I jumped a mile.  He apologized for startling me, and I gestured to the unmarked car.  “Do we need back-up for this?”  He laughed (thank God – I really should just shut up) and said there was an accident a little ways back.  Doesn’t explain why that guy showed up here, but whatever.  It wasn’t for me.  Anyway, he gave me the citation, told me I could either pay early or go to court, show my renewed registration, and there’s a 90% chance the judge would drop the charges.  I’ll see how much the fine is and then decide.  Then he told me to drive carefully and he sent me on my way.

About 4 miles closer to home, I looked in my rearview mirror to see another county sheriff’s car change from the left lane into my lane.  There went the whoop of the siren and the lights.  I pulled over.  Guess what?  He looked at my license plate.  He got to my window, asked for license and registration, and before I could reach for them, he said he was pulling me over because of my expired sticker.  Big surprise, although this time I was speeding a little.  (Maybe 7 over the speed limit.  People in the left lane were going faster than me.)  I picked up the citation that was still sitting on my passenger seat and handed it to him.  “Sir, I was pulled over for that not five minutes ago.”  He checked the time on the citation, checked his watch, smiled a little, and told me he wouldn’t give me another ticket.  Damn right he won’t.  Can they even do that?  I told him I’d take care of it as soon as I got home and spent the rest of the drive home half-convinced he was going to radio one of his buddies to keep an eye out for my car and pull me over again.

No more incidents.  And my registration has been renewed.  How crazy is it that, with one exception, the only times I’ve been pulled over have been for that tiny little sticker AND that I got pulled over twice in a very short period of time in both instances?  Totally crazy.  Loony bin crazy.  Spiders in roller skates crazy.

I’m behind on posting, behind on reading, behind on news…behind on the internet in general.  I have a draft I started during the day on Friday, but I got sidetracked that evening (big book sale – woo!) and didn’t post, and then Saturday we left early (after dropping our dead microwave off at a local high school for recycling) for PA so we could be there for John’s grandfather’s birthday party.  I didn’t bring my computer, so I was actually without internet (I’m not counting my phone ’cause I didn’t use it) from Saturday morning until now (we just got home).  Crazy, I know.  And it seems like a ton happened.  That may not be true, but it feels like it is.

My plan for this week is to get back on track.  I felt awful all last week (too much (and too rich) food, NO exercise, not enough sleep).  I slept pretty well, and long enough, last night, ran a couple of miles this morning, and managed to eat normal amounts of food today (okay, maybe six blueberry pancakes isn’t really normal, but I hardly had anything after that), so I feel like I’ve made a good start.  Short term goal (really short term): get a normal night’s sleep tonight and run tomorrow morning.

I woke up this morning a little crazy with anxiety.  The worst thing about it is that I woke up with a list of all the things I should be doing on a loop in my head, and then I froze.  I could have gotten up right then to get started on the list, but did I?  No, I stayed in bed.  Because I could put off all the hard things.  I do that all the time (procrastinate).   Of course, that gives me less time overall to get everything done, so all it really does is ratchet up the anxiety a little more.  Not exactly helpful behavior.

Instead, let’s a play a game (courtesy of Mom) called “What’s the worst that could happen?”

Anxiety Causing Thing #1: Quiz #4 for vector calculus and the midterm I have to take on Thursday

What’s the worst that could happen?  Well, I could get all the answers wrong on my quiz, but that doesn’t affect my grade (just makes my professor think I’m an idiot), so there isn’t anything to worry about there.  Of course, my performance on my quizzes is an indicator of my performance on the midterm, so if I don’t do well on my quizzes, I may not do well on my midterm.  And I could fail my midterm.  So what if I do?  I won’t have a very good grade in my calculus class.  That would be a blow to my ego (something I could survive), and it may put me on the road to failing this class.  What if I fail the class?  I’m taking it online at a community college because I need the prereq for grad school.  If I fail it, I’m out approximately $350.  If I fail it, I can retake it later.  Will I fail it?  Probably not.  I may not get an A.  I may not even get a B.  But I probably won’t fail.  I submitted my quiz this morning (confident that I got three out of four right), so that’s out of my hands, and I still have today, tomorrow, Wednesday, and part of Thursday to study for the midterm.  Breathe deep.

Anxiety Causing Thing #2: Work

What’s the worst that could happen?  I could get fired.  Or laid off.  Or whatever.  That could happen, but there’s nothing I can do about it (and there’s no immediate indication that it’s coming), so that’s not what’s making me edgy.  There’s nothing specific about work that’s bothering me.  No major deadlines, no one is asking me to do anything I’m not capable of, I don’t have any issues with any coworkers.  I just don’t like it.  I don’t want to come here every day.  (I know, whine whine whine, most people don’t actually like going to work.)  I want to do something with flexible hours where I can work from home and have more time for me.  The math that’s stressing me out is the first step in that direction, so this is more of a low-level, back-burner, always-bugging-me sort of thing that every once in a while jumps up and says, “Hey!  Loser!  Worry about me!”

Anxiety Causing Thing #3: Army Ten-Miler

Did I tell you about this?  A few weeks ago, John registered to run in the Army Ten-Miler this October, and I caved to the very mild peer pressure and registered with him.  So what’s the worst that could happen?  I’ll be so slow that the bus that picks up the slowpokes who aren’t going to finish in the required time will pick me up.  Humiliating.  I have 17 weeks to train for it.  I had more, but I didn’t use them.  I can’t procrastinate on this one, so every day I don’t start this training plan gets under my skin, and I didn’t run today.  Well, I kinda did.  I sprinted around the block (up the hills) a couple of times with the dogs this morning.  My math anxiety trumped my race anxiety this morning – I spent the extra time on my quiz.  (SuzRocks sent me a link to a half-marathon training plan.  I figure if I’m capable of running a half-marathon by the time I finish training, ten miles should seem easy.  Ish.  I just need to start the &^$* training plan.)

There are other things that bug me (there are always other things), but those are the three I woke up with this morning.  Peace, serenity, lots of gym time tonight, some studying…I’ve got it under control.

Happy thoughts!

Hi.

Vacation is a wonderful thing.

Let's assume this is before I fell off the wakeboard a dozen times.

Florida panhandle, Gulf Coast with a bay on the other side of our isthmus.  We had everything we needed for the perfect beach vacation.  Sun?  Check.  We had beautiful weather, even if I did spend the majority of every day hiding from the sun.  Sand?  Lots of it.  Very convenient hose and shower under the house (sounds like we had to go underground – the house was on stilts) to rinse off the sand, but even with those, the house and pool were full of sand the whole week.   Pool?  Sure.  Someone was in it nearly all day, every day.  Boat?  Naturally.  Corey brought theirs and borrowed a couple of wakeboards.  We tubed and wakeboarded (is that a word?), or attempted to.  I drove some so Corey could play (that was terrifying – just ask Mark and Mel), and while SOMEone may have run the boat onto a sandbar, it wasn’t me.  We saw dolphins!  And a sea turtle.  I turned a little pink both days on the boat, but it wasn’t terribly painful, and it faded quickly.  Mostly because I was wearing 50 SPF and hiding inside, on the deck, and under the beach umbrella.  The sun is fierce down there.  On top of all that (and the cases upon cases of beer and wine we drank, and the hours and hours of singing and Rock Band, and hand after hand of Go Fish with Gaby), we got to ride in my uncle’s four-seater plane (Thanks, Ed!  That was cool!).  And I did a little calculus.  Which reminds me…I got my quiz back today.  (I spent all of Monday working on it.)  Six out of seven questions right.  Go me.

I would like to go back on vacation.  Right now.  For a long time.  Please?  It was just so nice to not have to do anything.  ANYthing.  The hardest decision I had to make every day was whether or not to have a mimosa with breakfast.  We had no plans, no schedule.  No expectations, no responsibilities.  It was SO nice.  I would like that at home, please.

Thanks for the great vacation, family of mine.  Love you guys.

A few months ago, I made a donation to the Arbor Day Foundation, and they mailed me trees.  Trees by mail.  Trees by mail that fit in my mailbox.  Seriously tiny trees.  Sticks.  I’m going completely on faith that the twigs I pulled out of what looks like the plastic sleeve your newspaper gets delivered in when it’s raining will grow into trees.  We planted kindling in the ground.

It has leaves! It lives! I think it's a crabapple. And it's only four inches tall.

If you look carefully, you can see a stick inside that cage. That one might grow up to be a golden raintree, whatever that is.

Roxy likes to eat sticks, so I put fences around the 8 trees we planted in the backyard to try to keep her away. It's mostly working.

In other news, Candy completed a triathlon yesterday.  (She’s completely insane.  Awesomely insane.)  She swam 1.2 miles, biked 56 miles, and ran 13.1 miles yesterday, in under six hours (which is better than average because, of course, she’s better than average.  WAY better.).  Does this news inflame every competitive instinct I have?  If she can do it, I can do it?

Not really, no.  She’s wonderful (and batshit crazy, clearly), and I will leave the Ironman (which I’m sure is next on her to-do list) to her.

These are the wines Mom, Mindy, and I had at the Grapevine Wine Bar in New Orleans.  The first one is a sauvignon blanc from New Zealand.  Grapefruity.  Found it at Wegman’s for $16.99.

The second one is a pinot gris from Oregon.  This one tasted like apples (but not like apple juice) and was Mindy’s least favorite (but I really liked it).  I found this one at Wegman’s for $12.99.

The third one is a viognier from Argentina.  I don’t remember what it tasted like, but it was GOOD.  Wegman’s doesn’t carry it.  I’ll check Total Wine next time I’m out.

Last, watch this video, courtesy of The Daily What. It’s not long, it’s super-cute, and the tiny bit at the end is John’s favorite part.

I’m back home, where spring has sprung, but it’s not warm enough for me.  Not after a week of mid-70s in New Orleans.  Not after only needing a jacket late at night on my way home a jazz club.  And speaking of weather and jazz and awesomeness, if I hadn’t made notes during the week, I wouldn’t know where to begin.  Since I did, I’ll begin at the beginning.

I got to New Orleans Saturday afternoon and made it to my hotel.  Pretty straightforward.  Finding my room after that was not so simple.  I was in Building 2 (or was it Building B?), which is up an escalator, up another escalator, across the breezeway, forward and then around to the left, past the gift shop that wasn’t open even ONCE the whole week, up an elevator, down a hall, and around another corner.  The gym (which I faithfully visited every morning except for the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth days), was back the way I’d come in and then another half-mile in the opposite direction from the front desk and up four floors.  It was a workout just to get there.

Everyone else (Mom, Dad, Mindy, Corey, Candy, and Gaby – we were only missing John and Mark) got there a few hours later, and after dinner, Mindy, Corey, Candy, and I headed to Bourbon Street.  That was…something.  I may not have been in the right mood.  Crowded, loud, dirty.  We wound our way through throngs of girls in short prom dresses, frat boys, and vomit.  We did find a Dixieland band playing in a bar, though (Fritzel’s European Jazz Pub – beware the link if your speakers are on: music starts playing as soon as you land on the page).  That was cool.  Something I learned (although not that night): many musicians would rather you didn’t call it Dixieland.  Traditional New Orleans Jazz is the preferred term.

The next morning (Sunday – it was a beautiful morning), we had brunch at Brennan’s.  I could do that every week.  You’d have to roll me home every week, but WOW.  Loved the place, loved the strawberries and cream, LOVED the bananas foster and crepes fitzgerald.  My entree was meh, but everyone else’s was reallyreally good, and I tried them all.  From there, we hopped the streetcar to the Garden District (after changing into our UK gear – Go CATS!).  Those houses are amazing.

Detour to talk about the weather.  It was so warm.  SO warm.  And breezy, and wonderful, and WARM.  All the windows (big windows) on the streetcar were open and it felt so nice.  /detour

A little after 4pm (game time!), we hopped off the streetcar and Corey and Candy asked a nice stranger where we might be able to find a sports bar.  You can’t run around during March Madness with your UK gear on and NOT watch the game.  He sent us to one a couple of blocks away, practically empty, except for three people together at the bar and maybe another guy.  Just after halftime, one of the three at the bar walked by our table on her way back to her seat.  She was wearing a UK shirt, too, and Corey high-fived her.  Mindy and I looked at each other.  She looked really familiar to both of us, but it’s a little ridiculous of us to assume we know everyone in the world wearing a UK shirt, right?  Well, right, except not in this case.  I went over to ask her.  “Are you from [town redacted]?”  “Yes.”  “Did you go to [high school redacted]?”  “Zannah?”  So, yeah, we went to high school together, had friends in common (loyal commenter IBCRandy, among others), remembered each other vaguely, but enough.  Totally weird.  She lives in the neighborhood we were in.  What are the odds?  The stars aligned for me this whole trip, but more on that in another post (or three).  So that was cool.  And UK won, which was also cool.  Too bad they couldn’t keep that up.

Dad, Corey, Candy, and Gaby all left on Monday (after breakfast at the Cafe du Monde, where we watched Gaby wallow in powdered sugar), and I went to work for a few hours.  I came back to find Mom and Mindy waiting in my room (it was kind of sad to come back after work the next day and have no one to meet me).  Mindy made an inspired dinner decision (I think it was her choice), and we went to the Grapevine Wine Bar.  No live music, but the wine made up for that.  We killed three bottles and ate appetizers (scallops, beef medallions, cheese and crackers, baked brie, and something else…mussels!) and skipped dessert.  Partly because who needs dessert after three bottles of wine, and partly because fudge cheese didn’t sound particularly appetizing.  I’m not making that up.

On our tipsy way back to the hotel after dinner, we met a three-man a capella group on the corner somewhere along Decatur and sang with them.  Met some people on the way back home (all new friends), and then Mom and Mindy left the next morning (Tuesday).  Tuesday night is when my solo adventures started, and I’ll get into them tomorrow.  I’m typed out.

MY sister (not YOUR sister – MY sister (well, maybe your sister, but I don’t know her, so this is for MY sister) passed her oral exams today!  Comps is (are?) over, and she passed with flying colors.  Go Min!  I asked her if she was AB-Masters, but she said, to be accurate, she’s actually AB-double Masters.  Show-off. 

My academically- (and otherwise, but let’s stay on topic) talented sister is in the throes of comps right now for her masters in speech pathology, and all day today she’s been getting results from the written portion.  So far, she’s passed 9 out of 12 subjects, with no rewrites necessary, and her three best subjects are the three she hasn’t heard about yet.  Are we worried?  Not in the least.  She’s kicking some comps ass.

Happy Melday!

Along with many strangers who happened to be passing by.  I left work early to get home before the weather got really bad, but my normal 20-minute commute took me almost an hour and a half.  What started out as sleet turned into heavy wet snow.  I finally got home and started shoveling the driveway so John (in his Mustang – terrible in this weather) would be able to pull in.  Twenty minutes later, I got a call.  John was stuck.  He was in the right turn lane about a mile and a half away, and he needed rescuing.  I threw the snow shovels in the my car (4-wheel drive – thanks, Dad!) and went to meet him.  We shoveled down to pavement so his tires could get a grip, and he was able to get in the left turn lane.  (A guy in a pickup truck stopped and offered to pull him out, but John had it under control by then.)  He needed to do a u-turn to get home (we were trying to avoid hills – his car wouldn’t make it up a slippery incline), but he got stuck in the left lane at the light.  I got back out of my car and tried to push him forward (the traffic was pretty light – we weren’t worried about pushing him into the middle of a busy intersection), his tires were spinning, and then I heard someone behind me yell, “No no no!  Slow down!  Stop!”  Some other guy had stopped in the turn lane behind me (we all had our flashers on) and was running up to help.  He said he was from Minnesota (there aren’t many credentials better than that in this kind of weather), and he coached John (with totally contradictory suggestions (“Easy now, easy, go go go, no, take it easy!”) through the u-turn while helping me push from behind.  We got John around the median and facing the other way (the right way to go home), and then I followed John up the road.  He made it about a mile and then got stuck (in the middle of the intersection) making a left turn.  This time a guy who was out walking his dogs (and his family) ran over to help me push.  We helped John rock the car out of the center and get across the road.  Our plan at this point was to get to the parking lot of the shopping center where the Bloom used to be and just leave the car there.  We live uphill from everywhere, and there was no way his car was going to make it.  He didn’t even make it all the way to the parking lot.  He got stuck on the road right next to it, but there are parking spaces along that road, so we shoveled one clear and kinda pushed and shoved his car into it.  We’ll retrieve it tomorrow.  That whole time (somewhere between an hour and an hour and a half) the snow was coming down like crazy.  My jeans were soaked through and I had snow falling down the back of my neck.  A warm dinner was called for (and wine for me and rum and coke for John).  Luckily, while the band was rehearsing last night, I made a pot of Dad’s beefy rice (dirty rice, kidney beans, onion, hamburger), and all we had to do was heat it up.  Turned out great.  (Thanks, Dad!)

After hearing their version of “Let It Snow” on Pandora the other day (last weekend, maybe?), I bought The Four Freshmen album, “Snowfall”.  It’s my new favorite Christmas album.  I’m listening to it now, relaxing a little before bed.  We had a very busy, productive day, starting with a long-overdue visit with Erik and Margaret.  We met for lunch and moved on to Barnes and Noble, chatting about their wedding plans, puppies, travel, wedding music, wedding dresses, and Calvin and Hobbes, among other things.  John and I bought road maps and travel guides for our trip, and then we went shopping for new weather-proof winter coats.  We both ended up with coats with zip-out fleece liners (’cause it just makes more sense), but I fell in love with the new Columbia Kaleidaslope jacket.

Trust me, it’s way more flattering on than in the picture.  I tried on the large, and it was perfect.  And SO warm.  I’m very happy with the coat I got, but can’t I have both?  I need this one, too, right?  Or, you know, not.  I’ll live.  The point of today’s shopping, though, was to get us that much closer to ready for our trip.  Which we’re very very very excited about.

We got home much later than originally planned and settled in for dinner and our annual viewing of Love Actually.  Which got interrupted (but in a good way) when Corey called.  We’d been trying to connect all day, so I put the movie on hold (to be continued tomorrow) to talk to Brother of Mine.  Also long overdue.

Speaking of Christmas, and thanks to nn.c, here’s a link to a bunch of Christmas-themed photos from around the world.  My favorites are the skiing Santas and both of the ones of Santa runners.

Tonight was the first time I’d ever heard of The Sing-Off.  I still don’t know much about it, but it seems to be a talent show for a capella groups.  Good ones.  Little Sister Melvin (henceforth to be known as LSM (or Sparky) (I googled LSM to find out what it could stand for, and by far, my favorite is Lesbian Sex Mafia) has been watching it, so here, for your viewing pleasure (after you finish reading one of the most convoluted sentences in this entire blog), are my favorites of the videos she had me look up.

The lead singer in this first video is the guy from The Persuasions. I really like his voice.

This one will not be John’s favorite video, but Mom will like it.

He might like this one, though. It’s one of his favorite songs, but doing his favorite songs a capella has always been hit or miss.

This is the first one I’ve seen where they look like they’re having a good time.

Okay, I promise to stop now. There’s a lot of good stuff out there, and it all makes me want to sing again. It also reminds me that I should be reading Adam’s blog (among many many others). So off I go.

I’m a bad sister who didn’t call.  I’ll call you tomorrow.

The forecast for tonight and most of tomorrow is torrential rain.  I’m lying in bed, hoping to hear it.  I really want to be asleep right now (today was a good day, but long.  I’m worn out.).  I want to wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of rain beating down (I love that), and then go back to sleep knowing I have a few more hours before I have to go out into the rain to get to work.  I need a covered walkway to the car.  Parking in the garage is not an option.  I don’t trust people who actually park their cars in the garage.  What are they trying to hide?  Besides their cars?  Maybe belonging to the Secret Society of Those Who Park Their Cars in the Garage gives you access to secret underground hideouts, hidden from view in those very garages, only accessible by weight sensor.  There has to be a car parked in there to get in.  What do they keep in there?  I may never know.  Wait!  I do have a car parked in my garage!  I don’t have a secret entrance to an underground lair.  Maybe the cars have to be operational.  The secret entrance trigger is related to actually driving the car into the garage, not using it for long-term storage.  Someday John will get the Camaro back into shape so we can join the Secret Society of Those Who Park Their Cars in the Garage and find out what all the fuss is about.

Mom has laptop troubles.  Mom eventually has troubles with each laptop she gets, but this one is weird.  She was connected to the internet this morning, and when she came back, she wasn’t. John and I spent a couple of hours over the course of the evening on the phone with Dad, trying everything we could think of. We don’t have Vista running on any of the 5 dozen computers here (I may be exaggerating), so that made it a little harder, and we eventually (it didn’t take that long) resorted to Google. And that reminded me of this www.xkcd.com comic:

This isn’t exactly how it goes when our parents call us for technical help, but it’s close, and it makes me laugh every time.  Anyway, we weren’t able to get her connected again, but we’re pretty certain we could have if we were local.  I say we, but at this point in the process, it would really be John.  Funny flowcharts aside, we like being the go-to tech experts in the family.

I do want to tell some stories about this vacation, but that would involve adding pictures, and have I mentioned how draining it is to upload pictures to this site?  I don’t have that kind of energy.  Some people at work were giving me a hard time for coming back from vacation on a Thursday (why not take the rest of the week off and come back on Monday?), and while I see their point, it’s totally awesome to go back to work on a Thursday.  Two-day work week!  The weekend is right around the corner.  And as fun as that vacation was (it was totally fun), I’m very glad to be home.  I love my bed.  And my dogs.  And my kitchen.  Well, I don’t love my kitchen, but it’s bigger than what we were working with in Georgia.  Not that I spent much time in it.

Okay, maybe this is going to be a little bit of a vacation post.  I was reading The Bloggess just now, and of course I’m laughing hysterically at today’s post (that should totally go without saying), and I had a similar experience over the weekend, and then I started writing the story in my head, so here it is.

Background: My family (Mom, Dad, brother, sister, me, assorted spouses, and one almost 5-year-old) decided to stay in a cabin in the mountains in northwest Georgia for a few days.  In the mountains.  In the woods.  Not in a clearing in the woods.  In the woods.  With me?  Okay.  ‘Cause this will become important.  John and I were supposed to arrive just before midnight Friday night (fly into Atlanta, rent a car, drive an hour and a half), but our flight was delayed (a lot) and then, only about 7 miles from the place, the road was blocked by a police cruiser because the power company was removing a tree from the power lines.  After about 20 minutes of sitting there (no map, no Internet connection to find a map), I finally asked the cop if there was another way to get where we were going.  There was, of course, and we finally got to the house.  In the woods.  At about 2:30 in the morning.  Oh, after we pulled into the wrong driveway.  ‘Cause it was a gravel road that was more of a track up the mountain.  In the very deepest dark.  Because it was in the woods!  And the power was out.  Dad met us at the right driveway with a flashlight and helped us get inside (where there were no lights, because the power was out) and find our bedroom.  With a flashlight.  Because there was no power.  Being up the mountain meant we were using well water, which gets into the house via pump.  Which totally doesn’t work when there’s no power.  So, you know, no flushing.  And bottled water for brushing teeth and washing faces and hands.  NO POWER!  But we were ready to collapse into bed (a bed we never collapsed into again after that night – I promise I’m getting to the point) when the power came back on, and so did every light in the house.  Anyway, most of that background was not really necessary, but let’s just say it illustrates how tired and ready for bed we were the next night, having only gotten about 5 hours of sleep the night before.

I was washing my face in the bathroom when I heard a very loud, somewhat shocked “JESUS CHRIST!” from the bedroom.  I came running and found John standing about three feet away from the foot of the bed, kinda pointing towards the pillow.  “There’s a scorpion.  IN the bed.”  “Can’t be.  Scorpions don’t live in Georgia, they live in Texas and New Mexico and deserts and stuff.”  “Zannah, it was a scorpion.  Go look.”  “Um, no.”  He twitched the covers a little and I saw something scurry under his pillow.  I got a little closer and saw it come out from under the pillow and go upside down under the mattress.  Kinda looked like a scorpion to me, but I wasn’t about to get close enough to really look.  Besides, it couldn’t be.  Either way, though, I didn’t want it in the bed.  John was pretty freaked out, and I wasn’t brave enough to get it, so I ran upstairs and grabbed Corey before he disappeared into his room.  Normally, I’m the one who finds the big ugly bug, and I’m the one who completely freaks out.  John walks into the situation knowing what to expect (I’ve already shrieked about the bug), so he’s usually able to handle it fairly calmly.  This time,  he was the one who found it after nearly LAYING DOWN ON TOP OF IT, so I think he was well within his rights to be a little less than rational.  Anyway, big brother came down, we both grabbed shoes, and I helped him lift up the mattress so he could WHACK the damn thing dead.  And then he put it in a plastic bag to show every person who came to the house over the next few days.  ‘Cause he’s a boy.  Thanks, Cor, for killing the scorpion!  After Corey left (with the scorpion, which he left on the table for everyone to find at breakfast), John and I discussed whether or not we’d be able to sleep in that bed.  I was actually fairly okay with it, I think because I’m not the one who found it, whereas all those other times I have been the one surprised by the spider or the centipede, I can’t sleep because of all the creepy-crawly nightmares.  According to John, that kind of inconsistency is one of my most endearing (or is that infuriating?) qualities.  Anyway, we did a thorough search of the room and the bed, checked all of the blankets, all of the sheets, took the pillows out of the pillowcases so we could shake them out, lifted up the mattress again, looked under the bed with the flashlight, then checked the drooping fabric underneath the box spring just in case they were nesting (isn’t that something you’ve heard of?  A nest of scorpions?  Maybe that’s vipers…), and when we didn’t find anything, we decided it was time to go to bed.  Gingerly.  And without much sleep.  Every night after that, we did the same bed check.

After the scorpion IN THE BED, the spiderwebs that apparently only took 10 minutes to string up across every doorway and sidewalk, and the millipede on the wall over our bed the last night (I called Dad to rescue us from that one), John and I have decided that although we like the idea of having a house in the woods, the woods will totally have to keep their distance.  Nature (the buggy part, at least) is not for me.

(I counted six, which I totally (seven) put in on purpose.  For reals.  Think I can go higher next time?)