Errant Apostrophes

Interoffice Communications

2009-10-25T22:28:00.000-05:00

Early this afternoon, an email went out to all employees in my company. It stated simply, "CPI for the period in question is less than 1%." Some puzzlement, followed by a brief period of wondering what it was supposed to mean consumed perhaps five or ten minutes, then we all went about our business.

An hour later, a second email went out to all employees:

"As much as I’m sure you all care deeply about the Consumer Price Index, the e-mail was meant for the Syracuse office. Sorry."

Thirty seconds later, the entire floor rang with laughter.

Notes from CLE

2009-10-19T18:24:00.000-05:00

* A woman just walked in, sat down at my table, took a can of nuts out of her satchel, and has spent several minutes struggling to open it. Having finally succeeded, she is now eating them with the steady intensity of a chain smoker.

* It sure seems that there are a lot of weird lawyers. Do you think it's because the practice of law
attracts weird people, or do you think that the practice of law makes people weird?

*The lecture started 90 minutes ago, yet the microphone has already stopped working four times. I would be totally irritated if I were the lecturer.

* The speaker has mentioned several times that he lived in Germany, yet he pronounces "Daimler": "DAMM- ler".

* "As a lawyer, I don't get myself worked up about 5%, right? I mean, I work 8 hours, times $500, that's $4000. But I get only $160, well, then I think to myself maybe I should just go to McDonald's and work." Okay, first, huh?? And second, I somehow doubt you've ever worked a day at McDonald's in your life if you think switching from being a lawyer to cleaning the fryers and assembling Egg McMuffins is desirable under any circumstances. And finally, you are also insane if you think that a McDonald's worker is going to earn $160 in 8 hours.

* The speaker tells a very long story about this Louis Vuitton handbag his wife wanted and the whole point of the story is: "HOLY CRAP, those things are expensive." For this, I am getting CLE credit. What this has to do with the practice of law, I don't really know, but I am getting CLE credit.

* The guy a few rows up keeps scooting around in his chair, whipping his head around to see who's behind him in the room, whispers to his neighbor (who, by the way, doesn't seem to be very happy about it), heaves giant, dramatic sighs, leans his head alllllll the way back, and generally is acting like a bored eight year old. This would be irritating enough if we were watching a videocast or if this were a taped session being re-broadcast. However, this is a live speaker, and it's not like we're in a giant lecture hall where he might (MIGHT!) escape notice. How very rude.

* Another anecdote uses the example of Target and Macy's, with the claim being made that Target is able to offer its wares for a lower price than Macy's because "Target doesn't spend money on fancy advertisements". Dude, do you get the same TV channels as I do? Because Target is constanty airing these sleek, cool-looking advertisements, and I can't even think of the last time I saw a Macy's commercial. I'm sure they exist, but I haven't seen one recently, and I have seen a whole bunch of Target commercials.

* The Nut Nibbler has apparently finished the entire can of nuts, because now she's taken out a nail file and is giving herself a very thorough manicure. Every few minutes, she stops to brush the nail dust off the table in front of her. And still, it doesn't seem to occur to her that a) that's incredibly irritating to everyone around her, and b) it's also completely disgusting.

* Oh, we've moved to subprime lending now. "A McDonald's worker walks into a bank, makes about $26,000 a year..." OK, now I know you've never worked at McDonald's.

* You know, way back at the beginning of today's lecture, they asked that everyone turn off their Blackberries and cell phones. We've been here two hours so far, and of the 17 people sitting in the four rows ahead of me, four are openly playing on their Blackberries, and one woman has hauled out a laptop and started typing away. Another woman is sleeping. Another woman is working on a very large needlepoint project. A man in the corner is paging through a book of crossword puzzles, and another man has hauled out a very large file that he appears to be working in. Cell phones have rang at least five times so far. The owner stands up and hurries through the room toward the door, but doesn't quite reach it before answering, "Hello?" By the way, since I started writing this down, the number of Blackberry users has increased by two.

* Actually, I think I should have said that there are a lot of gross lawyers earlier. Nut Nibbler has finished her manicure, but the guy in the row ahead of her keeps scratching his head, then checking to see what's under his fingernails.

* I just love it when a shop posts a sign announcing some inconvenient policy by claiming that it's for your convenience. For example, the shop in the lobby of the building-- a sort of deli/ newstand/ convenience store combo-- has a sign on the cash register stating "For your convenience, we accept only cash. Credit cards and debit cards are accepted under no circumstances." I can't possibly be the only person who uses her card for everything and rarely carries cash. I use cash so seldom that I can often go weeks at a time without having any in my wallet. Nothing whatsoever about your "Cash Only" policy is convenient to me at all. I'm sure it's convenient to you, since it means you don't have to pay the card company fees-- and I totally understand that and support your decisions. But don't try to frame it as though it's just one more service you offer to your valued customers. Also, just so you know, since I now have to leave the building to get cash, I'll probably just buy my drink and snack somewhere else where I can use my card.

* Back in the lecture. Mr. Iswearidon'thavelice has stopped scratching his head and is now tapping his finger against the leg of his chair very hard, producing a small metallic clank each time.

* Did you know who bears the whole blame for the mortgage crisis? Alan Greenspan. And in the future, everyone will curse his name because of the evil he has caused. Wow, that is some hyperbole.

* Whoops. He must have realized that it's not pronounced "DAMM-ler". Now he's pronouncing it "DAMM- lear"

* The woman with the needlepoint finished the first project and started another.

* The longer this lecture goes on, the less attention the audience pays. Another twenty minutes and someone's probably going to take a cell phone call sitting right at the table.

Not Something You See Every Day

2009-10-04T10:19:00.000-05:00

Walking down a busy street near the university, I pass a group of six monks walking on the opposite side. I wonder where they are off to, in their brown robes and sandals. I wonder where they came from.

Weddings

2009-09-15T18:59:00.003-05:00

This is so very cool:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/photogalleries/marriage/

The Worm Turns, Act III

2009-09-06T22:41:00.000-05:00

And this is the part where time begins to blur.

* Nurse Bates refuses to bring me pain meds until she gets a new order from the surgeon because the surgical ward does not stock Fentanyl. This makes no sense to me whatsoever. Can't they send someone downstairs to get it? I really regret declining the pain meds earlier.

* Several more tubes of blood are collected, but by now I am so dazed and in so much pain that I don't have the energy to express the panic and fear.

*Every single person I've seen, and I have probably seen 10 or 15 people in the first half hour or so on the ward, has read my bracelet, scanned the bar code on it, and asked me to confirm my name and tell them my date of birth. I am annoyed because I am so tired and in so much pain, but I recognize that this is a very good thing and comply as nicely as I am capable of being at this point. In retrospect, I now think this was really cool and I'm glad the hospital I was in used this technology, because at least to my untrained eye, it seems like it would significantly reduce the chance of a medical error being made.

*Ash attempts to call into work. Several calls to 411 result in a series of transfers to places that have no discernible connection to his workplace. He calls a friend of ours to ask him to Google it for us. Ro answers groggily, and we remember somewhat belatedly that he is on vacation... in a different time zone. Oops. He offers to try and find the number anyway. We feel like idiots.

* Eight o'clock arrives. I was told I'd be on my way to appendix-less by now, and yet here I am, still waiting for my pain meds. I think terrible thoughts about Nurse Bates.

* Ash offers to turn the room TV on several times, but the thought of having the TV running makes me feel inexplicably anxious and panicky. I am torn between my urgent need for something to distract me from my pain and fear, and my overloaded system's utter inability to deal with one more stimulus.

* Ash deems it late enough to call my mother. He gets her voicemail and leaves a message containing no information whatsoever except that she should call him as soon as possible.

* I call into work. My boss does not answer his phone, so I leave a message and consider my duty done. I also text my friends at work because I know that my manager does not bother to listen to voicemail on a regular basis and will probably wander over around 10:30 to ask if anyone knows where I am. The longer I sit in bed, the more people I realize we need to call. I rack my pain-addled brain, trying to remember what I would have had on my schedule at work for the day. Is there anyone who is going to freak out because I don't do something for them today? Was there anything on deadline? I make Ash call my newly-assigned mentor at work to let him know that I won't be showing up for our "stop up once you've had some coffee" meeting. I am preoccupied with concern that he will think I am blowing him off. I do not want to blow this chance to learn from some one on our executive team (and maybe, possibly, earn a promotion). In retrospect, I realize this is one of the more ludicrous thoughts to cross my mind, but at the time, it is absolutely in my Top Ten List of Things I Can't Stop Worrying About.

* The one hard and fast rule of our marriage thus far has been this:

BATHROOM TIME IS PRIVATE TIME

I am forced to break this rule because the pain makes it too difficult to walk without assistance, and my bladder is juuuuuuust about to burst. It is a measure of how very bad things are that I meekly accept the loss of my very valued bathroom privacy without complaint.

* As Ash is helping me take care of business, his cell phone rings. And rings again. Then my cell phone rings. As I finally make it back to the haven of my hospital bed, it rings again, and I answer to find my mother sobbing hysterically. She has made the logical leap from "Hi, it's Ash. Please call me as soon as possible" to "Your daughter is dead and I didn't want to leave it in a voicemail". The fact that I am clearly alive enough to answer a cell phone doesn't seem to get through for a few minutes. When she calms down a little, she keeps asking me in what I perceive to be a vaguely accusatory tone, "How did this happen?" It's a question that will nag at the back of my brain for the next several days, but I will not get an answer until I get home and can look it up online. I finally have to hand the phone over to Ash, because I am in too much pain to try and have a conversation, and my mom clearly needs someone who can give her some information. I feel bad that I've worried her, and I feel angry that she's getting so upset. I know this isn't fair, so I also feel guilty for feeling angry.

* Nurse Bates finally shows up with my pain meds... no, scratch that. She shows up with *a* pain med-- Dilaudid. You know, the one I asked not to be given because of the severe side effects I suffered the last time I was given it. She wants nothing to do with my objections, because apparently it's a major problem for her to have to deal with patients (or at least this is what her demeanor leads me to believe). She grudgingly allows that she could call the doctor and ask him to prescribe something else, but it will take awhile. I've been waiting for pain meds for nearly four hours by now, and the pain has escalated to the point where it feels like a red hot iron spike has been driven straight through my abdomen into the bed. I don't know if I can wait much longer for relief, so I give in and allow her to administer the Dilaudid.

This was a massive mistake.

A strange cold feeling starts to spread across my chest and with it, the feeling that I cannot make the muscles of my chest move, which makes me feel like I am dying. Not suffocating, but literally experiencing my own death. This is a terrible feeling, and just as frightening as it had been the first time I was given Dilaudid (when no one warned me that this might happen). Nurse Bates doesn't stick around to see what happens to me, just leaves the room without a word to me. I hate her so very much.

* Various people come and go in the hallway, but no one comes into my room. The Dilaudid has done nothing to take the edge off the pain. I shift in the bed continuously, trying to find the magic placement of limbs and body to relieve what has now started to feel like a sharp, jagged piece of concrete stuck inside me.

* After an hour goes by, I press the call button and ask for more pain meds. The voice at the other end says the nurse will stop in. We wait. And wait. And wait. I keep checking the clock, hoping to see that the magic time of It's-Time-To-Take-You-To-The-OR o'clock, or at least You-Can-Have-Some-More-Pain-Meds a.m. has been reached. Somehow, no significant time has passed. I feel like I'm stuck inside the Calvin and Hobbes strip where he thinks an hour has gone by, but it's really only been 20 seconds.

* I am plagued by thoughts of the scene in The Stand where Mark dies of appendicitis while Stu tries to perform an appendectomy. Unable to divert my own attention, I decide to share this appealing thought with Ash, who laughs and tells me that he's been thinking about the same thing. I am really glad that, if I HAD to get appendicitis, it wasn't in a post-Captain Trips world.

* Ash is probably getting sick of my thrashing around in bed and incessant repetition of variations on "I hurt and I'm scared". But he is far more patient than I could ever have expected him to be, especially since he's still trying to read some cases for work and hasn't slept. I am ashamed to admit that I probably could not have been so patient in the same circumstances. Lack of sleep makes me cranky.

* Speaking of cranky, lack of food also makes me cranky. The anti-nausea medication has done its job, and the food cart is sitting outside my room. Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. All signs point to tears over my lack of breakfast. Yet I don't even think about it until much later. I am, however, very thirsty, and there is no water for a woman waiting to be taken to surgery. "Luckily", the pain has continued to progress. I actually start to be afraid to move, not sure if my fear that I'll cause my own appendix to burst by shifting my weight is irrational.

* Finally, a whole group of people turn up to take me to the OR. Two of them take hold of the sheets and hoist me onto a gurney using the sheets like a sling. I am simultaneously impressed with their strength and relieved that I don't have to try and roll or otherwise move my body under my own steam, because I am almost positive that I could not do so for any reason. Ash is permitted to follow along for the first part of the journey. The orderly who is pushing the gurney apologizes every time we hit a bump, and I concentrate hard on not screaming when we go over the uneven entrance to the elevator lobby. The OR is a very long trip from the surgical unit. This seems very strange to me, but I have no frame of reference in these matters.

* At the doors to the Pre-op Unit, Ash is gently told that he can't go any further. My heart starts to pound and the tears finally start to roll because I am so terrified that something will go wrong and I will never see him again. The thought of leaving him behind just breaks my heart. He is a rock. Nothing in his voice or demeanor gives away the fact that he is also freaking out. He just repeats the mantra of the morning: it's routine, this will be fine, no problem, don't worry, everything will be fine, there's nothing to this. Flat on my back, I can't even catch a last glimpse as the doors swing shut behind me.

* The pre-op room reminds me of a Fisher Price parking garage for some insane reason. People are laying on gurneys at stations around the perimeter of the room while nurses and doctors pass to and fro, asking questions and doing various pre-op things. I can tell by the conversations going on at nearby stations that some people waiting for surgery are awake and alert and not in pain. This seems unbelieveably unfair to me, since I still have not had a new dose of pain meds. I wonder if this is like a doctor's office, where you wait until your name is called and the doctor is ready to see you. I also wish that I could sit up and watch what is going on around me, because I bet it's fascinating. This is really a futile wish, because even if they would let me sit up to watch, I absolultely could not do it. Not for love or money.

* A blonde nurse with a plump, kind face comes over to fill out a chart with some questions on it. It is starting to get hard to talk now because I am in so much pain. I can't remember anything about our conversation except that she brushes my hair from my forehead and smiles at me while she fills out her paperwork.

* A very tall redhaired man comes up right after the blonde nurse walks away. He introduces himself, asks two or three questions, and bustles off. He isn't gone two minutes before I've forgotten who he is and what he does.

* Another very tall man comes up and introduces himself as the somethingsomething, and he guestures at the young blonde woman behind him, introducing her as his assistant. I feel that he should really pull a rabbit out of a top hat at this point, and am struck by the insane urge to ask him if he plans to saw me in half.

* I lay on the gurney alone for a little while, listening to the conversations around me. Listening to the medical jabber, I wonder if they're talking about me. I wonder what's going to happen next. I wonder how long my surgery will take. I wonder if Ash is scared. I wonder if I will go home the next day, or if they'll make me leave earlier. I wonder who I should ask for answers, but I am in no shape to listen to any answers anyway, so I just listen and wait. I feel like a car waiting for an oil change.

* A large man with white hair pops up next to me, seemingly out of nowhere and it's the surgeon and he's got a really thick accent and charming manner that immediately makes me want to smile. He pokes and asks questions that take me a moment to process because I am so busy trying to place his accent. Definitely not German or French or Italian or Spanish, I don't think it's Russian, but I can't think of what it is. His last name is not something I can identify the origin of, though in a strange coincidence, it is the same as one of my father's childhood buddies. I wonder if they are related, but I doubt it. Still, stranger things have happened, and... oops, I should probably be paying attention here. He pokes my chicken pox scar, the one right above my belly button and asks if it's "maybe from a lap-a-ra-scope-y? maybe from a long time earlier"? I whisper, "No, it's from the chicken pox", and he lets out a loud belly laugh. I am irrationally pleased that I have made this charming old man laugh. The surgeon gives some instructions to kindfaced blonde nurse and leaves the room.

* I am wheeled across the room, though a short hallway filled with scrub sinks (just like on Scrubs!), and into what is clearly the OR. It is much smaller than I imagined. I am still fully clothed and wonder if they are going to shave any part of me right now. Once again, I am manhandled onto what I think is the table by means of the sheet, except I quickly discover that in fact, it is just a hard board, because approximately eight hands take hold of me and slide me over onto a very cold table with one quick movement. Even more people are filing into the room through another door, and my gurney is wheeled away to make room for them. I wonder what they are all there for. No one has said a single word to me or made eye contact since the funny surgeon left. I am torn between fear of the unknown and an ever-growing need to make the pain stop by any means necessary.

* The blonde assistant reappears at my head. She holds a clear plastic mask in her hand and says "This is oxygen to help you breath. Just breathe normally." She places it over my nose and mouth and it is rigid and I can't breathe and I start to tell her and she LIED about what was in that mask because with that, I am utterly unconscious.

The Worm Turns, Act II

2009-08-27T16:27:00.007-05:00

2:00 a.m. Ash pulls into one of the ambulance spots. Wonder if I should point this out. Decide they probably won't tow in the few minutes it will take me to get inside. I care infinitely more about getting inside than I do about a possible ticket or tow.

2:02 a.m.: I weigh how much???

2:03 a.m.: Sit in wheelchair for probably the first time in my life. Every bump in the floor sends a new wave of nausea skittering across my body. Hunch over and hold my stomach tightly, because this makes me feel marginally less likely to toss whatever might still remain of my cookies.

2:04 a.m.: Nice nurse takes my vitals and hands me what I presume is supposed to be an emesis basin, except that instead of being a basin, it's a long plastic tube that reminds me of a giant blue condom. Like for an elephant, maybe.

2:10 a.m.: In a hospital gown, but kept my comfy pants on. No bare butts for me! Also kept on socks. Should have worn something cuter than white footies. Clearly, this is impairing my fashion sense. Nausea still rolling over me in waves, but at least I don't feel so panicked now.

2:13 a.m.: Nice Nurse, whose name I've already forgotten, comes back to take some blood and insert an IV. Ash gamely tries to distract me from the freaky needles and the blood and the fact that they are sticking those freaky needles into me and my very own blood is dripping out of my vein. He is not very successful. Still, it was a valiant effort on his part.

2:17 a.m.: Need to use my ~~gaint blue condom~~ emesis "basin".

2:18 a.m.: What do I do with it now? Don't want Ash to have to touch it. That seems like more than a husband should have to do. Nice Nurse is off doing other nurse-y things. Don't know where a call button is, and don't think I should use it for something so small while in an emergency room anyway.

2:30 a.m.: Dr. Cheerful pops into my room to discuss my symptoms. He performs a physical exam, pressing on various areas. When he pokes the part around my navel, where I've been experiencing pain for a couple of hours, it hurts.

2:31 a.m.: No, wait. That didn't hurt. That was just a little discomfort, like when you bump your shin lightly into your cat. Because when he poked me down around my right hip, it hurt so bad I yelped and jackknifed up.

2:32 a.m.: Physical exam concludes with Dr. Cheerful manipulating my body into a couple of yoga-like poses, then poking. This stikes me as funny for some reason. If I didn't feel so awful, I would have giggled.

2:33 a.m.: Dr. Cheerful says, and I quote, "Hmmmm."

2:34 a.m.: Apparently I could have gallstones. But maybe I've got appendicitis. Or maybe it's something else altogether. Better run some more tests.

2:40 a.m.: Nurse Nice reappears to administer some drugs now that Dr. Cheerful has kindly ordered them. We discuss my very bad experience with Dilaudid. Would not make a good junkie, apparently. Nurse Nice says Dr. Cheerful gave her a couple of choices of pain medication in the same class, and suggests we try a different one. Apparently some people react badly to one and not to another.

2:41 a.m.: Oh, Fentanyl. You are so very much better than Dilaudid. Sweet relief.

2:42 a.m.: Ash makes the first of many jokes referencing Edgar Allen Poe and William Burroughs.

2:43 a.m.: Ash and Nurse Nice debate whether I should hope for gallstones or hope for appendicitis. I'm not sure I want to hope for either, but I also don't want to find out that I've made a mountain out of a molehill. But that doesn't mean I want to have surgery either. Nurse Nice states decisively that she'd take the appendicitis over the gallstones. I don't like the sound of that-- what makes gallstones worse than appendicitis? The treatment? The possible complications? The recovery period? The chances of successful treatment? If it weren't for the Fentanyl, I'd probably be freaking out right now.

2:45 a.m.: Oh, anti-emetic that I didn't hear the name of. You are my second-best friend, but only because Fentanyl made the bad pain go bye bye. We should all hang out together tonight.

2:49 a.m.: Some guy down the hall has turned on the TV and, from the sound of it, is trying to share the program with everyone else in the ER.

3:10 a.m.: An orderly comes to take me to CT. He looks like he's here in between rides with his buddies in the Patriot Guard Riders

3:11 a.m.: Stretcher ride through the hospital corridors is not as much fun as you might think. Acoustic ceiling tiles whip by dizzyingly.It's cold. Every bump dents my Fentanyl armor a little bit. Also, I do not want to make awkward small talk with the orderly because I feel so crappy, and then I feel guilty because I'm sure he's a very nice man and he's trying to be friendly and reassuring to me. So I try to make awkward small talk anyway.

3:13 a.m.: Biker Orderly rolls me onto my side so that I can be slid onto the board for the CT. My attempts to help only make matters more difficult, and the CT guy tells me to" pretend to be a log" -- this is easier said than done.

3:15 a.m.: CT scans are weird. Am I supposed to keep my eyes shut? What would happen if I opened them? The computer voice tells me to "Breathe in", then commands "Hold your breath." The problem is, it hurts to breathe in, so I'm not quite ready when the command to hold it comes up. What if that screws up the image? What if that makes them miss something important.

3:20 a.m.: Biker Orderly moves me back to the stretcher. On the way out of the department, he stops at a warming cabinet and brings me a toasty blanket. The CT rooms are very cold, and I've started to shiver. He noticed and cared enough to do something. I am really touched.

3:25 a.m.: That guy down the hall is arguing with the Nice Nurse and a doctor, presumably Dr. Cheerful. Apparently, he disagrees with them that there is nothing wrong with him and wants to be admitted RIGHT NOW.

3:27 a.m.: The guy down the hall continues to argue even though, as the entire ER can now hear, his test results have all been normal.

3:29 a.m.: Dr. Cheerful is holding fast. No more tests, no more treatments, time for this guy to go home and follow up with his doctor in the morning.

3:30 a.m.: That guy finally breaks down and agrees to leave, if they'll give him some drug I don't recognize. I don't hear the response, but wonder how doctors and nurses deal with idiots like this. TV has been blaring the entire time, necessitating the loud voices used by the doctor and the nurse-- there's only so much sound these partitions can block.

3:40 a.m.: TV switches off.

3:42 a.m.: The guy down the hall shuffles past toward the exit. He is morbidly obese and wearing a plaid bathrobe. He complains loudly the entire way down the hall. I would love to know the backstory there.

3:55 a.m.: Ash and I ponder whether this is going to be the first sunrise we've ever seen together. The fact that he is not a morning person is one of his more endearing qualities, if you ask me. I find the thought that we might experience our first sunrise from the confines of an emergency room incredibly amusing.

3:56 a.m.: Ash ruins my fun by recalling that we have, in fact, seen the sunrise together once before.

4:10 a.m.: Dr. Cheerful enters the room and perkily announces, "Guess what! You get to have your appendix out this morning!"

4:11 a.m.: Oh God.

4: 12 a.m.: Apparently, I shouldn't worry because if I'm lucky, Dr. Cutter will do it laparoscopically. If that's the better way to do it, why would any surgeon do it the other way? Why don't I get to tell the surgeon that I want it done that way?

4:13 a.m.: Nurse Nice stops in to check my vitals and tells me that they're going to have me admitted as soon as they can get a room for me upstairs. Ash asks how soon they will do the surgery and she says it will probably be pretty early-- maybe 7 or 8 a.m.

4:14 a.m.: Oh God.

4:15 a.m.: Nurse Nice leaves. I look at Ash and tearily mumble, "I've never even been in the hospital before." Ash staunchly points out that this is routine. No big deal, they do hundreds of these a year, if not thousands or millions. Nothing, really.

4:16 a.m.: Tell Ash that we should probably call into work. He laughs.

4:20 a.m.: Ash brought a big binder of work with him, and he's been trying to read all night. I did not bring anything with me because I was too distraught and sick. Right now, I wish I had something like a magazine, or something else light and amusing to distract me. Ash offers me his "leisure reading". I decline.

4:30 a.m.: Fentanyl, why are you leaving me? Did I say something wrong? Please don't go and leave me here with this pain!

4:45 a.m.: Nice Nurse arrives with a new dose. Thank heaven. She also tops off the anti-emetic and tells me they're waiting for a room.

4: 55 a.m.: I cannot stop interrupting Ash's reading to ask for reassurance. He valiantly refrains from biting my head off.

5:15 a.m.: I have been awake for nearly 24 hours, and I am pumped full of very strong drugs. But I cannot sleep, not even a little. I keep worrying about having someone cut me open, then I worry about staying in the hospital. I wonder how long I'll be in? They send you home after a couple of days when you have a C-section, right? And that involves really slicing you open, so if they do this one laparasopically, probably I'll be out the next day. That seems logical.

5:30 a.m.: Nice Nurse stops by to check my vitals and start a bag full of antibiotics. Burns, burns, burns, BURNSBURNSBURNS.

6:00 a.m.: The sky is slowly turning from black to blue, and the drugs are not really working anymore. Nice Nurse tells me I'll be going upstairs any minute, so I decide to wait until I get to the room. Besides, I'll probably be going to surgery really soon and then they'll pull out the big guns from the pharmacy.

6:15 a.m.: Still waiting. Fifteen minutes have never been so long.

6:20 a.m.: I want the drugs. But the orderly is here to take me to the surgical ward. I don't get the chance to say goodbye to Nice Nurse.

6:21 a.m.: Why are the hospital floors so bumpy?

6:22 a.m.: Remember back when tiny little video cameras became readily available, so every late night talk show came up with a "[fill-in-the-blank]-cam"? And the audience would howl with laughter at shaky video with odd perspectives? Laying flat on my back, watching the ceiling tiles fly by feels a lot like watching "stretcher-cam" footage.

6:25 a.m.: They want me to scoot myself from the stretcher into the bed. Suuuuure, I'll do that for you. Oh, you're serious??

6:26 a.m.: The nurse taking care of me up here is NOT nice. In fact, I will call her Nurse Bates, as in Kathy Bates, because I can't remember the name of the crazy nurse that she played in Misery. She is brusque and rough and leaves without bringing me the drugs I've asked for several times, or even mentioning when she will be back with them.

6:31 a.m.: Ash points out the window. The sky is pink and gold. The dawn of my last day with all my organs.

TO BE CONTINUED...

The Worm Turns, Act I

2009-08-17T09:56:00.003-05:00

WARNING: THIS IS A MEDICAL DRAMA AND INVOLVES TALK OF GRODY THINGS

Sunday, August 9, 2009

10:00 p.m.: Arrive at home after teaching a very satisfactory class, fall straight into bed.

11:30 p.m.: Wake up in a cold sweat, feeling vaguely disoriented.

11:35 p.m.: Ash comes to bed. The jostling of his climb into bed breaks loose a wave of nausea and I run for the bathroom.

11:55 p.m.: I want to lay down on the cool tile of our bathroom floor and wait for the nausea to pass or for the inevitable to happen.

11:56 p.m.: Our bathroom floor is disgusting. When is the last time someone swept the floor in here?

11:57 p.m.: Move to the hallway floor in front of the bathroom. Better because it's clean. Worse because hardwood is not as cool as tile. Stomach cramps are making the nausea worse. Getting to the point of actually wanting to puke, but not quite there yet.

11:59 p.m.: Worry that Ash will get up to find out if I'm okay and accidentally step on me. Move to floor of Ash's office, next to the bathroom.

12:02 a.m.: Carpet is too warm. Fan is not on and room is too stuffy. Fan is also too far away to consider turning on. Think about moving back to the bathroom floor. Remember gross dust bunnies. Stay put.

12:15 a.m.: Please, God, let me puke. At least I'll feel better then.

12:30 a.m.: I do not feel better. That is very strange. You always feel better after you puke, even if you're going to puke again later.

12:35 a.m.: Bathroom floor not so bad. Want to die.

12:39 a.m.: Reassure Ash that I've just got some stupid bug. I'll be back to bed in a little while when my stomach settles down.

12:50 a.m.: Getting worried now. Consult Dr. Google. Get a lot of mumbo jumbo about stomach flu. This feels much worse than any stomach bug I've ever had.

1:10 a.m.: Take temperature. 99.6 is not exactly a raging fever. Is that good? Don't you usually get a fever with a stomach bug? If so, does that mean the lack of a fever is bad? Perhaps I can return to Dr. Google's office for a follow-up consultation if I just lay here on the nice, cool tile for a minute.

1:30 a.m.: Wake Ash up. Not sure what I think he's going to do, but I need a cooler head here. No, the pain isn't on the right side. No, I'm not running a fever. OK, sweetie, you're probably right, it's just a stomach bug. I'm going to go lay in the bathroom again for awhile.

1:32 a.m.: Being sick in the middle of the night suuuuuuucks. Hopefully this stomach bug will be gone by morning. Guess I'll have to call in. Maybe I can just take a half day and sleep a little later.

1:34 a.m.: How can I be this nauseous and not throw up?

1:36 a.m.: Also? The stomach cramps are awful. What on earth is UP with this? AND my back is killing me.

1:38 a.m.: What if this isn't the stomach flu? Wonder what the symptoms of appendicitis are?

1:39 a.m.: Pain starting around the navel-- CHECK. Fever-- nope. Pain migrates to right side-- well, not yet, but who knows what will happen later? Back pain? CHECK. Nausea-- CHECK. Vomiting-- CHECK.

1:40 a.m.: Oh God.

1:41 a.m.: Naaaaaaaaw. Who actually ends up with the illnesses that they find by Dr. Google? No one, that's who.

1:42 a.m.: Oh God.

1:43 a.m.: Maybe I should just wait until morning and see how this goes. I mean, really, I cannot go the emergency room just to be told "You've got a stomach bug. Go home, drink lots of fluids, get some rest."

1:44 p.m.: Oh God.

1:45 p.m.: OK, seriously, I've got to get some perspective. Am I overreacting here? WHY does this stuff always happen in the middle of the night? Should I wake up Ash? Gah, he's got to work in the morning, I'd better let him sleep.

1:46 p.m.: The tile isn't cold enough anymore.

1:48 p.m.: This carpet is too warm.

1:50 p.m.: Oh God.

1:51 p.m.: Re-read symptoms. Oh God.

1:52 p.m.: Wake up Ash. Insist that he join me for a consultation with Dr. Google. Ash wearily agrees. The skepticism is rolling off of him in waves, but he offers to take me to the ER if I think it's necessary.

1:54 p.m.: We throw on some clothes. I have the foresight to wear my softest elastic waistband pants. I do not have the foresight to put my headband back on to keep my hair out of my sweaty face. This will drive me crazy in the very near future. Ash waits for me to lace my shoes, which is difficult, what with the nasty pain in my stomach. I grab a bucket from the bathroom on the way out. You know, just in case. God, please don't let me have to use it.

1:55 p.m.: Can't make it down the stairs. Wait on bench in front of the building for Ash to pull the car around. Hurts to sit. Hurts to stand. This sucks.

1:56 p.m.: Ash asks me which hospital I want to go to. Who cares? THE ONE THAT'S MAYBE A MILE AWAY. How about that one? Ash hits the gas and we're off.

TO BE CONTINUED...

TV Guide for Aliens

2009-08-03T23:00:00.000-05:00

What other places in the Universe are watching on TV tonight.

You Can't Handle the Truth!

2009-07-26T15:05:00.003-05:00

Overheard while shopping at Kohl's this morning:

"Don't you trust me?"
"No."
"Well, that wasn't very nice to say!"

Three Ways

2009-06-17T22:27:00.002-05:00

I stole this from Paca over a year ago and never got around to finishing it. Still here it is, my life in threes:

3 Ways I am a stereotypical wife:
I do most of the cooking and meal planning, as well as the grocery shopping.
I have way more shoes and clothes than Ash does.
I like my towels folded a certain way and put in a certain place.

3 Things I'd like to hear:
"Congratulations on winning the Powerball jackpot, Katze!"
"The sellers of your dream house have agreed to sell it to you for $1 because they just want to make you happy."
"All federal student loans are being forgiven, effective immediately."

3 Things I'd like to be able to say:
"We love living in Munich."
"I love my job."
"Don't worry Mom and Dad, we can take care of you. Just go ahead and retire."

3 Debates that shouldn't be a matter of left versus right
Climate change, health care, education.

3 People I have been smitten with in my life (embarassing or not) other than my husband:
Because it's more fun to hear about the horrible dates than to hear a story that goes "He was great, but it just wasn't right", here are three terrible episodes from my romantic past.

When I was on the Congress Bundestag program, I made friends with another exchange student who lived in the same region of Germany (though not particularly close by), and promptly developed the most merciless crush and unrequited crush on his host brother. Ditto for this friend of one of the guys who lived in the apartment next door to my first apartment. And finally, I was totally mad about this guy who I dated for a short period of time before I met Finbar. This one was not unrequited, and I thought things were going along quite nicely when all of a sudden I found myself dumped because (according to the angsty break up note-- a NOTE!)he was just too worried that we might get serious and then he'd have to give up all of his dreams and get married. May I note, please, that we were 19 years old when we were dating? And that I certainly didn't have any such plans in mind, and that even if I had, I most definitely did NOT have "become a housewife in rural Ohio" as one of my dreams for the future.

3 Things I wish were true:
That Ash and I both had jobs we love and made enough doing them to do most of the things we would like to do without any worry about money.
That the people we love will always be well and always be with us.
That people always get what they deserve -- or at least that the people who deserve it most would get the good things.

3 Things I wish were false.
That we will not finish paying our student loans until after our children, should we have any, go to college.
That our country is terribly divided.
That the idea of America of a meritocracy is akin to a fairy tale.

Your Call is Important to Us

2009-06-11T20:24:00.002-05:00

One of my friends at work has the unfortunate job of returning customer calls routed to our department from my company's 1-800 number. It's not that the calls are particularly onerous or time-consuming-- she only gets a handful a day. It's more the occasional crazy that pops up from time to time.

For example...

A gentleman left a voicemail saying "My name is Unstable McNeedsadrink. Please return my call at 893 555-1234." No other information to indicate why he was calling, what company he was calling from, or anything else. This happens more frequently than you might imagine. Apparently people think we're just a small mom and pop shop with a handful of customers that we all know by name. Let's just say that we're no Microsoft,but we are the largest company in our industry.

If someone's going to help Mr. Needsadrink with whatever he needs help with, a little detective work is in order. So my coworker dials his number, intending to find out what he wants and re-route him to the appropriate person.

"Hello, this is Kristen Reed calling from My Company. I'm returning your call from earlier--"

[Mr. Needsadrink interrupts] "Take me off your list"

"I'm sorry?"

"I don't want whatever you're selling. Take me off your list."

"Oh, this is not a sales call, you --"

[Mr. Needsadrink interrupts angrily] " I TOLD YOU TO TAKE ME OFF YOUR LIST!" [slams down the phone]

Kristen is just waiting for the day when he calls back to yell at someone because "no one is returning his calls".

Memories Redux

2009-06-08T21:36:00.001-05:00

10 years ago today: June 8, 1999: I was working full time at Avon. Worst. Job. Ever. (And I've worked fast food and done a stint in the KMart Layaway, so that's saying something.) At the same time, I was tutoring a high school student in German during the week and babysitting on most weekend nights. This was also the summer that a friend of a friend introduced me to her au pair, who had just arrived from Germany and was feeling a little shell-shocked. We started hanging out with each other on a regular basis, speaking German and shopping at Old Navy. Claudia, the au pair, used to tease me because I would always swear that I wanted to buy something "different", and would always end up buying khaki shorts and dark blue, black, and white tops. My wardrobe certainly was neutral that summer.

5 years ago today: June 8, 2004. I was planning my move to Our Fair City with Hulio. We were getting ready to meet here for an apartment hunting trip, and I was not at all certain where the law school was, what sort of neighborhood it might be in, or where we should be looking to live. Hulio was not at all certain whether or not she was actually going to come with me. We laugh sometimes at the conversations she would have with people who asked her why she moved here: "Well, my best friend goes to law school here." "Ummmm... OK. So, why did you move here again?"

EDITED BECAUSE LUNERAY IS TOTALLY RIGHT.

So, um, actually I was in Our Fair City, getting ready to leave for Sweden in about a week's time. It would have been about this point that I learned from my student loan lender that, in fact, they would NOT be disbursing my loans because the program in Sweden wasn't considered "academic in nature". Which is ludicrous on several levels, first and foremost because the program required something like six hours of class per day. Fortunately/ Unfortunately, depending on how you look at things, I'd already put the course fees on my credit card. It had seemed like the expedient course of action at the time, what with needing to be able to pay in Swedish Kronor and not yet having the student loans I'd been promised in hand. I am still paying off that credit card today-- that's the unfortunate part. On the other hand, the fact that I had already paid the non-refundable fee meant that there was no backing out, so I couldn't feel too guilty about going ahead with the plans despite the lack of funding. I had an amazing summer and met Luneray, and that wouldn't have happened if I'd found out about the no-student-loans thing earlier.

On a side note, I can tell you exactly what I wasn't doing on June 8, 2004: packing for my trip to Sweden. I remember Hulio yelling at me, and I made a bet with her that I could go from "nothing is ready to go" to "let's leave for the airport" in less than two hours. I totally won that bet. I AM THE QUEEN OF PACKING FOR LONG TRIPS!! Of course, I am correspondingly bad at packing for short trips.

1 year ago today: June 8, 2008: According to my blog, I went to see Iron Man.

Yesterday: Ash and I went to buy a new bike helmet for him and ended up buying a bike for me. Then we took the new bikes to the park and rode them on the bike trail. This was the first time I was on a bike since I borrowed Luneray's bike in Sweden. I've never really spent any time on a bike in the US, so I kept catching these gentle waves of cognitive dissonance. It was kind of weird, nerve-wracking, and annoying to share the path with pedestrians at the park, because, you see, they don't know the Rules of the Road... that I learned in Germany. I had to laugh at myself because I was irritated that the walkers didn't keep to the right, and I kept wanting to ring my (non-existent) bike bell to make them move over. Another somewhat frightening bit of habit I struggled with was my inability to remember that THIS BIKE DOES NOT HAVE COASTER BRAKES. See, every other bike I've ridden had coaster brakes, and I would want to slow down, encounter no resistance on the back pedal and my heart would skip a beat while I tried to make the hand brakes work without causing myself to flip over the handlebars. I am clearly a menace who should not be on the road/ bike path. And Ash kept turning around to tell me to go faster. I think he might be trying to get my life insurance money, but the joke's on him because I didn't take out a big enough policy to pay off all of my debts. HAHAHAHA!

Tomorrow: Work. Ick. I mean, don't get me wrong: I'm very grateful to have a job at all. But I'm not sure that where I am is a good place for me. I'm bored AND stressed all the time, which is a very bad combination. There was apparently some drama today, but I was working from home, so I'll have to get the blow-by-blow tomorrow.

5 snacks I enjoy: Any cereal with a cartoon figure on the box, popsicles, Grießbrei, sweet popcorn, and Twizzlers.

5 bands that I know the lyrics to most of their songs: Patty Griffin, REM, U2, Billy Joel,

5 things I would do with $100,000,000: Pay off student loan debt for myself and several of my dear friends, give my parents enough money so that they could quit their crappy jobs and do something that makes them happy, set up a scholarship fund, travel, buy a home.

5 locations I'd like to run away to: Iceland, Germany (specifically to my little town in Bavaria), Hawaii, Finland, .

5 bad habits I have:
- Too impatient and not good enough at hiding it.
- Chewing my pens and pencils
- Procrastinating
- Staying up too late.
- Being hesitant about important things.

5 things I like doing: travelling, learning new languages, eating, spending time with close friends,

5 things I would never wear:
A halter top, those pointy toed super high-high heels that have been so popular lately, a micro-mini skirt, a baseball cap facing any way other than forward, one of those "maxi dresses" that look like someone sewed a tablecloth together and added some straps.

5 TV shows I like: Iron Chef (only the Japanese version, and I am still angry that I can't watch on Food Network anymore and can't buy the show on DVD), Scrubs, The Daily Show, Clean House, Friends

5 movies I like: Amelie, Mary Poppins, Office Space, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, The Big Lebowski

5 biggest joys of the moment: Being married to my perfect match, sunshine, getting a break from teaching that allows me to get some physical activity for a change, new books waiting to be read, Jenna's inability to act sane at all anymore (she's just too cute).

5 favorite toys: My laptop, my knitting, my new bike!, my french press (made some seriously awesome coffee this morning), Katamari.

Spring is Here

2009-04-18T19:53:00.000-05:00

Golden Cocoon in the Workplace

2009-04-05T20:57:00.002-05:00

Consumer Reports presents the Golden Cocoon Award to recognize products which are shipped in ridiculous amounts of packaging. I received some correspondence on Friday which really deserves to at least be nominated for this prestigious prize.

A letter was sealed in a normal letter-sized envelope, which was placed in an overnight mailer, which was placed in an interoffice envelope, which was then placed in another overnight mailer. ALL of the correspondence was internal, so this masterpiece of overpackaging was utterly unneeded.

If I had been truly evil, I would have taken it to our Green Initiative Chair, who has plastered our kitchen with signs about the evils of styrofoam and regularly sends out emails reminding us that we shouldn't print stuff out, and when we do print, we need to make sure to use the lowest possible print setting-- which she has reinforced with signs over all of the printers, in multiple places (and yes, I did cackle at the delicious irony of it all).

Spring Awakening - Day 15

2009-04-04T20:11:00.000-05:00

Look, it's growing!

Well, one of them is, anyway. Why do you suppose the other three aren't growing? Maybe I didn't leave enough of the top sticking out? Maybe I left too much of the top sticking out! Who knows?

Spring Awakening - Day 8

2009-03-28T20:08:00.000-05:00

I see green!

Crafty Katze

2009-03-25T21:48:00.003-05:00

My nephew is a lucky little boy to have such a crafty aunt.

This is my first self-designed knitting project. It's based on a pattern that I found online and knitted for him before he was born. I was highly displeased with the finished product, which looked crooked and strange, so I frogged it and started over, sort of winging it as I went. If I were to make it again, I would use a smaller guage stitch/ needle and tweak the arms a little.

I found it difficult to know exactly how the proportions should be, because this is the first project I've done for a baby. There was also a little jester hat which is freaking adorable, but I forgot to take a picture before I gave it to him.

Diligent

2009-03-25T20:28:00.004-05:00

We got this in the mail:

What important correspondence has caused the Postal Service such angst?

Now, that's diligent mail delivery.

Sprint Awakening - Day 2

2009-03-22T20:04:00.000-05:00

Soil is dry! And per the directions, I have pushed the bulbs into the soil "so that the top sticks out". Again with the not specific directions! How much of the top? A tiny little bit? An inch? Guess I'll have to wing it again.

Let the growing begin!

More Language Pedantry

2009-03-21T20:30:00.000-05:00

Each Sunday, some adult in the congregation is chosen to lead a short lesson for the little kids, who get to run down to the front of the church and sit in the front pews during the "Children's Message". The sheer energy released during the run down the aisle could power the church for most of the week, and it is insanely adorable most of the time. Anyway, some of the speakers are better than others, and there's one in particular who is downright awful. On Sundays when she calls the kids down for the Children's Message, the kids don't so much run down the aisle as they meander. On this particular Sunday, she wants to talk about hypocrites for some bizarre reason, and because she is showing unusual foresight and understanding of the age level involved, she tries to use an example to show what the big word means. It would seem that the Sunday School classes are taking up a collection to go to help in rebuilding in New Orleans. In her universe, the children would be hypocrites if they kept the collection money to buy candy.

Here's a hint: if you tell people you are collecting for hurricane victims, but then you keep the money for yourself, you're a liar and a thief, but you're not really a hypocrite. In order to be a hypocrite, you would also have to spend a lot of time decrying people who scam others out of money by collecting for "charity" and keeping the money for themselves.

Spring Awakening - Day 1

2009-03-21T18:44:00.000-05:00

One of my friends at work gave me a paperwhite growing kit, and now that the days are getting longer and warmer, I thought a little greenery would be a good addition to our household.

How does one grow paperwhites in a small apartment without a balcony, patio, or other outdoors-ish area in which one could garden?

First, the mise en place (such as it were):

Notice the little plastic-wrapped hockey puck-looking thing. That's my potting soil, and in order to actually pot something in that soil, I was instructed to add "2 cups or one liter water". That's not the most exact measurement I've ever heard of, but what the heck...

Note, by the way, my sweet manicure.

According to the directions, the little hockey puck is supposed to expand as it absorbs the water, until it fills the pot.
I have my doubts.

After one hour, it looks like this:

That certainly isn't much progress.

After three hours, it looks like this:
This calls for some intervention. Perhaps if I stir it up a little, things will get a little soil-ier.

This cannot be good for my manicure.

I can't deal with this right now. Let's have a break for some delicious irish soda bread from a local bakery.

Okay, back to the paperwhites. Five hours have elapsed at this point, and it's still really soupy.

Do paperwhites grow in primordeal stew?
Maybe if I leave it in front of the window for awhile, it will dry up a little.

Like Your Sense of Humor

2009-03-21T09:07:00.002-05:00

Yesterday at work, an email went out to all employees at our office that said "CPI for January was 0.2". We have a lot of contracts that have price increases based on the CPI, so other than a brief fleeting thought of how it sure does suck to have to ask for/ end up getting stuck with a price increase that will amount to a few dollars at most, I didn't think much about it... until a second email went out a few minutes later that read:

"As much as I'm sure you all care deeply about the Consumer Price Index, that email was meant for Jane Smith. Sorry about that!"

Wanna Buy a Couch?

2009-03-10T21:40:00.005-05:00

Dear "Tom",

Thank you for your interest in purchasing the couch and loveseat I recently posted on craigslist. However, our recent interaction has left me with some questions. I'm hoping you will be able to clarify these things for me.

Well, actually, I have one big multi-part question for you. What was the purpose of asking me for exact measurements of the couch and loveseat, exchanging multiple emails with me for details of color and condition, then setting an appointment with me to pick up the couches if you had no intention of showing up? Alternatively, if we assume arguendo that you intended to show up, the question I wish to have you answer changes: why didn't you have the common decency to call or email and let me know you'd changed your mind?

It's not that I refused another sale because you said you were coming to pick up the couches-- I'm acting in self-interest here. What really pisses me off about this is that you wasted my time. It was a gorgeous Sunday afternoon, we have a friend visiting us, and we sat around waiting for you because you were too inconsiderate to take 20 seconds out of your day to let me know that you wouldn't be showing up. If the situation had been reversed, if you had made an appointment with me and showed up here and knocked on my door, only to find that no one was here, would you not have been terribly angry with me? Perhaps you believe that your time is more vaulable than mine. I assure you that is not the case.

In conclusion, you are a jerk. I hope you get stood up on your next 10 dates.

Sincerely yours,

Katze

********

Dear "Angel S."

Thank you for your interest in purchasing the couch and loveseat I recently posted on craigslist. The asking price is $150, as I noted in my posting. I am willing to entertain a lower offer, but the key here is that YOU make the next offer. Sending me an email with the question "How cheap can I get it?" is not upholding your end of this transaction. I've already made my offer to you: a couch and a loveseat for $150. Make me a counteroffer and I will let you know if I can accept it.

Sincerely,

Katze

*****

Dear "Brad Farr":

Thank you for your interest in purchasing the couch and loveseat I recently posted on craigslist. Your recent correspondence has been reviewed and we have prepared the following response to your inquiries:

Yeah. Right.

Seriously, did you think that I was really going to send you my banking information over email so that you could "prepare the check transfer"? Furthermore, even if you had not lead off with such an obvious gambit, ordering me to "[t]ake immediately down [my] posting as [you] are now the purchaser" is a non-starter. The sale is complete when the cash is in my hands and not one moment before.

In conclusion, you are a jerk. I hope you are robbed repeatedly until such time as you lose 10 times more than you have scammed out of any victims dumb enough to fall for your nonsense.

Sincerely,

Katze

Some Assembly Required

2009-03-08T17:47:00.001-05:00

Båb, the IKEA baby. Spare parts are available in the "As-Is" section at a nominal price.

Must Be Love Week 'Round Here

2009-02-20T21:53:00.003-05:00

What are your middle names?

My middle name is one of the three most common middle names for girls of my age group-- but my parents chose it because it was my grandmother's given name. Ash's middle name is a fairly common boy's name, and one that I've always liked. Sadly, he refuses to consider this name for a possible son we might have in the future.

How long have you been together?

Three years and counting.

How long did you know each other before you started dating?

We were introduced a little more than a month before our first date, but we sort of knew each other by sight for some time before that, just by seeing each other around the law school. Ash is very tall and wore a very distinctive coat, so I'd noticed him at some point the previous year. He says I have a very distinctive butt, which he'd noticed before we met.

Who asked whom out?

I asked him out, and he said no.* I asked him out again later the same day, he said yes, and after that, there was never really any asking, because we never wanted to leave each other after that.

How old are each of you?

I am 32 for another four days, and Ash is 31. Yes, I am robbing the cradle-- by seventeen months.

Whose siblings do you see the most?

I think we see both sets of siblings about equally infrequently, because none of them live anywhere near us.

Which situation is the hardest on you as a couple?

Probably our careers. We're both in that phase where you're sort of struggling to get things off the ground and find work that feels meaningful, work that makes law school seem like it was worth something other than just meeting each other. We're both frustrated and sometimes it's hard not to take that out on each other or feed of the other's frustration.

Did you go to the same school?

Not until law school. We grew up in different states, and we both did our undergrad degrees in our home states.

Are you from the same home town?

No.

Who is smarter?

Depends on who you ask and what day it is, but to be honest, I think we're about equal, intellectually. Ash is smarter sometimes, and I'm smarter sometimes. But I'll tell you that he works much harder than I do at school-type stuff.

Who is the most sensitive?

Me, definitely. Things do not roll off of me, whereas Ash has a gift for overlooking the bad things about people and situations-- or maybe it would be more accurate to say that he has a gift for seeing the positive. I also have more of a temper.

Where do you eat out most as a couple? 

It's kind of hard to say, because we aren't eating out as often as we used to. We also don't really have a set favorite place over in this part of town the way we did in our own neighborhood (Chinese Family Restaurant, hands down). We've stopped going to Pub Quiz regularly, so it's not the Faux Irish Pub anymore. We order pizza from the same place whenever we order pizza, but that's not really a frequent occurrence anymore.

Where is the furthest you two have traveled together as a couple?
Probably D.C.-- not very far at all. We have done very little traveling in the past couple of years, and none of it by plane.

Who has the craziest exes?

Ash, hands down. I'm pretty sure that Jere will back me up on that one.  Ash wishes to add the following: "I'm like crack for crazy girls."

Who has the worst temper?
Oh, me for sure. Not that Ash is immune to the occasional outburst, but I am far more prone to the fire and brimstone anger, and I also hold a grudge longer.

Who does the cooking?
Me. Not that Ash can't, or won't, or anything like that. But I like to cook, and I'm good at it, so I generally just do it.

Who is the neat-freak?

Neither one of us, and that's both a damn good thing and a damn shame. It's good because we don't often fight about this, and it's a shame because if one of us was a neat-freak, this place might be a little cleaner. The funny thing is that we've each got things that we're very neat about, and those things don't really align, so we drive each other nuts sometimes.

Who is more stubborn?

God Almighty, it's like a stubborn contest around here. Seriously, we are both extremely stubborn and we both get very angry if we have to give in. Makes for some really ludicrous arguments, I'll tell you. Luckily, we're both very aware that we're stubborn, so we try to work on it-- not always successfully, but...

Who hogs the bed? 
Ash says it's me, but I think he's just a big baby. He also says I hog the covers, but I have to fight to keep my legs covered when we get into bed at night. Actually, I am a very violent sleeper, so I probably do hog the bed, if for no reason other than the need to create a wide perimeter around my flailing limbs.

Who wakes up earlier?

Neither one of us. We'll both try and make the other one be the first out of bed. However, as it happens, so far our work schedules have usually settled the argument, since one or the other of us has had an earlier start time. Right now, it's me. For a while, it was Ash.

Where was your first date? 

We went to a Halloween party at Ash's roommate's best friend's house.

Who is more jealous?

I don't think either of us is particularly jealous.

How long did it take to get serious? 

Hardly any time at all, and it was the most natural thing in the world. Neither one of us started out thinking it would be anything serious-- some one cute to pass the time with, if you will. And somehow we went from fun to crush to love to deciding to get married in a matter of months, all without ever really having any discernable "stages". It just sort of... happened.

Who eats more? 

Ash. He often finishes my meals when we eat out, and I've had to learn that if I want leftovers for lunch the next day, I have to tell him that before dinner starts. It's also been a struggle for me to keep my own portion sizes from mirroring his, but I think I'm getting a little better at it. My waistline will thank me.

Who does the laundry?

It's sort of a joint operation right now. Ash hauls the stuff up and down the stairs, I separate the laundry and load/ unload the washer/ dryer, and one of us (usually me, I think) folds the stuff. One dirty little secret I have is that it drives me crazy that he doesn't fold the towels the same way I do, but I refuse to ask him to fold them the same way because it was always so infuriating when my mother would insist that I re-fold an entire load of towels because they weren't folded "the right way". So I just live with the towels.

Who’s better with the computer? 

We're both about the same level of competent, in that we can each use a computer, but neither of us can really fix anything, or do anything beyond the basics. Ash also objects to this answer on factual grounds-- he says that he is clearly far better than I with computers because he knows how to program in three languages.

Who drives when you are together?

Me, unless I specifically ask Ash to drive, or if we're driving long distance-- Ash usually takes more than half the drive to our family when we visit. We both hate to drive, and he uses the excuse that my car gets much better gas mileage**, and he's not comfortable driving my car. We also each think that the other is the worse driver.

* I never get tired of telling people this. I think it's hysterical.

** Which it does, by a fairly significant margin, but still!

My Valentine

2009-02-19T15:46:00.003-05:00

Saturday was Valentine's Day, and I didn't get roses or chocolates or diamond earrings. What I did get was a husband who took me to the urgent care center while I hacked and wheezed. Not once did he whine or complain about the long wait, the fact that I didn't give in to his early morning suggestion that I see a doctor until lunchtime, or the fact that the pharmacist took a long time to get my drugs together. Personally, I'm not sure I could have been as patient about the lack of food for so long had I been in his shoes. I would have meant to be patient, but I probably would have whined anyway. Then he brought me home and waited on me hand and foot while I laid on the couch, sleeping and reading Steven King*. He brought me glass after glass of water, and even went to the store to buy orange juice and salt and vinegar potato chips.** And not once did he act like I was being a pain-in-the-Ay-double-Ess.***

Happy Valentine's Day, Sweetie. You're what it's all about.

*I don't know what it is about being sick that makes me want to read his books, but I worked my way through The Shining, The Stand, and The Dead Zone.

**Another thing that I can't get enough of when I'm sick.

***Which I probably was, even if I didn't mean to be.

Fun With Cats

2009-02-07T21:21:00.000-05:00

Jenna has always been sort of a... prickly cat. She will snuggle up and get a nice bit of a pet from someone, purring like an engine, then suddenly she'll hiss or nip (non-contact only-- she's way too much of a wimp to actually attack) and run away for no apparent reason. But she's not a cat that plays very much, in large part because she's getting old, but also, I think, because she considers it beneath her. You can get her pretty wound up with one of those feather toys that has mylar strips in the middle of it sometimes, but even that isn't foolproof. Sometimes she just sits there and lets you shake it, poke her with it, and generally make a fool out of yourself while she acts like you don't even exist.

So it's always a cause for celebration when we discover something that really gets her going... even if it's making her mad. We've recently invented a new game called "The Thing Under the Covers" that makes me laugh hard enough to cry.

Like many of the good things in life, "The Thing Under the Covers" was discovered quite by accident. Ash and I were laying in bed one night, reading. Our big poofy down comforter was pulled up nice and high to keep us toasty warm, and Jenna had wedged herself inbetween our legs at the bottom of the bed. One of us-- me, I think-- moved a foot around lazily under the covers, and Jenna started to do this weird little moaning growl. The more the foot moved, the more upset she got, until she finally attacked, biting and yowling. When that didn't kill the Thing Under the Covers, she got angrier and angrier, until she had to run out of the room while Ash and I laughed ourselves sick. The thing that makes it so funny is that she doesn't get this worked up about anything, ever. Not even the Stripey Catnip Sock.

What do people who don't have cats do for entertainment?

More From the "Not Really Newsworthy" File

2009-01-25T13:29:00.002-05:00

OK, here we are again with the insanity from the AP. Check out the bolded part (emphasis mine):

Another Florida man accused of sandwich assault

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. (AP) -- Police said a Port St. Lucie man was arrested for throwing a sandwich at his girlfriend, the second food attack that sent a man to jail in about a month. According to a police report released Monday, the 20-year-old man threw the sandwich at his girlfriend's face during an argument about auto insurance and then hit her head with his fist.

The man admitted to throwing the food but not hitting her. He was arrested Friday and faces a battery charge.

Last month, another man was arrested on a battery charge for hitting his girlfriend with a sandwich, knocking her glasses off and nearly causing a traffic crash.

Police reports did not what type of sandwich was used in either attack.

Does it really make a difference whether it was a Reuben or a Turkey Club? White, Wheat or Rye? Is it a misdemeanor if the sandwich is on a soft bun, but a felony if it's on a hard roll?

Small Miracles

2009-01-17T20:50:00.000-05:00

Remember, Oh Faithful Reader, how painful getting registered in Our Fair State was back in February? Turns out that the difficulty of renewing that registration was inversely proportional to the pain of getting it to begin with. Renew online? Sure! Pay by credit card? Sure! Get everything completed and returned to you more than two months before my current registration expires? Absolutely!

A rare moment of ease and competency in dealing with a government agency-- I must savor this to the utmost.

Taking Stock, 2008 Edition

2008-12-31T20:52:00.000-05:00

More money or less?
Marginally more, thanks to a merit raise that ended up being wiped out by inflation.

Biggest way to waste time?
You know, I put Katamari away for a long time, only to take it back out late this summer, at which point I promptly played it until I got little blisters on my thumb, driven by an unreasonable urge to roll up the North Star. Other than that, I don't know that I really wasted a lot of time.

Best use of time?
Ash and I have taken up hiking. We bought some boots and everything, and we're working our way toward being able to do some camping/ hiking trips, hopefully this summer, if we can get our work schedules to cooperate. We've been having a lot of fun tramping around the trails in some local parks, enjoying the outdoors and having lovely talks about everything under the sun.

Best movie?
We didn't watch a lot of movies this year, so it's a very small pool to choose from. In comedy, I loved "Kebab Connection". But for sheer movie roller coaster fun, Dark Knight is the first movie in a long time that I would have been willing to pay full ticket price to see again.

Listened to?
Lots and lots of NPR. I think I worked my way through almost all of the This American Life Podcasts, and I listened to "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" during all of my physical therapy sessions.

Read?
The unholy trinity of Jen Lancaster, Laurie Notaro, and Ayun Halliday helped keep me laughing in a rough year. I also re-read Pride and Prejudice, Les Miserables, and Oliver Twist, and made heavy use of my library card, reading pretty much anything that caught my eye.

Fatter or thinner?
Thinner. Then fatter. Then a little thinner. Then fatter. I'm working on thinner again now.

Smarter or stupider?
More cynical? Oh, wait, that wasn't an option. I guess smarter, because I feel like the scales were lifted from my eyes in several matters.

Best buy?
Our new mattress. Not only is it much plusher than the 20+ year old Sears mattress we were sleeping on, it is also bigger. After all that time sleeping in a full bed together, it felt downright spacious to upgrade to a queen. Now, after four months of sleeping in the queen bed, the full bed in Ash's mom's guest room felt so small. Ash and I kept elbowing each other and telling each other to move over and quit hogging the bed.

Best bargain?

Stupidest purchase?
I can't really think of anything, perhaps because we made a concerted effort to not buy things this year.

Drank the most?
Blue Moon, fueling my performance as a member of the Little Lebowski Urban Achievers at Pub Quiz every week.

Best drink?
I had a really lovely Sangiovese recently. Ash and I actually went to a couple of wine stores in Michigan, looking for a bottle to give as a gift.

Ate the most?
Well, I hate to admit this, but I ate a lot of Spaghetti-Os (with meatballs!!). I don't know why, it just hit the spot for a long time. I probably ate them for lunch at least twice a week for several months.

Worst food eaten?
I made this goulash one night, sort of free-styling it like I usually do. I am a cook who does not really measure things or use recipes, per se. Usually, I use a recipe only if I've never made something before, and even then, I often tinker with them.

Best food eaten?
I think the best thing I ate all year was the meal that I ate at Meat-tastic with Ash. I can't pick one thing as "best", because everything was so good. The seafood was amazing, and the lamb was practically melting in your mouth, but then, so was the filet, and the salads were to die for. I ate until I thought it might start to come out of my pores, and I still wouldn't have stopped if it had been physically possible to continue eating.

New friends found?
One of the best parts of this year has been the way my group of lunch buddies has morphed into a group of friends. Funnily enough, the one girl who I thought I would really dislike when she first started last fall is the one who I am probably closest to. In fact, up until this past week, I was one of only two or three people who knows that she's pregnant. She and her husband didn't even tell their parents until Christmas. Keeping the secret is killing me, but I don't think she's planning to tell anyone at work for another three or four weeks.

Old friends lost?
Not that I can think of.

Resolutions not kept?
Heck yes. For the record, these were last year's resolutions:
1) Get a thicker skin at work. I cannot continue to let a certain recurring problem get under my skin the way it has the past several months.
2) Get to work earlier in the morning so that I can leave earlier at night.
3) Learn something new-- a new skill, for example.
4) Get back to blogging regularly. I miss the creative outlet.

And the results?
1) The recurring problem I referred to no longer gets under my skin, and I'm getting better at not taking things to heart so much. Having said that, I still get too hot under the collar about certain things.
2) This has been a hit-and-miss thing. Sometimes I make it, sometimes I don't-- more often, I don't. And when I do, I have a hard time leaving earlier, thereby defeating the whole purpose of getting there earlier.
3) I learned to swim breaststroke properly. Does that count? I think it does.
4) Not so much. I am just fried at the end of the day, so I want to flop on the couch and watch TV, or else I want to read what other people have written.

Missed chances?
I can't think of anything, but I wonder if that means that I'm missing something because I don't know that it's important-- you know?

Fears?
This year, I kept hearing a line from a Patty Griffin song, playing over and over in my head: "I must confess, there appears to be/ way more darkness than light". That small snippet of song articulates my fears from the past year more than anything else. I have never worked as hard as I did this year, and yet I feel like I was running in place all year long. It's hard to keep believing that things are going to get better when it seems like they just keep getting worse.

Biggest success?
I think I had a lot of small successes this year, but no huge ones. I got a lot better at my job and did a few things there that I was really proud of.

Biggest failure?
I have made no progress whatsoever toward getting my house and life organized.

Healthier or Sicker?
Welllll... up until September, I would have smugly answered "healthier!", and I tell you, I was absolutely certain that the reason why I didn't catch any of the usual viral crap was the flu shot that I got for the first time in many years last fall. However, I also got a flu shot this year, and I've essentially been sick off and on since mid-September with some nasty viral crap. The bug I caught in November took me out of commission entirely for three days, then kept me miserable for at least a week more, and to be honest, I don't think it's ever entirely gone away.

Best spontaneous fun?
The morning Ash and I got Tim Hortons and went for a walk around a park in his hometown. It was very early in the morning-- we got up so that we could stop and see his dad before he left for work, because otherwise we wouldn't have had a chance to see him at all as we were passing through town on our way to a wedding. It was, in fact, earlier than I usually get up for work back home. We took our coffees and walked around the misty park while the sun rose higher and higher in the sky. It was quiet and peaceful, so full of still beauty that it made the moment seem surreal.

Learned the most?
I know more about government contracting than I ever want to know. I would wager that I know more about government contracting than almost anyone else in my company. Yet, I probably know only a tiny fraction of what there is to know. I do not like contracting with the Federal Government.

What I definitely don’t want to see in the next year?
More of the same, and especially more of the whole "Dumb as we wanna be" culture. I am ready for a new wind, for a new beginning. I'm ready to hope for good again.

TV puke?
More or less everything. I didn't really get into anything on TV this year, with one exception (see below), because it all seems like such crap. Even the shows that everyone else thinks are fantastic make me irritable. Like Lost. I think that show is worse than Heroes... Heroes from this season.

TV-Wow?
I love The Soup. I watch it almost every week, and every single episode makes me gaffaw like a lunatic. Every episode. I *heart* Joel McHale, maybe even more than Jon Stewart.

Biggest change?
This was the year I lost my ability to believe in a better future. But then I found it again. I am so ready for the Bush years to end, and I fervently hope that Obama can lead this country back to a better place.

Biggest loss for mankind?
After this terrible year, I simply haven't the heart to try and answer.

Biggest Disappointment?
The way John McCain ran his presidential campaign. I lost a lot of the respect that I used to have for John McCain. He tried to exploit some of the worst parts of our society to gain power, and I am still angry about Sarah Palin.

Proustian

2008-12-29T21:58:00.000-05:00

It's so very strange, the things that imprint themselves on our brain and swim to the surface cued by some small event.

I was in a particularly boring meeting, doodling across my agenda. My preferred doodles are freeform swirly things, especially since I don't draw very well. For whatever reason, though, I started doodling stars in a little row all along the edge of the paper, and found my inner voice chanting "down, up, across, down, up".

As a small child, I had a lot of trouble with fine motor skills. Tying my shoelaces or folding a piece of paper in equal, even halves were insurmountable problems for me, and the adults around me didn't seem to understand that, especially since I picked up other things-- reading, composition, understanding fractions-- so much more easily than most of my classmates. I can vividly remember crying because the art teacher told me that I was folding my paper sloppily because I was lazy-- there was simply no way that someone in the gifted program could not understand her instructions, and there had better be an improvement in my attitude, or else.

By the time second grade rolled around, I was still struggling with writing. My ability to form words on paper lagged far behind all of the things that I wanted to say, and my frustration levels were rapidly getting out of control. For some reason, I became especially obsessed with my inability to draw a star.

My teacher, Mrs. Peters, picked up on this. I imagine that my body language must have been broadcasting the sheer anger over my inability to do these things that everyone else did so easily. One day, she crouched down next to my desk while we were all supposed to be practicing our cursive writing and slowly drew star after star, narrating her actions as she went: "Down, up, across, down, up". Over and over again, I tried to imitate the way her pencil glided across the green-lined paper until suddenly the words matched the motion and much to my own surprise, I produced a series of wobbly stars. I can still remember the thrill of that moment.

To this very day, every time I make a little star next to something on my to do list or, say, doodle a line of stars across some paper during a particularly boring meeting, I hear Mrs. Peters chanting "Down, up, across, down, up" in my head.

From the "That's Not Exactly News" Files

2008-12-22T19:12:00.004-05:00

Recent headlines that made me want to find the editor and reporter and poke them both in the eye with a sharp stick:

"Poor hurt worst in struggling economy"

Really? You mean people who were already struggling, who don't have a cushion or safety net to help them weather the storm, are having more difficulty in the crap stew that eight years of failed policy has turned our economy into than people who were already financially stable and had the opportunity to build savings, or people who have enough wealth that they have "paper losses"?

"No good way to tell kids they have cancer"

Huh. You mean telling a child that they have a disease that will almost definitely require a long and unpleasant course of treatment and may kill them is a bad thing, and even if you hire a clown or buy them a special "You've Got Cancer" pony, it won't make it a good thing?

"Youthfulness is Becoming American Obsession"

Get. Out. You mean the fact that a model is considered "too old" at an age when most of us haven't even started careers yet, and the 18 - 24 year demographic is slavishly pandered to in our media and marketing isn't an aberration?

Omnivore Meme

2008-12-20T22:17:00.007-05:00

I'm sure that I'll take some heat from Hulio for the number of times I've said that I'll never try something on this list. In general, though, you should note that those things follow a theme-- they are mostly innards. I don't do innards. Also, there are some things that I haven't tried because I have a food allergy that prevents me from trying them. Otherwise, I think I've at least tried a respectable number of these things.

As usual, bold means I've eaten it, things I would not ever eat are ~~crossed out~~, and commentary is included.

1. Venison - this is a semi-regular food in our household, thanks to my father and his hunting buddy.
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare - only a single bite, once, when Finbar ordered it for some unknown reason. I found it slimy and disgusting. Certainly not something I would try again.
5. Crocodile - I've had alligator, though.
6. ~~Black pudding~~ - No way, no how.
7. Cheese fondue - Eep used to have fondue parties. Those were fun. I miss that, and I also miss Eep a great deal.
8. Carp
9. Borscht - Ash made some once. He gets very mad if I pronounce it with the "t".
10. Baba ghanoush - there's a place around the corner that makes a fantastic version of this. They roast the eggplants fresh every morning and it gives it the most amazing smoky overtone.
11. Calamari - A dish which I used to hate, but tried again at Ash's urging and now I love it.
12. ~~Pho~~ - this is on the "foods that will kill Katze" list, so no.
13. PB&J sandwich - The only time that I will eat grape jelly is in a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I also like strawberry jelly with peanut butter. Everything else is sacrilege.
14. Aloo gobi - This was one of the dishes I made for the Bollywood party
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses - Given how much I love cheese, I would totally try this.
17. Black truffle - I hope to try this one day when we have some money to throw around.
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes - One of my host fathers made a cherry wine at home. It was very potent and very sweet.
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries - Most recently, right off of a tree in Rockville, Maryland.
23. ~~Foie gras~~ - I dislike the taste, texture, and idea of liver in general, so foie gras would be wasted on me
24. ~~Rice and beans~~ - Also on the "foods that will kill Katze" list
25. Brawn, or head cheese - yet another host father was a huge fan. I tried it to be adventurous. It made me want to vomit. He laughed at me (good naturedly), and I have never had another chance to try it. I might, if it came to that. I might not.
26. ~~Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper~~ - I don't really do heat for the sake of heat.
27. Dulce de leche - Is it just me, or is this EVERYWHERE all of a sudden?
28. Oysters - I'm not sure if I could do this. Clams gross me out, and oysters seem to be even worse. It's a texture thing, mostly. Maybe I'd try one, just to be adventurous. Can't be worse than head cheese, right?
29. Baklava - A girl in my class in elementary school was greek, and she used to bring it in for her birthday treat everywhere. That was probably my first exposure to "ethnic" food, and you probably couldn't pick something better. So wonderfully crunchy and sweet and nutty. It's like a little slice of heaven. Even though it has now joined the "foods that will kill Katze" list.
30. Bagna cauda - Not sure if I would eat this. I'd probably try it, but anchovies are not a favorite of mine.
31. Wasabi peas - I love these, but they are hard to find without rice flour.
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl - No. Well, I guess I'd try it again sometime. I just can't get past the texture of clams. But I'm growing fonder and fonder of seafood tastes, so maybe...
33. Salted lassi - I'll probably try this one day. It's kind of surprising that I've never tried it yet.
34. Sauerkraut - I have loved loved loved sauerkraut since I was a little girl. We used to have sauerkraut and spareribs on New Year's Day every year, and I would look forward to it with gusto. I love several variations on sauerkraut, except for the very sweet kind. I very rarely ate this when I lived in Germany, but I eat it fairly frequently in the US.
35. Root beer float - I loved these when I was a little girl.
36. Cognac ~~with a fat cigar~~ - Cognac, yes. I love cognac. Fat cigar, never. Disgusting habit.
37. Clotted cream tea - Something I've wanted to try for a while now.
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O - Strangely enough, I've never had a jell-o shot. I've served them, but never had one. I think I may be past that age now.
39. ~~Gumbo~~ - I'd totally eat this if it wouldn't kill me.
40. Oxtail - I'd try it though. In related thoughts, any time I think about eating animal tails, I think about Little House in the Big Woods, and the chapter about butchering time, when Laura and Mary get all excited about the pig's tail.
41. Curried goat
42. ~~Whole insects~~ - I just can't get past the vermin factor.
43. Phaal - probably not on my list of things to try, as I'm not a huge fan of excess heat. I bet Ash would eat it, though.
44. Goat’s milk - Yum. The goat is a wonderful animal, indeed.
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more - One day, one day...
46. Fugu - If it is ever possible to try this without the taint of rice, I would probably try this.
47. Chicken tikka masala - This is a semi-regular dish in our household. We've made it in the crockpot a couple of times, but honestly, the more often I make it, the less of a true tikka masala it becomes, since I tend to add whatever is languishing in the fridge/ freezer.
48. Eel - Another texture issue here. I'd try it in a different preparation, though. Maybe it's better as a fresh dish.
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut - Don't get me wrong: these are good. They are not, however, worth the hype, not even fresh off the belt. Once, I did a walkathon for the American Diabetes Association, and the major sponsor was Krispy Kreme. The irony of this was far more delicious than any donut I've ever eaten.
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone

I would absolutely try any of the previous four should the opportunity present itself.

54. Paneer- Oh, my, do we love paneer in this house. I wish it wasn't so freaking expensive.
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal - In more than one country, sadly.
56. Spaetzle - Um, hello? Exchange student to Germany? Actually, I've only had this once in Germany. It was fan-freaking-tastic. A friend's mother made it for me just to make sure that I had it once before I went back to America. I've had this several times in the US, notably in Amish country. I love this type of thing, by the way. I would happily eat them plain.
57. Dirty gin martini - No, but I've had a dirty vodka martini. It was okay. Nothing I'd break a door down for or anything.
58. Beer above 8% ABV - Given my affinity for belgian beers, this is one I've done many a time.
59. Poutine - Once, in Niagara Falls, and never again. I don't know, I'm not a fan of mixed up food topped with gravy. I was never a kid who couldn't have foods touch any of the other foods on the plate, but I certainly could not abide the whole "mix it all up in to a big goopy pile" thing that my sister did.
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores - Also, do you know what is delicious? Caribou Coffee's Campfire Mocha.
62. ~~Sweetbreads~~ - I don't do innards.
63. ~~Kaolin~~ - Um, this isn't a food. Why is it on the list?
64. Currywurst - So bad for you, so delicious. I have to eat this at least once in the first week I'm back in Germany, every time. I ate it a LOT when I lived in Hamburg with the second host family, where the host mother was super nice and a terrible cook.
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake - A fair isn't a fair if you can't get a funnel cake. I wish the people around here would get that through their heads.
68. ~~Haggis~~
69. Fried plantain - They serve this at the brazilian churrascaria we love (otherwise known as "Meattastic"). It is so delicious I can barely stand it. I have considered making these at home, and may yet do so.
70. ~~Chitterlings, or andouillette~~ - Listen, Wikipedia describes andouillette like this: "The taste is an acquired one - as it is with all offal - and can be compared to strong, decaying pork sausages. The texture is somewhat rougher than sausages, as the content is roughly cut." I don't want to eat something that is described using the phrase "strong, decaying pork sausages".
71. Gazpacho - The place I waitressed at in college made this fresh, from scratch in the summer, and it was amazing. I've had it at other places, and when it's bad, it's like eating a big bowl of watery salsa. When it's good, it's like a little slice of tomato heaven.
72. Caviar and blini - yes, to both, but not at the same time.
73. Louche absinthe - I'd try it, I guess. Luneray and I had some swedish liqueur that was heavily flavored with wormwood, and it was unbelievably bitter, so I don't know that I'd rush out to try it. And I don't really need to brag to people that I've tried absinthe (not nearly goth enough, I guess).
74. Gjetost, or brunost - Yum. Super yum.
75. ~~Roadkill~~ - um, Hello? Diseases?
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie - I was always partial to the blueberry ones as a child.
78. Snail - I'd try it if I had the chance.
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky - And the cat likes it, too.
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare - We have rabbit in the freezer right now (Thanks, Dad!), but that's not exactly the same, I guess.
87. Goulash - This was a semi-regular dish last year. In fact, we made this when we had the mormon missionaries over to dinner. I haven't made it in a long time. Maybe it will make a new appearance on our menu soon.
88. Flowers - Just last week, in fact, at a work luncheon.
89. Horse - I don't know if I ever told this story on the blog before. When I was in Sweden, and had been there less than a week, and was therefore still filling in the gaps in my vocabulary, I went grocery shopping. One thing I bought was lunchmeat. This was pre-packaged stuff, much like you might buy Oscar Meyer Bologna. On the front of the package, it said "Hamburgerkött". Okay, I thought, Hamburger Meat. It sort of looked like pastrami. So I bought it. At home, I opened up the package and made myself a little smörgås for middag. I took a bite, and immediately gagged and spit it out. My immediate thought was "What the hell part of a cow could taste so awful?". So I got the package out of the fridge and turned it over to read the fine print, thinking it would either say that it was "Cow Butt" or detail some special preparation that could account for the nastiness. And sure enough, there it was: "Häst". I double-checked it in my dictionary just to make sure that I hadn't lost my mind, and that is the story of how I ate horse meat. I am not likely to try it again.
90. Criollo chocolate -If I ever did try it, I didn't know that I had something special in my mouth. Now that I've learned about it, I'll keep my eyes open for it.
91. Spam - So very nasty. And yet every ten years or so, I decide that I need to try it again, just to make sure. I'm due in another four or five years.
92. Soft shell crab - This grosses me out for some reason, even though I'm sort of favorably neutral on crab in general. Ash really likes it, but the idea of eating all the crunchy bits freaks me out. I have texture issues, if you didn't already guess that.
93. Rose harissa - It sounds pretty good. I'd give it a try if I had the chance.
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox - Lox is another thing that I don't like, but I keep trying it because I think that this time will be different.
97. Lobster Thermidor - Lobster is something that I don't like enough to pay for, but I'd probably try this if I had the chance.
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Scenes From a Stop Light

2008-12-20T20:20:00.003-05:00

Ash and I were out Christmas shopping this afternoon. Actually, in an act reflecting the exact level of procrastination we have reached in our household, we went out to do all of our Christmas shopping. When you shop on the busiest day of the Christmas shopping season, you have to expect and accept a certain level of insanity. I did not, however, expect to see this little vignette unfold in front of my eyes.

We were waiting at a red light, directly behind one of those small pickup trucks that sit pretty low to the road. A couple was riding in the truck, and the man had a long, wild, Fabio-type 'do that had already caught my eye, but before I could comment on it to Ash, the woman reached over, took hold of the back of the man's shirt and started pulling it off. He ducked his head, did a little wiggle, and suddenly, we were facing his freckled, hairy, bare back.

Pandemonium broke out in our car.

The woman reached over and handed the man another shirt, which he ducked into, pulling the huge mane of hair out and fluffing it up. Then he casually leaned his hand over the top of the steering wheel, as though nothing whatsoever out of the ordinary had happened.

Best. Bathroom. Graffiti. Ever

2008-12-20T20:09:00.004-05:00

In a local italian restaurant/ bar, the ladies room is wallpapered in a red-checked pattern reminiscent of those red-checked tablecloths you think of when you think "local italian restaurant". All along the white lines inside the stall, young ladies have scrawled the usual nonsense: "Emily + Sarah BFF!" "Mandy loves Steve Oct 2006"

Down in the lower right hand corner, a large blue script announced "Samantha loves Tim 4-eva". Directly below it was a small arrow pointing to an addendum in a different, smaller blue script: "yeah, until you realize that you're headed to two different places and can't keep up the long distance thing"

You Do Know Other People Can Hear You, Right?

2008-12-15T21:27:00.002-05:00

At the grocery store tonight, a woman who appeared to be in her mid-twenties passed by me, engrossed in a conversation on her cell phone. She did not appear particularly upset-- no tears or anything-- so it was deliciously incongruous when the words coming out of her mouth as she drew even with me were "Do you think I would have been together with you if I didn't care about you?", said in the most indignant, pained tone. Then, just as she turned to go down the next aisle over, she belched into the phone, loud and long.

Nothing says true love like a cell phone conversation in the grocery store and a violent attack of gastric gases!

I so wish I had been able to hear the other end of the conversation.

Too Tired to Think of a Title

2008-12-05T20:50:00.000-05:00

I stole this from Luneray, because it sparked my interest and was kind of fun to answer. If you like it, take it. Have you noticed that no one tags anyone for memes anymore? Tagging is so 2004.

. Magazines Subscribed To: Real Simple and Self. I used to subscribe to Time and Newsweek, but they have gotten so utterly insubstantial that I can read them cover to cover in 45 minutes. I want a little more for my money, you know? I really miss the big, hefty news magazines in Germany, so I looked into getting a subscription to Der Spiegel, or even Focus. Dear God, that's expensive! I guess I'll stick to reading the news online.

2. Aside from knitting, my favorite pastimes are: reading, writing, and well, I'm out of free time now. I'd also like to get back into some sort of lessons. Ash and I have been talking about taking dancing lessons together, and I've really got to start practicing my Swedish again before I lose it.

3. If I were not a _____________(insert your own profession here), I'd be: OK, is this like a , not-qualified-in-real-life-but-I-think-it-sounds-fascinating kind of thing? Because I think it would be really interesting to be one of the people who works in the "back rooms" of a museum, learning about and caring for the objects in the collection. Or else a person who restores very old or damaged objects/ artwork.

If it has to be a potentially realistic profession, I have often considered going back to get a degree in library science so that I can be a librarian. I think it is unrealistic to consider taking on any more student loans, so that's probably not much more realistic than the museum thing.

4. I am irrationally worried about: Nothing, really. I am worried about several things that are very rational to be worried about: our finances, whether I'll be able to have a baby, my parents ability to retire, my own ability to retire, the state of the economy...

5. If I were the opposite sex: I would be thrilled to be free of the horrible mood swings that I can't seem to control and I would enjoy the sensation of being able to walk around at night with out fear. I would miss being allowed to show vulnerability in public.

6. The thing I miss most about childhood is: the fact that I didn't believe that there were any limitations to what I could achieve, or do, or experience. But to be honest, I don't really miss childhood, and I certainly don't miss high school. Life gets better all the time, even though I also have to admit that things aren't always easy.

7. I like to collect: books. I hate to get rid of them and love being able to walk over to my shelf and pull a comfortable old friend down any time I want to. Ash and I have sold well over a hundred books to Half Price Books since moving in together, and yet we still have four bookcases stuffed to overflowing and could probably really use a fifth.

8. Though I've never been there, I feel inexplicably homesick for: South Korea, because that's where my lovely Dami is.

9. I've never really liked to eat: Beans. I want to like them because they are nutritious and cheap. I keep trying to like them, but at least 90% of the time I just can't stand them. There's just something about the mouth feel that grosses me out. At the place I waitressed at right after law school, they served foole m'damas, and the look and smell of it was enough to make me feel ill.

10. When I have nightmares, they are usually about: When I was in law school, I had a recurring nightmare that my teeth were crumbling and falling out of my head. I had this dream several times a week through all three years and right up until I passed the bar exam. I haven't had the dream even once since then. In college, my recurring nightmare was that I was being chased and couldn't run away. (Eventually, I developed this thing where I would say to myself in my dream "Hey, this must be a dream. And since it's a dream, you can fly away." Then my dream self would push off from the ground and fly like I was swimming though the air until I woke up.) Now, my recurring nightmare is that I'm being chased, but instead of being stuck in place, I am running away and managing to stay one step ahead of the people that are trying to get to me. It doesn't really take an expert on dream analysis to see the meaning in how those dreams have changed over the years. Another big difference is that I used to have extremely frightening nightmares that were unbelievably vivid. I would wake up and be terrified to fall back asleep, lest the dream start back up again. Today, when I have nightmares, they are usually filled with a vague feeling of dread or worry, but they are very seldom as vivid or as frightening. They are also much more... crazy. For example, I recently dreamed that Molly Ringwald was trying to catch me so that she could kill me. Why, why, why would I dream about Molly Ringwald to begin with, and why would she be trying to kill me?

How You Can Tell I've Been Really Sick

2008-12-04T19:30:00.002-05:00

I did not drink any coffee for two whole days because I could not muster up the energy to make it, nor could I stay awake long enough to drink it.

This is a monster cold. It knocked me out flat for two days. Today, on day five, I am technically awake all day, but I still feel awful. Last night, the crap moved into my chest, which, on the plus side relieved some of the almost unbearable pressure in my head, but on the negative side is making me hack like a tuberculosis patient. Even NyQuil didn't keep me asleep last night. I've dragged myself into work for the past two days because I'm almost out of time off for the year (so much for the week that I carefully saved to carry over to next year in the hopes that Ash and I could take a little vacation together), but I'm so unproductive -- in fact, I'm probably destructive, given some of the mistakes I've probably made-- that it's almost like I didn't come in.

These have not been a kind couple of weeks for my health.

Achilles' Heel

2008-11-24T08:31:00.000-05:00

Our kitchen is tiny. For some people, this would be a minor annoyance, perhaps not even a blip on the radar as they heat up another Lean Cuisine or unwrap the deli containers. For this Foodie Girl, it's a big fat pain.* There's not enough counterspace for cooking and our kitchen stuff, so we store most of our small appliances on top of the kitchen cabinets when they are not in use. It's not exactly visually pleasing, but having enough room to cook is a much higher priority to me than the chance at showing up on the cover of House Beautiful.

However, problems can arise when someone is trying to put the crockpot back on top of the cabinets while talking on the phone, in which case the heavy crock might slip out of your hands and shatter on the kitchen floor with an amazing CRASH.

And then, a couple of weeks later, said someone's wife might be padding about the kitchen early in the morning, getting ready to make coffee, when she makes the unfortunate discovery that not all of the shards were cleaned up post-crock-shattering. And that discovery might be especially unfortunate due to the fact that the rogue shard ends up embedded into the heel of her foot.

This was not especially great timing. I had a doctor's appointment that morning, and I had to wait well over a month for a slot to open up, which meant I was not going to miss it. So I had Ash bring me the tweezers and a flashlight. And then a needle. And then the peroxide. All to no avail. In fact, we both had a go at playing surgeon, employing our home version of instrument sterilization (matches and hot water) and trying to dig the stupid thing out before I finally had to concede defeat and just admit that it was NOT coming out without some professional-type medical assistance.**

Which is why Ash and I found ourselves in the urgent care center just in time to watch a horrifying few minutes of Rachel Ray's talk show while waiting to be taken back to the treatment room. The nurse practicioner smeared some lidocaine cream on my foot and sent me to have x-rays. Having confirmed that it was relatively superficial, the nurse practicioner started the procedure and it was all going swimmingly. I could hear her cutting, but I couldn't feel anything until suddenly WOW I TOTALLY FEEL THAT, and so she casually grabbed hold of my foot and announced, "OK, this will probably burn" and I FREAKED OUT.

Have I ever mentioned my needle phobia before? Because I have one, and it's bad.

I mean, yeah, nobody likes needles. Usually, when I tell someone that I have a needle phobia, they say "Ohhh, yeah, me too", but I am not talking about the garden variety, I'm-nervous-about-getting-poked-with-a-needle fear. I am talking about full blown hysteria, and no matter how much logic you try to impose on it (yes, I know that it doesn't hurt for more than a second), I just flat out panic. In that moment, she could just as easily have said "OK, I'm just going to go ahead and chop the foot off" and I would have had the exact same level of panic.

So she decided to go ahead and finish the procedure without any anesthetic.

Had I been capable of rationality at that moment, I would have instructed her to let go of my foot, back up, and give me a moment to get (as much of) a grip (as I possibly could). Then I would have been able to calm down enough to handle the shot*** and we could have gotten on with the thing. Instead, what happened was that I strained my other leg straining against the pain of having ceramic cut out of my foot.

What a lot of drama for a small piece of ceramic.

My foot was good and sore for a couple of days, but it's already pretty much healed now, save for a small scab on my heel. I do believe the kitchen floor needs a good washing, just to make sure that we won't be repeating this embarassing little journey again.

*Don't get me wrong, as far as I'm concerned, it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make if it means not having to live under the Frathole and next to War Movie anymore.
** That medical degree Hulio and I were earning by watching TLC did not seem to come in handy for some reason.
*** Most likely without much grace. I'm sure lots of tears and sobbing would have been involved.

Maybe Not the Wisest Choice

2008-11-23T21:29:00.002-05:00

Is it just me, or was it really kind of poor taste for NPR to follow a story on the Somali pirates who stole an oil tanker by playing a clip of the theme song from Pirates of the Caribbean?

Laundry Night

2008-11-09T22:46:00.004-05:00

Jenna's favorite day is laundry day.

It was still sort of warm from the dryer. Another few minutes and she would have been burrowed completely into the pile.

Vote

2008-11-04T07:28:00.006-05:00

Back in the day when I was blundering my way around Bavaria, speaking my own little blend of terrible German and misguided Bavarian, I was delighted to learn that German has a word for people like me: Morgenmuffel. I hate, hate, hate mornings. I am grumpy and cranky like a two year old who missed her nap. So if I can drag myself out of bed at 6 a.m. to vote, there is no excuse for the rest of you.

Adventures in voting, 2008 edition:

Ash called his sister at 5:30 a.m. her time to tell her to get up and vote. Personally, I would be getting my car and my rifle ready if I were her. Ash claims that she thanked him.

When I said that I got out of bed at 6 a.m., that wasn't entirely truthful. I was awake at 6 a.m., sort of. It took me another 15 minutes or so to get moving for real, and the whole time, Ash was pinching and poking and prodding, "I want to be there when the polls open! Get up!" This is not necessarily a great tactic for getting me out of bed, but it is a great tactic for getting yelled at, maybe even kicked, except not really, because I can't really coordinate that much effort when I first wake up. Morgenmuffel, remember?

When we got to the polling station about five minutes before it opened, there were lines, and they looked pretty long. I've never had to wait in line to vote before, not a real line. I mean, sure I've had to wait my turn for the booth to open after I checked in with the poll workers, but I've never had to stand in line. The mood was kind of intense, but people were in pretty good spirits. There was a guy in the line next to us voting in his first election, and he was practically vibrating with anticipation, which is really exciting.

Ash has been walking around for days, worrying that they might not let him vote because he hasn't gotten a new voter registration card since changing his address after our recent move. I kept telling him not to worry about it because a) they probably won't notice, since his driver's license also shows the old address, and b) we moved from apartment #1A to apartment #1B in the same building, so they probably won't care. When we got to the head of the line, who did they not want to let vote?

Me.

My name did not show in the Big Book O' Voters. They couldn't find a ballot card with my name on it in the Big Box O' Ballot Cards. "Don't worry," they told me, "you can vote with a provisional ballot."

Ummmmm... no. I want my vote to be counted, thankyouverymuch.

The poll worker moved me off to the side to discuss with the elections judge at the polling place. Just as they were deciding to call the County offices downtown in order to obtain a court order allowing me to vote, another poll worker called over that they'd found my ballot card, misfiled in the Big Box O' Ballot Cards. I was very nearly ready to cry. Still, I was prepared to go all the way, call in sick if necessary, in order to get my vote cast properly.

That's how important I believe this election is.

Please vote. And unlike election day posts of the past, I do care if you're voting for the candidate I'm supporting. Barack Obama is our best chance of regaining the promise of this country, and of giving those of us who didn't inherit or marry wealth, a family name, or connections a chance to reach that elusive American Dream. I don't post political stuff very often because the atmosphere in this country has gotten too divisive, and if I'm going to be honest, because I don't think I could possibly say it as well as so many other people out there in the Interwebs. I believe strongly that this is a critical moment for our generation in particular, and I want my country and my government to stop acting like an egomaniacal bully. It's time for a change in the leadership of this country, it's time to stop pretending like the only people who matter are ourselves, it's time to start repairing the damage that eight disasterous years of Bush policies have wreaked on the poor and the middle class.

Hint: Creepy is not the Same as Spooky

2008-10-29T18:32:00.002-05:00

One of our neighbors has set up a fake graveyard in his yard. It has a skeleton "climbing" out of the ground, spooky lighting, and the gravestones have funny sayings on them. One of them, however, creeps me out every time I drive by the house. All it says on it is "Here Lies Kristen. Hope He Was Worth It."

I Can Haz Strss Rileef Nao?

2008-10-29T17:39:00.005-05:00

The past few weeks at work have been extremely stressful. So, in an attempt to share a little levity with you, here some kittehs that made me laugh out loud fur reelz:

Pet Peeve

2008-10-26T19:09:00.003-05:00

If you, as a speaker, want to lose my goodwill in an instant, just start your speech like this:

"Good Morning!"
[Pause for audience to respond]
"Hmmm, that wasn't very good. Let's try again./ (alternatively) I can't heeeeear you.

GOOD MORNING!"

[Pause for louder response]

"That's better!"

I promise you, I will be too busy trying to kill you with the hot firey hate in my eyes to listen to anything you have to say.

Best. Voicemail. Ever.

2008-10-15T20:42:00.001-05:00

I'm at work, about midway through the morning, and my phone rings. I am in the middle of something, so I don't answer it, and it goes to voicemail. When I get to a stopping point a few minutes later, I call up the voicemail so that I can see if it's something that must be handled immediately, or if I can deal with it later. The message, which is timestamped 10:46 a.m., is 7.7 seconds long:

"Katze! It's Todd! It's 8:46 a.m.!" *Click*

Who is Todd? I don't know. Why is he calling me? I don't know. How can I reach him to ask these two questions, and maybe even to answer a question or two of his own? I don't know. He sounds pretty chipper, so maybe he's calling with good news. At any rate, I do know what time it is. In another time zone.

I Pretended It Was an Interview for Some Cool TV Show

2008-10-04T17:17:00.004-05:00

Stole this one from Paca
1. What are your nicknames?
Ash usually calls me some variation on cat. Other than that, I don't really have any nicknames.

2. What game show and/or reality show would you like to be on?
Everyone is always all hot for me to be on Jeopardy, but I really don't think I would enjoy it. However, I would love to be on What Not to Wear. At least I think I would. $5,000 worth of clothes plus some advice on how to dress now that I'm too old for the trendy stuff and too pudgy for the tight stuff would be great. But then, I'm not sure if I want to be told how horribly I dress.

3. What was the first movie you bought in VHS or DVD?

I haven't the vaguest idea. I know what the first CD I ever bought was, though: Cosmic Thing

4. What is your favorite scent?
Fall. That crisp, smoky smell in the air is my favorite smell. Also, the back of Ash's neck. That's my favorite smell for real. But it seemed a little too goopy to say that. Then I decided, screw you people, I love my husband and I'm not afraid to be goopy about it! For our anniversary, we got a card that said something like "She looked at him. He looked at her. And everybody who saw that look threw up a little." And it was funny because it's true!

5. If you had a million dollars that you could only spend on yourself, what would you do with it?
Pay off all of my debts, buy a house, buy a Prius, buy a new wardrobe. In that order.

6. What one place have you visited that you can't forget and want to go back to?
Iceland, hands down. But Finland is a really close second.

7. Do you trust easily?
Sort of. I tend to believe that people are trustworthy once I meet them. But I obviously have some trust issue somewhere, or it wouldn't be so scary for me to meet new people.

8. Do you generally think before you act, or act before you think?
Generally I think waaaaaay too much before I act, but I don't think enough before I talk.

9. Is there anything that has made you unhappy these days?
Money. I hate Sallie Mae with a burning passion that I cannot explain.

10. Do you have a good body image?
Yes, but also no. I say yes because I'm always shocked when I see myself in pictures. I think I look much thinner than I actually am. And I say no because I am generally dissatisfied with my body.

11. What is your favorite fruit?
Hm. Pears, I think. I like fruit in general, but I like certain things at certain times, or in certain forms. For example, I like bananas with yogurt and honey on them. I like fresh oranges, but I hate orange flavored things. I like blackberries when they are cooked in any form, but hate them fresh. Pears, however, are good no matter what. They're nice when they're fresh, delicious when baked, lovely when they appear together with other things, they make a really great juice, I like pear flavored things... So, yes, my favorite fruit must be the pear.

12. What websites do you visit daily?
Gmail. I visit Luneray, Sonja, Paca, and Melissa on an almost-daily basis.

13. What have you been seriously addicted to lately?
Pumpkin. It's that time of year! My team at work went to Dairy Queen this past week to celebrate the end of the federal fiscal year, and I had a pumpkin pie blizzard. It was so. pumpkiny. I mentally did a Homer Simpson drool when I took the first bite.

14. What kind of person do you think the person who tagged you is?
Well, I guess I would have to mostly echo Paca. I was untagged, but I think Paca is the kind of funny-smart person who doesn't take himself seriously, but is always thinking seriously about something cool.

15. What's the last song that got stuck in your head?
You know those stupid Swiffer commercials with the singing mop and broom? "Baby come BACK! You can blame it all on meeeeeee!"

16. What's your favorite item of clothing?
My black fleece pajama bottoms. So warm, so snuggly, so comfy. I actually wore them to the Bar Exam the second time, looking to hang on to some sort of mental haven. I will be so horribly sad when they finally wear out.

17. Do you think Rice Krispies are yummy?
Yes, which is a crying shame since eating them will kill me now.

18. What would you do if you saw $100 lying on the ground?
It would depend on the situation. If I could figure out who it belonged to, or figure out a way to get it back to the person it belonged to, I would do everything possible to get the money to its rightful owner. If I saw it laying on the ground in the middle of an empty field with no one around, and no way of knowing or learning who it belonged to, I would probably keep it. But I would not spend it immediately, because it would probably take me awhile to sort through the ethical implications of spending someone else's money.

19. What items could you not go without during the day?
Coffee and books.

20. What should you be doing right now?
Cleaning up this pit of an apartment, going to the gym, doing laundry, and grocery shopping.

What Passes For a Political Post Around Here

2008-09-28T11:58:00.004-05:00

We went to our favorite pub to watch the debate the other night, thinking that we might also meet some new people. It was a madhouse when we got there, so we ended up having to take a table outside the main room where people had gathered to watch. So much for meeting new people.

Out in the bar, both TVs were turned to the debate. One was tuned to CNN, one was tuned to Fox News-- I guess this was an attempt at appearing to be non-partisian, what with the whole "allowing Barack Obama's campaign staff to host a debate-watching party in the private room" thing. It didn't really make any difference, since both channels were broadcasting the exact same thing, down to the camera angle, without any commentary (during the debate, anyway). The volume was turned way up, but because of the size of the room and the number of people in it, it wasn't really possible to hear what was being said, so we had to rely on the closed captioning.

I love closed captioning both in concept and practice. And I especially love closed captioning in real time, because I get a little kick out of the small errors and too-literal interpretations of what's being said. Now, this is not intended to be a slam against the closed captioners, who have seriously mad typing skillz. It's kind of like how it makes me smile when the normally unflappable, perfect NPR announcers screw up. It's like "See, those are people like me!"

The CNN closed captioner was significantly slower than the Fox News closed captioner, which meant that every so often, he just skipped a couple of sentences to catch up. The Fox closed captioner was faster, but made lots of little mistakes. My two favorites: "Dwight David Ivan Her" (The follow up novel by Sir Walter Scott!) and "meow posturing" (I watched my cat do that just this morning, trying to reach her back paws during her morning devotions).

Forty-five minutes in, I just couldn't take it anymore. I am so effing sick of talking points and petty name calling from both sides. Why are we reduced to this drivel? And why doesn't anyone ever call John McCain out when he uses selective memory/ carefully framed half-truths as "facts" to "support" his points? I expected so much more of him during this campaign, and I am angry, angry, angry with him. I remember back when this whole thing was just getting underway... I told everyone and their dog that I was hoping against hope that we would get to see a McCain-Obama race, because I was certain that we'd get to see a race run with a respectful and real discussion of the difficult issues facing our country, a discussion that would allow for reasonable people to disagree. This, I suppose, should be taken as proof positive that I am, all appearances to the contrary and all snarkiness aside, an irretrievable optimist.

I am finding this race much more difficult to follow, emotionally, than even the 2004 campaign. I'm starting to believe that the greatest danger we are facing as a nation is our inability to have a civil discourse and our divisiveness-- artificially induced by the media, or maybe by the most vocal and extreme elements of the political system. I can't believe that I really have so little in common with a conservative voter that we can't find common ground on many, if not most, issues. And I find it increasingly more infuriating that people are being encouraged to disdain or even hate other people on the basis of differing opinions on issues that the vast majority of people don't even really understand, just because Oprah or James Dobson says so.

P.S., because Paca's blog reminded me: Factcheck.org is awesome and informative, and so is the League of Women Voters.

Signs That You're Watching a Really Great Movie on Sci-Fi Channel (Sure to Be an Ongoing Series)

2008-09-27T11:36:00.000-05:00

1. The scene opens on a seemingly abandoned vehicle with claw marks on it.
2. All of the actors are wearing military uniforms and carrying big guns.
3. The opening credits use the phrase "Starring Steven Baldwin"
4. Use of the following bits of dialogue: "What is that??", "Don't you die on me now!", "Send that bugger back to Hell!"
5. Heavy use of video effects to indicate that you're seeing a scene through "the monster's eyes".
6. The combination of time periods, i.e. high school girls from the modern era fighting an egyptian queen and her army of living mummies (using only the powers of her mind!!!)
7. None of the characters are allowed to smile, ever.

However, My Beef Stew with Noodle Was Excellent

2008-09-22T08:27:00.000-05:00

It's a lovely warm evening, and I've been pent up for several days with a nasty cold that finally seems to be abating. I can tell that I'm getting better because I'm hungry and I'm antsy. Ash has been agitating for Chinese carryout for ages, and I've been resisting because for some reason, thinking of the taste has been making me feel vaguely ill. I go through these phases every so often where I either can't get enough of something or can't stand the thought of something, and they're not always related. For instance, although I will sometimes go on a kick-- say, with salt and vinegar chips-- I won't eat them until the thought makes me sick, just until I feel no particular craving for them anymore. Then I won't eat them for a long time, but not because I can't stand the thought of them. I just don't really want them for a while.

Anyway, in a flash of wifely inspiration, I suggested a trip over to our old neck of the woods to visit a favorite taiwanese restaurant of ours. Sort of like Chinese, but different! Brilliant!

In addition to the regular menu, this place offers an ever-changing list of "Chef Specials". Ash, who has no dietary restrictions to take into account, has ordered off this menu many times, and the food he gets is almost always better than the noodle soups I tend to order. Tonight, the first item on the list was called "Home Style Smelled Bean Curd", aka "Stinky Tofu". I've long heard about the extreme awesomeness of this dish from the mouth of a certain taiwanese woman I know whose name starts with P and ends with g, and sounds like "ay-lin" in between, and I've even been present when she ordered said delicacy from the very same restaurant. Ash points to the menu and says "Is this the stuff that Pei likes?", and then proceeds to order it.

The waiter says "Oh, that pig intestine."

Ash and I look at each other, then back at the menu. Thinking that this is just a little misunderstanding, Ash repeats the order, "No, I want the Homestyle Smelled Bean Curd", and for good measure, he points to the words on the menu. The waiter looks at it, then repeats, "Yes, that pig intestine". Ash and I look at each other again, and then back at the waiter, who says "It have bean curd and pig intestine". Ash says "Oh, okay. That's fine. I'll still have it." The waiter eyes him dubiously, but I assure you not half as dubiously as I. As the waiter turns away, I hiss at Ash, "Really??", and he confidently retorts, "Yes, really." This leads into a long discussion on how his grandfather grew up in the Great Depression and didn't waste food, and I kept coming back to the point that, yes, people all over the world and throughout time have eaten various bits of innards and offal, but that, in our culture at least, people usually leave them behind once they can afford to do so (which is, of course, a vast oversimplification, but I was trying to have an argument), and then our food comes out.

Ash's Homestyle Smelled Bean Curd with Pig Intestine came in a little metal dish over a lit sterno burner, bubbling and foul smelling (hence, the name "Stinky Tofu"). Each of us took a bite.

Pei, why do you hate us??? Was it all just a big trick to get us to eat something disgusting? I mean, if that's the case, you should have made a bigger effort back when you were still living here. I'm sure you could have talked Ash into it at some point! And I love tofu, so I would have followed right along! Seriously, all this "it smells horrible, but tastes fantastic" crap? HA. It was like licking a farm animal of some sort. You know it's bad when Ash's comment on the dish was "The pig intestines aren't bad".

After this, how will I ever be able to try durian, should the opportunity present itself?

Maybe It Involves a Primitive Form of Teleportation

2008-09-20T20:28:00.002-05:00

When I left for my most recent trip, I had to drive myself to the airport. I parked the car out in the long term parking lot, scoring a super sweet parking spot just a few yards from one of the shuttle stops. While waiting for the shuttle to pick me up, I noticed a poster inside the shelter, right next to the map of the parking areas.

"Overloaded with baggage? Next time, use Curbside Check-in instead!"

So, wait. Let me get this straight. Instead of hauling my luggage through the parking lot, onto the shuttle, back out of the shuttle, and up to the curbside check-in, I have the option of using a magic curbside check-in that appears right next to my car upon parking? Where do I sign up for that service? And will it also deliver the bags back to my car at the end of my trip so that I don't have to be overloaded with baggage between the baggage claim and the extended parking lot? Or am I on my own for that bit? Oh, wait! I know! It's actually a riddle. I handle your bags before they arrive in my hands. Who am I?

Business Travel By the Numbers

2008-09-19T22:46:00.003-05:00

* Number of flights I've been on in the past two weeks: seven
* Number of flights that were designated as "delayed" by the airline: one
* Number of flights that took off within ten minutes of their scheduled departure time: zero
* Number of flights that arrived more than twenty minutes past their scheduled time: seven
* Number of places to buy something-- anything-- to eat or drink once you clear security at the Kansas City airport: one snack cart, despite the fact that several signs advertised a restaurant supposedly located behind security.
* Price of a small bottle of water at the snack cart: $3.99
* Price that US Airways charges for a plastic cup of water in-flight: $2
* Price that US Airways charges for cheap domestic beer in-flight: $7
* Price that US Airways charges to check a bag, each way: $15
* Approximate percentage of people who brought enormous bags on board as a "carry-on": 60%
* Number of US Airways flight attendants who made any attempt to enforce carry-on rules: zero
* Number of meals in the past fourteen days that involved some sort of barbeque: eight
* Estimated length of time before I will be able to stomach barbeque again: one month, minimum
* Bottles of Dayquil consumed during the past fourteen days: 1.6666 and counting
* Cost of the room service burger I ordered the night I was too sick to join my colleagues at the fancy-dancy dinner cruise: $18.65
* Number of pillows on my bed at the fancy-schmancy hotel in Charlotte: six
* Cost of the king-sized bag of M&Ms in the minibar at the fancy-schmancy hotel in Charlotte: $6.50
* Cost of the bottles of imported italian mineral water on the bedside table at the fancy-schmancy hotel in Charlotte: $12
* Sampling of the exotic animals I petted on the safari-meets-petting-zoo team building event: zebra, giraffes, emu, alpaca, some sort of albino elk, yak, those things that look kind of like antelope that have twisty horns, and a whole host of assorted goat- and deer-type things
* Number of days that I got out of bed early enough to blow dry my hair and put on makeup in the past fourteen days: nine
* Number of days that I would normally get out of bed early enough to blow dry my hair and put on makeup in any given fourteen day period: zero
* Number of times that I got to swim in the beautiful swimming pools at the hotels we stayed in: zero
* Number of emails that I will probably have in my inbox when I go back to work on Monday: I'm too afraid to guess. But when I was gone for two days at the beginning of last week, I came back to 63 emails.
* Number of people that I heard speaking Swedish in the Philadelphia airport: three
* Number of people that I heard speaking German in the Philadelphia airport: six
* Number of people that I spoke German to in the past fourteen days: one, and it wasn't at the Philadelphia airport
* Meetings missed due to illness on the most recent trip: three
* Number of hours I've slept since arriving home yesterday: approximately seventeen
* Number of days until my next business trip: 49

Exciting New Opportunity

2008-06-29T09:19:00.003-05:00

I have a Monster Job Search Agent set up that I check sporadically, watching for the next great opportunity in my career path. Yesterday, the agent returned this exciting result:

Jun 28, Truck Driver - Hiring Nationwide! Truck Driver TRAINING AVAILABLE, C.R. England

I wonder which part of my agent, which is set up to look for jobs in the legal and non-profit sectors, paired me up with this listing?

Scenes From a Belgian Pub

2008-06-28T21:13:00.000-05:00

Severely Overdressed Woman With a Loud Voice: "Excuse me, miss. Do you have any Perrier?"

Young Waitress Who's Halfway Into the Weeds: "Our wine list is right next to the window."

Self-Awareness

2008-06-25T18:17:00.002-05:00

One of my coworkers was on vacation last week, and it was significantly quieter while she was gone. The good kind of quieter. And by "significantly quieter", I mean "to the point where nearly every other person in our little section of the cube farm remarked on it".

Monday, she came back from vacation. Sick. And so, not only are did the noise level return to the pre-vacation level of high, but our days are now punctuated by frequent nose blowing. No, not "blowing". Honking. Old-man-in-a-white-handkerchief, shake-the-window-panes, set-off-a-car-alarm honking. All. Day. Long.

I want to scream.

It's not so much that I think that one must silently wipe one's nose such that no one could be audibly aware of your mucus output. But there is NO FREAKING NEED for that kind of thing in the office.

Then, yesterday, she asked another coworker to make a follow up call to a customer, because "[she's] sick, and [she's] not sure that she should be calling customers while [she's] sick". Making these phone calls is, of course, one of her major job duties. And -- of course!-- she's not too sick to have long, loud conversations on her cell phone with her family.

Today, following another round of "Holy Cow, Is that the Last Trump I Hear?", she announced, "Boy, I bet you wish you all wish I had stayed on vacation, huh?"

Nope. Not quite! What we really wish is that you would utilize some of the generous sick leave benefits our company gives to each and every one of us and STAY HOME if you're this sick. Barring that, could you try and blow your nose in a manner befitting someone who works in a cubicle farm with lots of other people.

Millions for Special Effects, but Not a Penny for a Copy Editor

2008-06-10T21:27:00.004-05:00

Ash and I saw Ironman on Sunday. It was fairly well-acted. The special effects were pretty great. It was a terrible movie. Really awful. As in, Ash and I were making fun of it while we were watching it. Not Legend of Bagger Vance bad, but definitely not worth paying $10 each to see. Luckily, we went to see a matinee in no small part as a way to get out of the oppressive heat (how very old school of us!).

For me, the whole movie can be summed up by this:

Toward the beginning of the movie, they're showing a little montage of "news coverage" about Tony Stark, giving those of us who never read an Ironman comic the back story on his character. And at the point where Tony takes over his father's company, there's a cover "from" Fortune magazine or some such, and the headline is "Tony Takes Over the Reigns!" I couldn't help myself. It just popped out of my mouth unbidden, and probably a little louder than it should have, "Oh my God, it's spelled wrong!" Seriously, how many levels of review did that have to go through before it actually made the final print of the movie? And no one in the whole process ever said "Ummmmmm, guys? I think there's a little error in this one..."?

I also loved how, as the final battle scene was getting under way, Ironman takes off to kick some bad guy butt, and the military dude stops to look at the unfinished Ironman suit still on the stand and says "Next time, dude, next time." Heh, set up for the sequel much? Yeesh.

As far as I'm concerned, Robert Downey, Jr. owes me two and a half hours of my life back.

Stormtroopers Need Love, Too

2008-06-05T21:58:00.004-05:00

This is such a great photo set. I especially love this little guy searching for his valentine.

Nice Work If You Can Get It

2008-05-26T20:58:00.009-05:00

Ash and I are in his hometown overnight, on our way to a wedding in Defiance, Ohio. The groom is his best friend from high school, who also stood in our wedding. Ash is his best man, and I'm really looking forward to dancing with him all night, as we didn't get to at our own wedding.

This morning, we got up at 5 a.m. so that we could visit his father before he left for work, since we'll be gone by the time he gets home and we may not get another chance to see him before next Christmas/ Thanksgiving*.

It was a nice but short visit, though we only got to see his dad, and not his sister (who grunted when Ash's dad tried to wake her up, and promptly went back to sleep) or his stepmom (who was busy getting ready for her own early workday). I did, however, get to share some special time with their very adorable cat, who was good and wound up, and took a good nip at me just for the fun of doing it, then ran crazed circles around the living and dining rooms, jumping on random things and pretending to scratch stuff.

After we left his dad's house, Ash and I made a little trip to Tim Horton's. Having spent two years living in the City of Light, I have more than a passing familiarity with Timmy's, and I can't say that I've ever understood the adulation for this chain, and especially for it's coffee, that I encountered everywhere I went. I mean, it's not bad, it's just nothing to write home about. Ash, like others who grew up in Timmy's sway, loves the place. Once we had consumed 8000 calories a piece in fat and sugar, we took our coffees and stopped at a park where Ash used to come and feed the ducks with his dad.

Apparently, this park has undergone a major renovation, and according to Ash, it's not for the better. There were only a handful of ducks around, including this fine fellow:

There were also lots of little signs posted, telling us that feeding the ducks is Evil. It makes them sick! And they become dependent on humans! And they get eaten by predators! Now, I am certain that these things are true, and it may be for the best that people don't feed the ducks at the pond. But. A) The tone of the signs was "If you feed the ducks, the terrorists win!, and B) Each sign ended with a phrase like "Enjoy the waterfowl responsibly!", which made me want to laugh for some reason.

Being disgusted with the changes in this park, Ash took me back to a park I'd visited with him once before.

On our previous visit, it was wintertime, and we were freezing, and it was dark. The highlight of that visit was the discovery of a piece of graffiti that read "This town is ours bitchs", which has since occasioned many choruses of "Bitch-S!" in our house ever since. This time, it was sunny and cool, and everything was just bursting with life.

Remember that scene in Office Space where Peter is talking about how back in high school, your guidance counselor would ask you what you would do if you had a million dollars and didn't need to earn money, and whatever you answered, that's what you're supposed to be? If we won enough money that we didn't need to work ever again unless we wanted to, do you know what I would do? This:

* The holiday schedule has not yet been negotiated.
** He's declawed, so it's all for show.

That Movie Post That Everyone Else Did Three Months Ago

2008-05-20T19:03:00.001-05:00

Citizen Kane (1941)-- Listen, I know this is supposed to be the best film in the history of films. But I can't say that I really enjoyed it when I saw it. At all. I guess I am just a total philistine.
2. The Godfather (1972)-- I did consider bolding this one, but the truth is that I've never actually watched it from start to finish. I've just seen a bit here and a piece there so many times on AMC that it seems that I must have seen the whole movie by now.
3. Casablanca (1942)-- Ash and I saw this together on the big screen, which was a really fantastic experience. I loved the moved so much.
4. Raging Bull (1980)
5. Singin’ In The Rain (1952)-- I remember liking this movie very much when I was in high school, but I haven't seen it since then, so I am not sure whether I loved it because it was a good movie, or because I was completely obsessed with musicals.
6. Gone With The Wind (1939)-- Hulio loves this movie. I cannot make myself sit down and watch it.
7. Lawrence Of Arabia (1962)
8. Schindler’s list (1993)-- After my grandfather's funeral, I went back to my apartment alone. My roommate was in classes, and I sent Finbar away so that I could be by myself. I put this movie in the VCR, operating on the theory that I needed to cry, just let it out, find some catharsis. This movie will forever be entwined with that memory for me. The book is just as devastating, maybe even more so, because it's more complex and layered than the movie.
9. Vertigo (1958)-- I haven't seen this. In fact, I'm not sure that I've ever seen any of Hitchcock's movies, including Psycho
10. The Wizard Of Oz (1939), unless you count seeing clips of the movies on television.
11. City Lights (1931)
12. The Searchers (1956)
13. Star Wars (1977)-- Yes, of course, and like every other kid my age, I spent hours playing Star Wars with my friends, hitting each other with plastic lightsabers until our mothers took them away. Though truthfully, it was actually Return of the Jedi that lured us into the Star Wars universe.

On an unrelated note, I reviewed a contract between my company and George Lucas several months ago. Yes, that George Lucas. I also once reviewed a contract between my company and the Queen of England. It was great, because the introductory stuff included her full title, which was a couple of lines long. Sometimes my job is fun.
14. Psycho (1960) Furthermore, I'm not sure that I want to see this movie, as I do love a nice shower, or a long soak in the tub, and I don't want to spend the entire time jumping every time the cat wanders into the bathroom.
15. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)-- This is one that I'm really torn over. On the one hand, I want to see it because it's iconic, blah blah blah; on the other hand, it looks really boring. Also, I already know the ending, because, well... it's so iconic. Kind of like The Sixth Sense.
16. Sunset Blvd. (1950)
17. The Graduate (1967)-- Like the Godfather, I've seen most of this movie, but never all the way from start to finish, and never on purpose.
18. The General (1927)
19. On The Waterfront (1954)
20. It’s A Wonderful life (1946)-- The older and more sentimental I get, the more I love this movie.
21. Chinatown (1974)
22. Some like It Hot (1959)
23. The Grapes Of Wrath (1940)-- My tenth grade English class watched this, but I have almost no memory of it. This is one of my very favorite books, just in case you were wondering.
24. E.T. The Extra-terrestrial (1982)-- My parents took my sister and I to see this at a drive-in. I remember the pink fuzzy flannel pjs with feet on them like it was yesterday, and I also remember how my Dad bought us Twizzlers because we didn't like the popcorn.
25. To Kill A Mockingbird (1962)-- This is, in my opinion, one of the best movies ever made, as well as one of the best books ever written.
26. Mr. Smith Goes To Washington (1939)
27. High Noon (1952)
28. All About Eve (1950)
29. Double Indemnity (1944)
30. Apocalypse Now (1979)
31. The Maltese Falcon (1941)
32. The Godfather Part II (1974)-- see, The Godfather, above. Same comments apply.
33. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)-- No, no, no. God almighty, I hate Jack Nicholson. Also? I bought the book while I was on the Great Bad Girl Road Trip of 2001, during a long stretch of the South where I could not find a copy of Time or Newsweek anywhere, no matter how hard I tried. And despite the lack of reading material back then, and despite my curiosity about this cultural icon, I have never been able to read it, even after multiple attempts. It finally went to Half Price Books a few months ago.
34. Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs (1937)-- This was the first movie I ever saw in a movie theater. My dad took us after Sunday morning church, but before we left the church parking lot he told us we were going somewhere awful. I can't remember where he told us we were going, but I do remember that when we got to the theater parking lot, my sister and I started to cry hysterically, and kept crying, even after we walked around to the front of the building where we could see that it was the movies, not somewhere horrible, and even after we bought the tickets, and even after multiple attempts by both my father and my mother to convince us that it was just a joke, that we were really there to do something fun. I bet my mother really wanted to kill my father when all the crying started, and I bet my father was totally bewildered over the hysterics. He probably imagined that we would only be excited to find out that we were getting a special treat, not that we would focus on what he originally said we were going to do.

Still, I had fond semi-memories* of the movie until it was released on video years later and I saw it again, and I swear I totally wanted to smack the crap out of Snow White and her breathy voiced wishy-washiness. What total tripe.

35. Annie Hall (1977)
36. The Bridge On The River Kwai (1957)
37. The Best Years Of Our lives (1946)
38. The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre (1948)
39. Dr. Strangelove (1964)-- One of Finbar's mother's favorite movies, I've seen this often enough that I ought to have it memorized. But I don't like it enough to devote the brain cells to it, and I don't dislike it enough to end up remembering it out of pure hatred.
40. The Sound Of Music (1965)-- Every. freaking. Easter. My father, surprisingly enough, loves this movie. I was very excited to recognize some places in Salzburg when I was there, though I never considered taking one of those Sound of Music tours. It also totally blew my mind that none of my new German friends had ever heard of the Sound of Music. I spent a lot of time trying to explain to people, most of whom just humored me out of kindness.
41. King Kong (1933)
42. Bonnie And Clyde (1967)
43. Midnight Cowboy (1969)
44. The Philadelphia Story (1940)
45. Shane (1953)
46. It Happened One Night (1934)
47. A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
48. Rear Window (1954)
49. Intolerance (1916)
50. The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring (2001)-- On opening day. In a packed theater full of nerds, one of which was Finbar. It was a perfectly fine movie, I suppose, but so effing loooong, and I came within a hairsbreadth of strangling the two high school boys with the fake elf ears who kept kicking the back of my seat-- accidently, it should be said; they were just so excited about some stuff that they couldn't seem to control their limbs properly. I've also seen most of the second one, once when Ash and I were sick at the same time, beached in our bed with nothing but the cable tv to entertain us.
51. West Side Story (1961)-- Loved this one, too. See, I told you I was totally into musicals. I always wanted to play Anita in some summer stock production of West Side Story.
52. Taxi Driver (1976)
53. The Deer Hunter (1978)
54. M*a*s*h (1970)-- Never seen the movie, but the book was pretty good. Is this turning into a theme yet?
55. North By Northwest (1959)
56. Jaws (1975)-- Oh, man, my best friend in elementary school and I were scared to death of this movie.
57. Rocky (1976)-- Yes, and also several of the sequels, all in an attempt to keep up with the boys at church and not to be seen as a Stupid Girl.
58. The Gold Rush (1925)
59. Nashville (1975)
60. Duck Soup (1933)
61. Sullivan’s Travels (1941)
62. American Graffiti (1973)
63. Cabaret (1972)-- No, but I did use the title song as my audition piece for awhile, to much success.
64. Network (1976)
65. The African Queen (1951)
66. Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981)-- The fact that this is not bolded right now is one of the great sources of despair for Ash.
67. Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
68. Unforgiven (1992)
69. Tootsie (1982)-- Yes, several times, and yet, and yet, when this was one of the categories at Pub Quiz, I could not answer most of the questions. Neither could any of the rest of our team, even though we'd all seen the movie.
70. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
71. Saving Private Ryan (1998)-- I was so traumatized by the D-Day scenes in this movie that I literally did not sleep for several days afterward. But the rest of the movie is wonderful.
72. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)-- The fact that I hate this movie is another source of despair for Ash
73. Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969)
74. The Silence Of The Lambs (1991)-- The movie was pretty good, but I saw it after I read the very very very very creepy book, which I loved. The sequels/ prequels were increasingly terrible, to the point where, after I stayed up to finish Hannibal, I ended up continuing to stay awake to read it again because I was certain that I'd missed something the first time that would have made the ending make some sense, then being so pissed off that I threw the book in the garbage. Let me tell you, I'd have to be pretty pissed off to throw a book in the garbage instead of putting it into the "sell to Half Price" pile
75. In The Heat Of The Night (1967)
76. Forrest Gump (1994)-- I saw this with a high school friend back when we were both working at K-Mart together. I was in Layaway, he was in Electronics, and we usually had time to kill on our hands, so we would call each other on the store phone. In order to make it look "legit" if a strict manager was on shift, we would page the other's department. After seeing this movie, Mike developed a fantastic Forrest impression, and would always page me as "Jenn-ay, please dial EEE-lek-tronics, Jenn-ay".

And I know that it's not cool anymore, but I love this movie beyond all reason and will bawl my eyes out by the end.

77. All The President’s Men (1976)
78. Modern Times (1936)
79. The Wild Bunch (1969)
80. The Apartment (1960)
81. Spartacus (1960)-- This was one of the movies that my 12th grade U.S. Government teacher showed during class, in lieu of actually teaching. I'm so glad that I had to come back to my U.S. high school to get that half credit of U.S. Government, instead of being allowed to graduate after 11th grade when I had all of my other credits completed and was leaving on a fairly prestigious exchange scholarship.
82. Sunrise (1927)
83. Titanic (1997)-- I may be the only woman in my age group in the Western World who has not seen this movie. It is, however, responsible for the development of my extreme aversion to Celene Dion.
84. Easy Rider (1969)
85. A Night At The Opera (1935)
86. Platoon (1986)
87. 12 Angry Men (1957)
88. Bringing Up Baby (1938)
89. The Sixth Sense (1999)-- As I explained above, there would seem to be no purpose to seeing this movie now.
90. Swing Time (1936)
91. Sophie’s Choice (1982)-- see M*A*S*H, above.
92. Goodfellas (1990)
93. The French Connection (1971)
94. Pulp Fiction (1994)-- You know, I really liked Reservoir Dogs, but I didn't think this movie really lived up to the hype.
95. The Last Picture Show (1971)
96. Do The Right Thing (1989)
97. Blade Runner (1982)
98. Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
99. Toy Story (1995)-- Pixar is so awesome.
100. Ben-hur (1959)-- Another annual Easter phenomenon in our house growing up. Ah, the chariot scene. So classic. Love the cars in the background.

Maybe I should see more movies. There's not a lot on this list that's bolded.

* After all, I was only about five at the time, maybe six. My memory isn't that clear.

Things I Am Excited About Right Now, TV Version

2008-05-17T23:52:00.004-05:00

I didn't realize this was out already-- and just now, I've discovered that Season 3 is about to come out, too!

I am torn between so-excited-I-could-just-spit and dreading-the-inevitable-ruin-of-the-best-reality-show-ever over this. The bit about simplifying it has me quite worried. There's more than enough utterly insipid crap on TV, ABC!

And right now, I am watching the M*A*S*H series finale, which I have always wanted to see, but have never once caught on re-runs.

Interviewing Skillz

2008-05-03T18:19:00.000-05:00

I don't often watch TV in the mornings. I may have mentioned this before, but I am really not a morning person. I prefer to stay under the nice warm covers as long as possible. In fact, there are times when I stay under the covers longer than is really advisable, since I am a lily-livered fool who finds it difficult to appreciate the action-consequence connection before coffee and at least a half hour of being both conscious and upright simultaneously. But springtime is unpredictable, weatherwise, in this neck of the woods, so I find that, even if I checked the weather the day before, it's often advisable to flip on the Weather Channel and wait for the Local on the 8s to come along.

As it happens, the next channel up from the Weather Channel rebroadcasts the local morning news, and the next channel up from that is CNN. So, some mornings, when I'm waiting for the weather to come along, I flip between these three channels, watching a few minutes of this, a few seconds of that, until I find out what direction my wardrobe should go. So this morning, I witnessed this little gem of a human interest-y story, about a baker somewhere-- California? Oregon? I missed the introduction to the story, so I'm not sure-- who has decided to try and grow his own wheat in an effort to cut his costs, in light of the rapid rise in flour prices over the past year.

At the moment that I joined the story, the interviewer asked the baker what the tipping point was for him, what made him decide to do this. The baker said something to the effect of Well, the price we've paid for flour has increase threefold over the past year-- TRIPLED!-- and we'd been talking about this for a while anyway. As you know, we're an organic bakery... hard to find the flour to begin with... etc, etc. Seems like a possible solution, and we're very attracted to the community aspect of the project, too. (Apparently some of their customers/ friends/ neighbors are going to help by planting some plots of wheat on their own land, which is kind of cool.) The interviewer was kind of going "uh huh, uh huh" while he was talking, and when he came to the end of his thought, she kind of looked down at her desk, as though she'd gotten caught not paying attention in class and was hoping to find the answer to the question the professor just asked magically written there...

and said "So, your costs doubled, then?"

The baker fixed her with a beady eye and said "No. They tripled." He didn't actually say "Jackass", but the tone of his voice definitely implied it.

Q&A, Luneray-style

2008-04-20T11:46:00.004-05:00

1. What is your occupation? Attorney, I suppose, although I don't practice right now. I'm really debating right now whether to stick with what I'm actually doing right now, or whether I want to move into practice somewhere. That, however, would be a topic for a very long post.

2. What color are your socks right now? I'm barefoot. The last pair of socks I had on were orange and white with palm trees and goldfish on them.

3. What are you listening to right now? I'm watching America's Next Top Model right now-- one of my guilty pleasures. It's so unintentionally funny sometimes!

4. What was the last thing that you ate? Waffles: one with lingonberry and whipped cream, one with cinnamon and sugar and whipped cream, and one with maple syrup.

5. Can you drive a stick shift? Weeeeellll... theoretically, yes. I learned in Denmark, driving a friend's SEAT on a deserted beachfront road. However, that was 13 years ago, and I haven't driven a stick shift since that summer. I'm not at all confident that I could do it now. But I'm sure I'd be able to re-learn it pretty quickly.

6. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? Luneray's answer is the same as what I would have chosen: midnight blue. Maybe one of the reasons we fit together so well?

7. Last person you spoke to on the phone? My mom. We spent nearly three hours on the phone yesterday.

8. Do you like the person who sent this to you? No one sent it to me, but I did steal it from someone I like a great deal. :-)

9. How old are you today? 32

10. Favorite drink? It changes all the time. Right now, I'm really hitting the Apfelschorle pretty hard. I'm also a big fan of belgian beers pretty much all the time.

11. What is your favorite sport to watch? D) None of the above.

12. Have you ever dyed your hair? Yes, most recently about two weeks ago. I've been staying pretty close to my natural color recently, but I also like to go a little bit red sometimes.

13. Pets? The irascible, intentionally incontinent Jenna-the-Cat

14. Favorite food? D) All of the above. No, really, I'm a big fan of food in general. Cheese is my biggest downfall, though.

15. Last movie you watched? I saw part of the MST3K episode, "The Girl In Gold Boots", which was not really their best effort. In fact, it was so bad that when I got a phone call during the movie, I took it, instead of ignoring the phone or asking the person if I could call them back later, and I didn't ask Ash to put the movie on pause. The last movie I saw all the way to the end was probably Kebab Connection. I thought it was hysterical, Ash thought it was nice that I enjoyed myself so much. "Zwei Handvoll Doener!". Hey, BTW, anyone have a clue why I can't make foreign characters on my new laptop? The old "ALT0246" trick doesn't work anymore since I got the new Dell running Vista.

16. Favorite Day of the year? I love the day when the leaves pop out on the trees. Screw Robin Redbreast,
that's the first sign of Spring as far as I'm concerned.

17. What do you do to vent anger? I yell, then I cry.

18. What was your favorite toy as a child? I had these little stuffed monkeys with velcro hands. They were named Jeff and Julie, after the little kids in the Sunday School books.

20. Hugs or kisses? Hugs. I'm entirely uncomfortable with the whole "kiss as greeting" thing. It just feels unnatural to me, but maybe that's just because of context-- it seems somehow pretentious here. Maybe I'd feel differently if I lived in France.

21. Cherry or Blueberry? This is entirely contextual as well. Are we talking "-flavor" or about the actual fruit? What kind of cherry? What am I eating it in/ with?

22. When was the last time you cried? Yesterday. I cried when the mom on Clean House gave up her boxes of books so that her girls could get nice new beds, and Miss Niecy asked her if it was hard for her to give up her books, and the mom said "Not for my girls. Anything for my girls." I'm totally tearing up right now, thinking about that. When did I turn into such a sap?

23. What is on the floor of your closet? Shoes, Jaffa crates full of candles, a couple of purses that fell off of the hooks behind the closet door, and a jumbo pack of paper towels. Also, a sweatshirt that Jenna likes to lay on when she's "hiding" behind the hems of my dresses.

24. Who is the friend you have had the longest? Hulio, who I met when I was 18.

25. Who is the friend you see the least and miss often? Luneray. I don't see Hulio as often as I wish I could (which would be almost every day) either, but at least she's only in the next state over instead of all the way on the other coast.

26. Favorite smells? Coffee brewing, rain, leaves on the ground in the Fall, the back of Ash's neck, laundry, used bookstores and old libraries.

27. Who inspires you? Y'all, I have totally been drinking the kool-aid: Barack Obama inspires me. Also, Madeleine Albright, who is absolutely one of my heros.

28. What are you afraid of? Spiders, needles, and heights.

29. Plain, cheese or spicy hamburgers? Cheese. Lots of it, preferably with mushrooms, or bacon, or maybe all three. Do you know what is delicious? Make a burger with a little A1 sauce in the meat, then melt a little Boursin cheese on top. Yum.

30. Favorite car? I don't really have one, per se. I like small-ish and fuel efficient.

31. Favorite dog breed? I love dachshunds, and greyhounds are really great, too. But then, I've not met many dogs I didn't like, ever.

32. Number of keys on your key ring? About 10.

33. How many years at your current job? Just over a year.

34 Favorite day of the week? Saturday.

35. Who is your favorite in-law? My sister-in-law, Liz. However, I should say that I have fantastic in-laws all round. I was very lucky that Ash's family are so welcoming and loving.

36. Do you think you're funny? Sometimes, I'm freaking hysterical. But only sometimes. I tend to take things too seriously to be truly funny.

Hopefully Spitzer Won't Follow In His Footsteps

2008-04-19T12:51:00.003-05:00

This past week's episode of This American Life, called "Leaving the Fold". The main story in the episode was about Jerry Springer. Yes, that Jerry Springer. It told the story of how he became a politician, paid for a hooker with a personal check, then went on to become a very popular mayor, moved on to become an even more popular anchor on the local news, and then morphed into the Jerry Springer show.

I think part of the reason why I liked this episode so much was that it proved to me that I'm not crazy. Or at least, anyway, my memories of Jerry Springer aren't all in my head. See, I grew up watching his nightly commentary on TV, and I distinctly remember when he started his talk show. It was very exciting to me, and I remember commenting to my friends that it was nice to see a talk show that was at a little more intellectual level than most of what was on network TV. I'm not sure when the words "intellectual" and "Jerry Springer Show" became polar opposites, exactly. I worked full time during the day, so I didn't get to see the show very often. In my mind, therefore, the change was overnight. I agreed with the sentiment expressed during the piece that this change is somewhat mystifying to those who "knew him when". Who is this guy, and what did he do with the real Jerry Springer?

The end of the segment was most interesting, and kind of sad at the same time. It detailed Jerry Springer's interest in getting back into politics. There were clips from a speech he gave that allowed you a glimpse into what is surely an intelligent and passionate mind, but contrasted sharply with his apparent unwillingness to sever ties with the otherwise insurmountable obstacle blocking his path to a return to the political sphere... makes him seem vaguely like a tragic figure, you know? And it makes me angry, perhaps unfairly or even unjustifiably, that this man who clearly knows better, is exploiting the very people he claims to want to help, and helping to fill our culture with so much ugliness, for the sake of the almighty dollar. What mighty things could he have accomplished if he had decided to turn his talents and energy toward something positive? What if he had built an empire based on finding the beauty and dignity in the world, instead of glorifying the basest and most degrading things he could find?

Cubicle Disaster Relief Directors

2008-04-15T19:07:00.000-05:00

Thankfully, since the office reconfiguration last year, I haven't seen-- or HEARD-- much of Ethel and Myrtle, other than the inevitable lunchroom run-ins with Ethel, who still seems to believe that the kitchen is actually there for her use, and the rest of us are using it only at her benevolent discretion. However, I did overhear this gem of a conversation while waiting for my leftovers to heat up:

Ethel: "Look at Mississippi. They aren't whining and complaining."

Myrtle: "Well, New Orleans took the brunt of it."*

Ethel: "Oh, no, Mississippi took the brunt."

Myrtle: "Well, the levees broke. That was the biggest problem."

Ethel: "No, the problem was that they had fifteen hundred school busses sitting there and you never even turned them on. You're gonna blame the federal government for that?!"

* I have no idea why they were talking about Hurricane Katrina. Maybe one of them saw something on TV?

Adult Swim

2008-04-14T17:46:00.001-05:00

I've been taking swimming lessons once a week, hoping to learn some new strokes and get better at the stroke I already knew. I really enjoy swimming at the gym, but I don't think I am a strong swimmer, and I get bored sometimes, doing the same stupid clumsy crawl up and down the lane. Most of all, I wanted to learn how to do the breaststroke. Ash has been trying to teach me how to do this off and on for the past two years, with no success. But it looks like so much fun when I see other people do it! I want to swim like the cool kids!

The classes have been so much fun. The ages and skill level covers a broad spectrum, and they take the lane markers out of the pool, which makes the hour a glorious mishmash of techniques, everyone swimming at their own pace, small groups forming and breaking up as the instructor holds small workshops on different strokes. One week, several of us learned a basic dive technique-- such an incredible rush to feel yourself plunge into the water like a knife, speeding down toward the bottom, catching yourself, and then breaking back through to the surface, ready to refill your lungs.

Anyway, about a third of the way through the course, I finally learned the breaststroke. With the instructor carefully watching and analyzing my flailing limbs, I put the pieces together a little at a time, until I accidentally did it right. Then I did it wrong for a while, got a few strokes in that were right, and kept plugging away at it. Two weeks later, I sort of got it down, albeit with some trouble doing all three pieces-- stroke, kick, and breathing-- at the same time. But I've gotten slightly better at it each class, and now I'm working on the timing of the three pieces, trying to improve the flow between pull-kick-glide. I was also pleased as punch to be complimented profusely on my crawl, which I've worked very hard on, concentrating on the angles of my hands, the trajectory of my arms, sometimes to the point where I suddenly realize that I've forgotten to keep kicking, and am chugging through the water by sheer force of my arms.

The other students are an interesting bunch. There's a very old man who can't swim at all. He's working really hard to master the flutter kick. Something just seems to go astray between his brain and his legs when he tries, but he comes back every week and spends an hour plugging away in the shallow end, patiently going back and forth. Another older man and his wife are occasional students in the class. He reminds me of a walrus, but a really friendly one who tells funny stories about his brother the beach bum in Hawaii. One guy about my age has spent the entire course talking about his dogs, and then in last week's class, he casually mentioned that he has three kids, surprising us all. A young-ish couple comes every week, and the girl wears a tiny bikini, as though she were headed for a sun-soaked spot on the French Riviera, instead of the ice cold waters of the high school swimming pool. A middle-aged woman brings a young woman with her most weeks. The young woman is blind in one eye, and seems to be mentally retarded. She's afraid of getting her face wet, and so she has learned to do the breaststroke without ever putting her head under the water. She likes to splash the middle aged woman, who I think is her mom (but I'm not sure) with her kicks. It makes her giggle and snort a little, especially if the other woman acts like she's all indignant at getting wet in the pool.

I'm really starting to love the smell of chlorine. This week is the last lesson for the Spring session, then there's a break for summer. I'm debating about taking a yoga class after this. But I'm definitely going to sign up for swimming again next fall.

There Are a Lot of Countries in the World

2008-03-27T21:06:00.003-05:00

131

I'm going to give myself carpal tunnel syndrome playing this game. It's completely addictive.

**Updated with new, higher score! I can't stop playing this game!

Running Through My Head For Some Reason

2008-03-23T22:14:00.005-05:00

When I was in Sweden, the grocery store chain nearest to the apartment I shared with Luneray had a chain of generic personal care products. It was called "Blåvitt" ("Bluewhite") and each product was packaged in white with big blue letters labelling the product name across the front. Now, when I say "the product name", I mean that in the most literal sense possible. For example, the tube of toothpaste has big blue letters spelling out "tandkräm" ("toothpaste"), and the moisturizer is called "hudkräm" ("face cream").

When I packed for the summer, I took full sized bottles of all of my personal care products with me. My theory was that it would save me a little money, given the weak dollar* and the fact that conventional wisdom warned me that everything would be very expensive, and it would also trick me into having some space left in my luggage at the end of the trip to pack all the things I bought. Things worked pretty well-- I found myself running low on most things during my last week in Sweden, just in time to throw out the bottles in favor of packing some of the nine thousand books I'd bought. The one thing that I ran out of quickly was toothpaste. I hadn't packed a full tube for some reason-- maybe I just didn't have a full tube on hand. I did pack in something of a hurry-- and I ran out just past the halfway mark.

So I went to Konsum and bought a tube of tandkräm. And I packed the tube of tandkräm when I left for Germany... and eventually brought it all the way back to the States. There was just something about the big blue label exuberantly announcing to everyone, "Hey! There's TANDKRÄM in here!" Even after the tandkräm** was basically gone, I kept the tube in the medicine cabinet, and it made me happy to see it there.

I finally threw it out when I was packing to move in to this apartment with Ash. We were having lots of discussions about paring down our possessions at the time, and it just seemed like the right thing to do. Still, sometimes I miss seeing that little blue and white tube twice a day, every day, reminding me of the fun I had living with Luneray.

*which, wow, wouldn't it be great if we had that kind of exchange rate now?

** I bet you guys will never forget how to say toothpaste in Swedish. Maybe you can win a bar bet or something with that knowledge. Or at least you can rest assured that you'll be able to maintain proper oral hygiene should you ever end up in Sweden.

Please Explain Something to Me

2008-03-09T22:27:00.001-05:00

Who the heck are the Kardashians and why does America want to keep up with them so very badly?

I Think It's a Good Omen

2008-02-24T14:01:00.002-05:00

There was a bakery in our old neighborhood that Ash and I loved very much. It was literally just behind the apartment building where he lived, and when we first started dating, we went there at least once or twice a week, sometimes during the week (the bus that took us to law school stopped right in front of their door), and at least one weekend morning. When he moved a few blocks up the street and I graduated from law school, our trips became less frequent, but didn't stop entirely, especially when the weather was good and we could walk from Ash's place to the bakery, then from the bakery to a little park a few blocks further away. We would sit at a picnic table or on a bench, eating pastries, or if we'd been especially lucky that day, some of the much sought-after scones, and sipping coffee. Ash always tried to get a certain woman there to make the coffees because he said that it just tasted better for some reason-- a magic touch with the creamer and sugars, I suppose.

Then we moved to the neighborhood where we live now. And it's far enough away that we almost never made it back to the bakery in our old neighborhood. And then one day, I drove past on my way to church, and the bakery was closed. No warning, just poof, gone. It was one of those gasp-out-loud-and-nearly-hit-the-guy-in-front-of-you moments. We asked some of our friends if they knew what had happened to it, but they were as much in the dark as we were. Small details emerged over time, but nothing more substantial than the will-o-the-wisp of rumor: the baker was forced out when the building owners more than doubled his rent, the business had gone under, he'd moved to a nearby street... All of it plausible, but none of it confirmed.

A couple of months later, I drove past again, on my way to a Trustees meeting at the church, and the windows were covered with large sheets of paper. Large letters were painted on the paper, announcing that a new and exciting place would be OPENING SOON! with a DELI and a BAKERY and UNICORNS! Okay, maybe not that last one. Anyway, after the meeting, I asked our pastor if he'd heard anything about the fate of our beloved bakery. Pastor Fred is very involved in the neighborhood association, and he's also got a bit of a sweet tooth, so really, if anyone would know what happened, he'd be as likely a candidate as anyone. He told me that the baker had opened new premises maybe a mile or so away, in the border area between my old neighborhood, and a slightly sketchier neighborhood.

It was dark by the time the meeting adjourned, but the next Sunday after church, I drove over to the corner Fred had described, but I couldn't figure out where the bakery was supposed to be. Ash and I made a second reconnaissance trip, which involved me circling the block several times at the slowest speed that wouldn't result in getting honked at by other drivers with actual destinations while we both gawked out the window at the shops passing by. No luck.

I'd say we gave up at that point. Except actually, I didn't, because I would just google the name of the bakery and the baker every so often, hoping for a little article in some local newspaper or trade journal to either tip me off to where he went, or at least what had happened. And early last week, I finally hit pay dirt in the form of the neighborhood newsletter, which listed his new address and asked everyone to support him in his new location. I promptly googled the new address... and Google pointed me right to the corner we'd cased all those months ago. I could not understand it. We'd even pulled the car over to the side of the road so that we could take a closer look at the shops-- a closed Slovak bakery (no relation to our beloved missing bakery), an upholsterer's shop, a wedding shop, but definitely no sign of our missing bakery.

This morning, I went to church, and after services, I decided to take a little drive past the corner again. On the first go round, I started to stop and look, but a car was coming up behind me, so I went around the block again. I stopped the car near the corner and looked: closed Slovak bakery, upholsterer, wedding dresses. Disappointed, I started to drive away toward the highway.

That's when the baker crossed the street right in front of my car. He walked up to the door of the shop on the very end of the row and went inside.

I almost peed my pants I was so excited.

Back around the block again, park the car, walk up to the door, and push it open, heart pounding with excitement and anticipation... Holy Cow! It's our bakery! The woman behind the counter wasn't anyone I recognized from the old location, but the pastries in the case were definitely the same deliciousness, and there in the back was the baker himself. I cannot imagine what my face must have looked like. The woman behind the counter said "You look like you want to say something", and I burst out, "I can't BELIEVE I found you!!", grinning like a fool.

Not only did I find our long lost bakery, but they had Mohnschnecken! Oh, man, do I love poppyseed pastries. And they had one last cherry cheese pocket-- Ash's favorite. So here I am, on the couch in my snuggly fleece pants, drinking nice strong coffee and trying not to eat my last Mohnschnecke-- I want to save it for tomorrow, to start my spa day off with a special treat. This is a good start to thirty-two.

Alles Gute zum Geburtstag!

2008-02-23T23:10:00.002-05:00

In less than one hour, I will be thirty-two... or, as we are calling it at our house, "Thirty-too-good-to-be-true". I'm pretty excited, because my thirties have been getting better and better every year. And I have big plans for celebrating.

Tonight, I cracked open the very lovely bottle of wine that Luneray brought for our wedding. It is delicious, smoky and smooth, just the sort of wine I like, and Ash hates, which means it's all mine.

Tomorrow, we're going to dinner at a lovely restaurant that offers a chef's tasting menu that often features words like "goat cheese", "lamb", and "polenta". I've been drooling all week thinking about it. There is also a birthday flan waiting in the refrigerator.

And Monday, I am going to the spa where we had all our stuff done before the wedding. An entire day of pampering has been booked, beginning with a very long massage. This was actually my mother-in-law's suggestion, and she sent me a gift certificate several weeks ago. Ash arranged for the little spa treat to turn into a full spa day.

When I was thirty, I graduated from law school and got engaged. When I was thirty-one, I passed the bar exam and got married. I wonder what this year has in store for me?

Anticipation

2008-02-14T22:21:00.003-05:00

A new laptop has been ordered and should arrive in the next week or so. I hope it's much sooner rather than later, because this being a one-computer family really sucks, especially when my husband needs the computer for important job and Patent Bar stuff, which sort of, kind of trumps my "but I need to blog!" whining, I suppose.

Ash actually just started a brand new, shiny full time job. In one of those funny little twists, he's been hired as an immigration attorney-- a field in which he didn't have a particular interest, per se, but I certainly did. It's a very small firm, which means that he's getting excellent experience from the start. In fact, he'll be handling his first case in court next month. I'm so happy that he's getting this opportunity. It's going to be fantastic for him.

In other news, I have officially become a resident of Our Fair State. In the process of doing so, I have become convinced that this is, without doubt, the most bureaucratic state in the Union. We're talking French levels of bureaucracy.

For example: in order to get a driver's license, you must prove that you are a resident of the state. The way that you prove that you are a resident is to show two pieces of evidence from the following list: a lease, a mortgage, utility bill, tax document, W-2, or a weapons permit. As of September, when I wanted to actually take care of this, I could produce only the first item. Our utilities are included in our rent, so we don't have separate bills for them, and the cable is in Ash's name. And wouldn't count anyway, as cable and mobile phone service are not considered "utilities" by the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. So I had to wait until I received my W-2 for the year to get my driver's license changed, despite the fact that I had a lease and a W-2 from last year, because those are considered "expired" or out of date now. I took the documents together with my marriage certificate to the BMV. You have to go to a desk to get a number, take your documents to a second desk when your number is called, where you will fill out a form and show your documents-- and it should be noted that they did not look at my documents. They only glanced at the papers in my hand to see if they existed. I could have given them old worksheets from Spanish for Lawyers. Then you go to a third desk, where you answers some questions on a touch screen while a BMV worker yawns at a chair behind the desk. Just to be clear, the worker does not ask you the questions or in any way participate in this process. You read the questions on the screen and pick your responses from a list of choices. Then you go to a fourth desk where your picture is taken. A few minutes later, they give you a driver's license with a big, red "TEMPORARY" stamped across it. This is because your picture has to be run up against a database of some sort before your official driver's license is issued and mailed to you. Presumably they're checking to make sure that you're not a terrorist or something.

Getting my license plates has entailed multiple trips to a different agency (which, seriously, is still blowing my mind-- why are plates and licenses handled by two different agencies??), with a different set of required forms and proofs. It also took exactly four weeks longer.

Now, I just have to find the WD-40 so that I can get the screws loose from my old plates, and I will be totally legit! Hooray!

Look, It's Not Personal, It's Just Business

2008-02-12T22:42:00.001-05:00

One of the less pleasant things that I do in my job is to review customer requests for termination of their contracts. If the customer's agreement does not provide for an early termination, they are stuck until the end of their term. We don't generally let people cancel their contracts just because they change their minds or are having financial trouble. This is usually not something that the customer wants to hear, and sometimes they get quite upset. Occasionally, they even get a little huffy and rude, but the guy I talked to the other day really took the cake.

Unlike many of these requests, this guy didn't claim that he had the right to terminate. In fact, he admitted right at the outset that he did not have any right to terminate, but said that he was hoping we would offer him some sort of a settlement so that he could pay and be done with the contract. This is also something that we don't usually do, but sometimes we will offer a settlement based on the net present value of the remaining contract term, if the circumstances warrant. So I went out and got the approvals from our finance people, and I called the guy back to negotiate. As soon as I mentioned my opening figure, he got extremely angry. There was much bluster about how he'd been our customer for 39 years (odd, given that we'd pulled a credit report on the company and it was founded in the late 1980s) and he just can't believe that we do business that way-- because apparently in this guy's vast experience as a businessman lo these 39 years, insisting that people fulfill their contractual obligations just isn't done?

I explained to him again that he doesn't actually have the right to end his contract early, and asked him if he had a counteroffer. After yelling for a bit about how I never asked him that (ummmmm... I'm pretty sure I just did), he came back with a figure that would essentially amount to me letting him out of more than half the remaining term of his contract, so I advised him that such an amount was not even in the ballpark of what we were willing to consider. This set off a wave of increasingly belligerent "questions" along the lines of "Well, don't you feel bad doing this to me?" and (this one's an actual quote) "Is your conscience going to let you sleep tonight?"

Let's all take a moment to recall that we are not talking about me denying him a kidney transplant, or foreclosing on his house, or even repossessing his car. We're talking about my refusal to allow him to break a business contract that he entered into knowingly (and I was actually talking to the person who signed the contract, so it's not like he inherited someone else's bad decision or anything)-- and also that the total dollar amount of the remaining contract term is in the very low five figures. My car cost more than the amount that this guy was getting so angry over.

When I didn't break down in tears, apologizing for my lack of understanding for his feelings and offer to let him out right away, he threatened to "call [his] attorney". I guess he thought that would scare me into doing his will, but honestly, even if it weren't true that I, myself, am an attorney, he should have realized that a big company like mine has a whole stable of lawyers. My calm reply of "That's fine. If he has any questions, or if he needs me to forward him a copy of your agreement to review, please have him call me, and I'll be glad to provide him with the information he needs" was apparently not the response he wanted either, because he really started to lose his cool, and said to me "Well, if I treated people the way you're treating me, welllll... you'd just better get down on your knees and pray to Jesus for forgiveness."

Seriously? Are you kidding me?

One of my colleagues recently had a conversation that went something like this:

"I've reviewed your agreement with us, and paragraph 12 states that you cannot terminate for any reason during the initial five year term. You still have four years remaining in that initial term, so the earliest date that you will be able to terminate this contract is January 2012."

"Says you!"

Says you?? I would have been too flabbergasted for words. Ann, however, very dryly responded, "No, says paragraph 12 of your agreement."

Other customers have screamed and yelled about how their business is already failing and I should have more sympathy. I would dearly love to reply to these customers "I'm very sorry to hear that your business is failing. However, the fact that you have made some bad business decisions doesn't mean that I should make them. My company is doing very well because we don't make decisions based on feeling sorry for someone. Please explain to me how it would be a good business decision for my company if I to allow you to back out of your obligation to us. What's in it for my company if you get to break your contract just because you don't want to pay for it anymore? NOTHING. Which means that it would be a bad decision on my part. And I don't want my business to fail, so I'm trying to avoid making bad decisions wherever possible." However, in the interest of keeping my job, I usually have to be satisfied with saying things about "obligations" and "I need to make the best decision for My Company here, and I'm afraid that means we are not going to allow you to break your contract early." This may be professional, but it is not satisfactory.

I wish that I could skip this part of the job and deal strictly with document drafting, negotiating new contracts, and helping to develop the new training program.

Such a Cliche

2008-01-13T19:05:00.000-05:00

My laptop warranty expired at the end of September. By the end of November, the battery would no longer hold a charge for more than a couple of minutes at a time. By the end of December, the laptop would not boot up unless it was plugged in for the battery to charge up to at least half way, and then only if you left it plugged in the whole time-- kind of defeating the main purpose of having a laptop. So I went online and bought a new battery on eBay, thinking that would buy me a little more time before I have to go buy another laptop. Our cash is otherwise spoken for at this very moment, so I couldn't really go out and just buy another laptop anyway, unless I decided to buy a strange off-brand with no memory from some place like Bob's House of Laptops, and that just seems short-sighted.

I got the new battery in record time, charged it up and WOO HOO! the laptop works again. WorkED again. Because, hahahahahaha, now it's making a very loud grinding, whirring noise that, to judge by the search results on google, probably means the hard drive is about to go.

So. Fun!

Not Too Surprising

2008-01-08T19:05:00.000-05:00

86% Mike Gravel
83% Dennis Kucinich
78% Barack Obama
76% John Edwards
75% Joe Biden
75% Chris Dodd
73% Hillary Clinton
62% Bill Richardson
37% Rudy Giuliani
28% Ron Paul
24% John McCain
20% Tom Tancredo
18% Mitt Romney
17% Mike Huckabee
8% Fred Thompson

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

I took a similar quiz back in 2004, and Dennis Kucinich was my closest match back then. And somehow, I'm not at all shocked that I disagree with Huckabee and Romney on almost everything. It would be my dream to just once have a major election where I felt really excited about a candidate, instead of just voting for the least distasteful choice or for the guy running against the one I want to keep from taking office.

Geography According to Ethel and Myrtle

2008-01-07T22:48:00.000-05:00

Cleaning out my draft folder and found this little blast from the past: Travels in Europe with Ethel and Myrtle!

******************************

They're yapping about how beautiful, Prague, Czechoslovakia is (and every time they refer to that particular place, they say it exactly like that: Pragueczechoslovakia), and planning their trip to Czechoslovakia. Should I tell them that they're over a decade too late?

Oh, and everyone in Munich is short, chubby and blonde. It's all I can do to keep from yelling over the wall that those are the American tourists.

*******************

I am so very glad that I no longer have to listen to their inane chatter all day long.

Civility Is Dead

2008-01-04T22:53:00.000-05:00

This was in an email correspondence that I was forwarded. The writer is one of the lawyers in our legal department. The recipient? An area director, who had the temerity to suggest that we accept a customer’s paper, when we’ve accepted this customer’s paper on more than one occasion in the past.

"Did you read the attached form agreement? While it may be "kinder and friendlier" (whatever that means), it is also "extremely lacking" when it comes to key terms and basic requirements of Our Company. And although we may have signed these things before, we are certainly not in the practice of signing such forms now--we are much more mature, and our policies, process and requirements are much more refined."

Well, then. Wonder why people have the impression that lawyers are arrogant jerks?

Taking Stock, 2007 Edition

2008-01-01T13:36:00.000-05:00

More money or less?
Well, given the fact that 2007 saw me in my first real, full-time, related to my education employment, I am pleased that I can answer this question "more". Finally.

Biggest way to waste time?
Playing Katamari Damacy. I got this from Luneray for a passing the bar exam gift and wisely put it away until after the wedding madness was over, because this may be the single most addictive game ever invented. The music, the insane animation, the bizarre premise... it all adds up to "Holy cow, is it 1 a.m. already???"

Best use of time?
Much as I hate to say it, the most productive thing I did this year was to plan the wedding. I think our friends and family had a good time, which was one of our biggest goals in planning things. Even better, Ash and I had a perfect day. It was really lovely and I had so much fun celebrating with many of the people who are dearest to me.

Best movie?
Hoo boy, I'll tell you what it wasn't: Soylent Green. I mean, really. WHY is this a cultural milestone?? How did it ever get to be popular at all?

But in all seriousness, we thoroughly enjoyed Ratatouille and laughed ourselves sick at Borat and Blades of Glory. I also really liked Knocked Up, which kind of surprised me. I'd agreed to see it only because Ash wanted to see it so badly, but I ended up liking it at least as much as he did.

Listened to?
In my memory, 2007 will be the year of the Rat Pack. We listened to a lot of Sinatra back when we were trying to put together the music for the reception.

Read?
Continuing with the theme of "I'm a couple of years behind the times", I read "Into Thin Air" right around New Year's, inspired by the Discovery Channel series Beyond the Limit. I enjoyed it enough that I also read "Under the Banner of Heaven". "Funny in Farsi" was a birthday present from my parents, and I gave myself "Neither East nor West", which I have to say, really made me want to go to Iran. Seems like I read a lot more than this-- at least, I sure paid a lot more in library fines than such a short list should warrant. Ohhhhh, yeah. I paid a lot in fines for a whole bunch of wedding planning books.

Fatter or thinner?
Fatter. I gained a lot of weight when I had to stop working out after the accident, and I haven't managed to lose it yet.

Smarter or stupider?
Hm. Well, I kind of feel about the same. It was sort of a fallow year, but I really needed that.

Best buy?
My new car. It took me awhile to let go of my anger over the loss of my old car so that I could really enjoy it, but now I love, love, love my Matrix.

Best bargain?
The wine for our wedding. I got a fantastic deal on it, especially after the bulk discount was added.

Stupidest purchase?
The refrigerator full of groceries that I didn't move before the electricity in my old apartment got cut off when I moved. I'd totally forgotten that I arranged for the electricity to be shut off a little before the end of the month, since we were planning to be fully moved into the new place long before then. And then the move took much longer than we'd anticipated, and I never thought to call and change the date... Cleaning that mess up was one of the messiest and most annoying things I've ever had to do.

Drank the most?
Blue Moon. It seems to have become my default beer. It seems that most places have it, often on tap. The faux-Irish pub around the corner where we go to pub quiz always has it on tap, so that kind of boosts my consumption of it, too.

Best drink?
Southern Tier Imperial Pumpking beer. We went to a beer tasting that was all pumpkin beers, and this was the hands down winner. It tastes like dessert, but it's not sweet. It reminds me of toasted marshmallows and graham crackers, but it's also really pumpkin-y.

Ate the most?
Cheese. Baked brie... smoked gouda... goat cheese aged in merlot... camembert... kashkaval... double gloucester and chive torte... mmmmmmm

Worst food eaten?
So I decided one day that I would try to invent a goulash recipe, loosely based on the ingredient list on a pre-packaged mix I bought at an import market. My big mistake was to underestimate the heat and bitterness of hot paprika-- especially after it's been simmering for awhile. The thing is, it wasn't that it tasted bad, it's just that the bitter note and the heat made it taste much less delicious than the smell promised.

Best food eaten?
The Seafood Newberg that our wedding caterer made. I went to look at a dress that some woman posted on Craigslist last January, back when we started planning the wedding in earnest. The dress didn't fit, but the woman who was selling it recommended the hall and caterer she was going to use, and both she and her fiance advised us multiple times to make sure that we tried the Seafood Newberg when we had our tasting session. They were so right. On both recommendations as it turned out, but especially about the Seafood Newberg.

I'm hungry now.

New friends found?
Maybe. I get along really well with another woman in my office and it's kind of at the point right now where it might develop into a outside-of-work friendship, which would be pretty cool.

Old friends lost?
Not so much lost as "gotten further away". Almost all of my good friends have left Our Fair City in the past year or so, following jobs to greener pastures. One of the hardest parts of being a grown up is the fact that friendships don't last forever, and that doesn't come from a lack of sincerity or lack of effort. It's just that life changes constantly and so do some of our relationships, and it's a lot harder to maintain a long distance friendship when you're being torn in a thousand different directions at work, at home, with your family responsibilities, than it was back when getting good grades and working 30 hours a week in the KMart layaway were my big concerns.

Resolutions not kept?
I actually didn't make any resolutions last year. Guess I was just too in love or something. For the record, my resolutions this year are:
1) Get a thicker skin at work. I cannot continue to let a certain recurring problem get under my skin the way it has the past several months.
2) Get to work earlier in the morning so that I can leave earlier at night.
3) Learn something new-- a new skill, for example.
4) Get back to blogging regularly. I miss the creative outlet.

Missed chances?
For once, I can't think of any opportunities that I let get away. Maybe I'm just blocking it out.

Fears?
That there would be family drama, especially involving my sister, at the wedding. Luckily turned out to be mostly unfounded-- everyone was very mature, and Amy's small outburst was quickly defused thanks to the pastor's wonderful wife.

Biggest success?
Being chosen by my colleagues for the departmental award for most valuable contribution to 4th quarter results. I must admit that I've been feeling pretty frustrated at work lately after being assigned to clean up and tame the huge, monster, out-of-control account that no one had ever really given any actual attention. It's been very difficult to see progress and feels very much like my own personal Groundhog Day some days. But it really felt great to find out that other people see the good work that I've done and appreciate it, too.

Biggest failure?
I must say that I am very pleased by the fact that I've been sitting here trying to think of a real failure for the year, and I'm having trouble coming up with one. If I have to answer, I suppose it would be gaining weight when I've worked so hard to keep it off. But somehow that doesn't seem like a big enough deal to say it's my biggest failure.

I fervently hope that I have the same problem writing this post next year.

Healthier or Sicker?
Sicker. That office is like a big petri dish. The parents all catch the plague from their kids who catch it at daycare, then they bring it to the office and spread it around to everyone else. I'll tell you what, I got a flu shot as soon as possible this year.

Best spontaneous fun?

Learned the most?
More than I ever wanted to know about the bridal industry and its dirty underbelly.

What I definitely don’t want to see in the next year?
Another car accident. I'm still not quite 100% back to where I was. Sometimes my back just hurts. It's kind of scary. Will it be like this my whole life?

TV puke?
Why is Nancy Grace not only still on the air, but apparently more and more successful? WHY? WHY??

TV-Wow?
Robot Chicken is always worth staying up late.

Biggest change?
Well, getting married was kind of a big deal.

Seriously, though, right after the wedding, I really didn't feel any different. Now, though, I sort of do, sometimes. It's hard to explain. I love being married to Ash and spending our lives together. I love making plans for our future together. I am looking forward to maybe even starting a family together. And I'm not any different from the person I was on September 20. But at the same time, I am. It just kind of strikes me every once in a while that I am a married woman. I am someone's wife. And that feels sort of... solemn. But also very sweet and exciting. It makes me so incredibly happy to see Ash sitting next to me on the couch and know that we're married.

Biggest loss for mankind?
The continued insistence by some of our nation's leaders that global warming is a hoax, and that even if it's not a hoax, it's really nothing to be worried about.

Biggest Disappointment?
Yet another year has gone by and I have not become independently wealthy without needing to earn the money. Where is my lottery jackpot? Where is my large inheritance from a previously unknown distant relative?

Merry Christmas

2007-12-26T21:06:00.001-05:00

I'd have to check the employee handbook to be absolutely certain, but I do believe that I am not allowed to bring my white elephant present back to work and keep it in my cubicle, despite the fact that I really, really want to.

Intrigued?

We're spending Christmas with Ash's family in Michigan, which means several hectic days of fun and family togetherness. And I'm totally not even being sarcastic! I really lucked out in the in-law department.

Ash's mom called us on Thursday to tell us that she'd thrown out her back. This is no laughing matter, as she's got a persistent and serious back problem from a car accident many years ago. This time, she's off work and only semi-mobile. As in: she can hobble around slowly for short periods of time, but mostly can't move normally. No bending over, no lifting or carrying anything, and even standing for more than a few minutes at a time is too much. So that meant that the task of finishing her mammoth Christmas baking project fell to the daughters and daughter-in-law. Mostly the daughter-in-law, as she is the only one of the three to really do much cooking or baking on her own. So on Saturday, I spent most of the day baking more cookies than you can shake a stick at. There were four different kinds, including one with nuts. The other two girls got stuck with that one, since anaphylactic shock tends to put a damper on the holiday spirit and all. But I rolled out, cut out, balled up, and dredged in sugar for hours anyway, losing count somewhere around the 20 dozen mark. See, she makes cookie plates for the entire extended family. And you may remember from my astonishment at the final guest list for our wedding that they have a very large extended family. Very large indeed. Luckily, the pain of churning out commercial quantities of cookies was lessened quite a bit by the 100 greatest songs of the 90s, as determined and presented by the brilliant minds at VH1. My super awesome sister-in-law, Liz, and I had a blast belting out the lyrics to such ageless classics as "Groove Is In the Heart".

We spent the next several days on the road, meeting up with Ash's college friends one day, spending Christmas Eve and part of Christmas Day with the big extended family the next, on to a different friend's house, and ending up at Ash's dad's house last night. It was kind of an overwhelming several days, but in a very nice, very fun way. The extending family get-together is something of a new experience for me, since my extended family is very small to begin with and we get together on Thanksgiving anyway-- most people go to visit in-laws and such ever since my grandparents died. Back when I was together with Finbar, Christmas at his house was even smaller, since his parents had essentially cut ties with their extended families many years before. So the idea of 25 or 30 people at this year's Christmas gathering seemed crazy to me-- even though it was slightly smaller this year than last. I think I'll get used to it eventually. This year, for example, was not quite as overwhelming as last year for me. But still, I had to sneak away for a little break a couple of times during the night. I think the hardest thing is the fact that they're kind of a little clique. Not in a bad, mean high school girls kind of way, but just in the way that people who've known each other all their lives can be. And I am the first newcomer of this generation. The last time that the circle was expanding was back when our parents' generation was getting married. I told Liz that I was paving the way for her eventual spouse to join the club.

We did get one really fantastic present-- though really, I suppose it was more of a wedding present than a Christmas present. Ash's Uncle Bob gave us his grandparents' wedding album. It is downright scary how very much Ash looks like his grandfather at the same age. They even hold their bodies the same way. As I was paging through the album, a small booklet fell from between two pages. I picked it up and realized that someone, I think most likely his grandmother, had saved the missal from their wedding in the album. How incredible to hold that in my hand, all these years later! The other thing that Uncle Bob gave us-- or is going to give us once we have a place to safely store it-- is Ash's grandmother's china. I am so excited about that, I can't even explain it. It just feels so good to have that connection going back all the years. And one day, we'd be able to pass it down to our own children.

So now, having told you about the best present, allow me to unveil the White Elephant:

I got nunchucks. Nunchucks weapped in gold glitter paper.

Just What I Always Wanted!

2007-12-18T17:47:00.000-05:00

Guess what I got in the white elephant exchange at work today.

No, really, go ahead! Guess!

Playing My Part

2007-12-10T23:34:00.000-05:00

*Blows dust off blog*

So anyway, living up to the stereotype of the married woman, since getting married, I have gained weight and cut my hair from pretty long to pretty short.

In fairness* to me, my hair has mostly been short-ish as an adult. It was down to the bottom of my ribcage as a college freshman and I cut it progressively shorter over the years, occasionally growing it out a few inches, then cutting it again. It was really only once I got ready to start law school that I started really growing it out. I had as a goal the ability to be able to pull my hair into a ponytail and leave for class with no further ado**. Then, when I got engaged to Ash, I started to seriously work at growing it long so that I would have as many options as possible for an updo on my wedding day.

I was good and sick of the long hair by July. In fact, there were many days when I was certain that I would not make it another week without begging my hair guy for an emergency hairectomy. I played with braids and twists, but the thing is, my hair is extremely thick. And as soon as it gets long enough to do something with it, it also gets too heavy to really do anything with it. A true coiffure conundrum. Anyway, I realized shortly before the wedding that I probably had nearly enough length to donate my hair to Locks of Love or some similar charity.

I know, I know: lots of people think that Locks of Love is a scam. I think that's not the case. They are really quite open about what they really do with the donations they receive and the very restrictive guidelines they have for who can get a wig. Now, it's not that I think that kids with Alopecia don't deserve a wig. But there was something about the restrictions that sort of rubbed me the wrong way. Certainly, Locks of Love may set any rules and restrictions it wishes on who may be the beneficiary of their largesse. Still, I wanted something a little more... flexible.

On this past Saturday, I sat in the chair and announced to my hair guy, "I want my short hair back." We looked at some pictures and then he brought out a ruler and a ponytail holder. From the base of the ponytail it measured 9"-- more than enough for Pantene Beautiful Lengths, which I found by a google search for "donate hair not to locks of love". Out came the scissors and several minutes later, off came my ponytail. Honestly, I wanted to run laps around the salon yelling "FREEDOM! FREEDOM!!"

I really thought that it would feel like a big change, but instead it sort of felt like coming home or returning to my natural state. I especially love the fact that from the moment I step out of the shower to the moment of being fully ready to go-- at least as far as the hair goes-- only takes maybe 5 minutes or so, and it looks so much more polished than the long hair did even after a long session with a hair dryer and a round brush (and frankly, that's pretty much always way more effort than I'm willing to put into my hair).

It also made me feel much younger, and perhaps this is a purely psychological phenomenon. After all, I was much younger the last time I had hair like this, so I suppose it's only natural to catch a glimpse of myself in a window or some other reflective surface and think to myself "Hey! Who's that cute little 23 year old?"*** At any rate, it apparently isn't an objective assessment of the effects of my new do, because when I mentioned to Ash that I thought the hair made me look much younger, he replied "I think you look like a mom."****

So yeah. I'm back. 10 pounds heavier and 9" inches of hair lighter. What've you guys been up to while I was busy working, writing thank you notes (if you haven't gotten one for your wedding present yet, I swear they're coming), and playing Katamari Damacy (More on that later, I assure you)?

* The first time I typed this, I wrote "hairness".
** Semi-pun totally intended.
***Which, holy crow, was almost a decade ago. Eek.
**** No, I'm not pregnant.

Pass the Brain Bleach

2007-12-10T23:31:00.000-05:00

If I never hear one of the Chipmunks say "Bow chica bow wow" in his squeaky little Chipmunk voice again, it will be too soon.

Darn It All

2007-10-31T21:12:00.000-05:00

I guess it really *was* wishful thinking. Maybe he was giving away some of this stuff or something. He's just as loud as ever. Maybe we should just call the landlord to complain.

Too Good to be True?

2007-10-30T20:31:00.000-05:00

The noisy guy upstairs (not-so-affectionately known as "Dorm Room Guy" in our house because the constant noise from his apartment makes it feel like we're living in a college dorm again) has been noisily carrying things downstairs and loading them into a moving truck. He didn't start until about 7 p.m., and he only moved in a month after we did, so we are trying not to get our hopes up, but the pile of things on the sidewalk and in the truck is steadily growing. Are we really so lucky? Is Dorm Room Guy taking his loud music and midnight hammering and loud alarm clock that goes off every 10 minutes for at least an hour each and every morning with him?

Skillz

2007-10-30T20:01:00.000-05:00

You know what's hard? Typing with freshly painted fingernails.

But they look good. That's the important thing.

Get Me to the Church on Time

2007-10-10T20:25:00.000-05:00

Here's a helpful hint to all you brides-to-be who might one day stumble upon this entry:

It is not a good idea to get locked out of your apartment the day before your wedding while 12 small wedding cakes are sitting in the back of your car and it's 85° outside.

And because I am a generous soul, here's another great tip:

Don't wait until two days before your wedding to try and wax your legs at home, because even if you get out of bed extra early to give yourself time to take care of an extensive grooming routine, you will not have time. This will be directly due to the fact that your phone will ring approximately every 10 minutes, beginning at 8:20 a.m. You will spend 1 1/2 hours warming the wax in the microwave, getting two strips done, then the phone will ring and by the time you handle whatever issue sparked the call, the wax will be hardened and you will have to start the whole process over again, until you finally lose patience and plan to shave the morning of the wedding, razor burn be damned, because after 90 minutes of this cycle, you will have one shin done.

The last part of last week was simultaneously the fastest and slowest three days of my life. In the week leading up to Wednesday, I kept saying to Hulio that I felt pretty good about the status of everything and was pretty sure that I'd be able to get it all done with no real problem in the two days I'd arranged to take off work prior to the actual day of the wedding.

Tip #3: If you think you'll need two days to do the last minute stuff with the help of two friends, your fiance and his friend, and 4 family members, assume you'll need 4 days with the help of two friends because your fiance and his friend will have their own not-very-clearly-defined agenda and your family members will need so much attention that they are not so much a help as you'd have thought they might be. This is not because they don't care, but rather because they care so much and want to make sure that your day is perfect, when you yourself would settle for happening. It is also because it is possible that your moms are more emotionally overwrought at this point than you are.

So Wednesday, I got up even earlier than I do when I go to work. I made breakfast and ate, then I gathered my grooming materials to do the various little things I'd been intending to get done for the past week, mostly involving hair removal, but after 90 minutes of the wax-phone-microwave shuffle, I was too frustrated to keep it up. Time to move on to my next task: wrapping gifts. First, the groomsmen's gifts, then Ash's little sister's birthday gifts and his cousin's birthday gift, and also the little wedding gift we'd gotten for his little sister. My plan was to throw a little paper over them, slap a ribbon on it and call it a day so that I could run out to the mall and buy a gift for Ash's stepsister on my way to pick up Luneray from the airport, and maybe if I really kept to the schedule, I'd have time to stop at Michael's and Joann's for the last minute supplies before I went to the airport.

And you'd think I would remember how EVERY CHRISTMAS I think, "Oh, I've only got ten gifts to wrap, I can do that in an hour or so", and then I find myself sitting at the table four hours later with two more gifts to go and I am so sick of cellophane tape and wrapping paper that I never want to give anyone another gift ever again unless they promised to wrap it themselves. But no. Nooooooooo. Instead, I kept wrapping gifts and wrapping gifts and answering the phone and all of a sudden, I realized that Luneray's flight would be arriving in half an hour and I needed to go.

So it was off to the airport where I encountered a poorly signed and very confusing detour to the short term parking garage that nearly unhinged me-- if you're going to make a detour go through the exit gates and then into the parking lot via a secret back exit, you should probably put up a sign explaining that at some point. I bet the parking lot guys are incredibly sick of people pulling up to their lanes in various stages of confusion and annoyance because they've been following the detour signs carefully and all of a sudden they have no choice but to keep going toward the sign that says "Airport Exit". I recognized Luneray standing at the baggage claim from at least 100 yards away, even though her back was to me, and even though it's been nearly two years since I last saw her, and seeing her standing there made me wish we didn't live so damned far apart.

I am going to fast forward this story past the trips to the post office, to Joann's, and whatever else we did-- partially because it's not interesting and partially because I don't really remember any of the detail already.This is about the point where things just started blurring together for me. I'll also skip over most of the story of how my sister called me from my mom's car to tell me that they were on Random Street, just passing the intersection of Unknown Avenue, and could I give them directions on how to get back to the highway? Quick! What lane should they be in? Should they turn onto Unheard-of Street? What? I don't have all of the streets of Our Fair City memorized, including lane changes and hopefully also potential closures due to construction? GOD! In fact, I'll also skip over the group dinner at the Mexican restaurant in our neighborhood, all the way up to the point where I took my apartment ring off of my key ring and gave it to Hulio so that she and Luneray could go back to our apartment and let themselves in to start working on favors while Ash and I led my parents back to the highway so that they could get back to their hotel.

Having seen the parents safely off to their hotel, we hurried back to work on the little last minute stuff: favors, placecards, assembling cake stands, cutting out the liners, and getting all of the decoration stuff packed up to be taken to the hall the next day. Hulio and Luneray were already busily twisting small handfuls of mints and chocolates into tiny squares of tulle. Placecards were produced-- or to be more accurace, placecandles, since we put everyone's name on a small white candle to be placed at their seat. And this is where things start truly blurring together for me.

I know that we ran into a couple of snags that couldn't be remedied until Michael's opened the next day. I think it had something to do with running out of ribbon or tulle or something, but... honestly, from this point until the start of the ceremony, most things are a big blur with isolated moments that are super clear.

Thursday, I know we went to Michaels, and I remember Luneray trying to find out if they carried earthquake gel for putting the cake stands together. I also know we picked up the cakes and loaded all 12 in the back of the Matrix. But the next really clear thing in my memory is the moment when I realized we were locked out of the apartment.

Remember that bit a couple paragraphs back when I mentioned that I'd given my key to Hulio and Luneray to let themselves into the apartment? By the time I made it back to the apartment, this little fact had slipped my mind. And as it turned out, they'd thoughtfully decided to leave the key on our entertainment center, right next to the front door, so that they'd remember to give it back to me.

Oops.

We tried to pick our lock with a credit card-- a tactic successfully employed by me and Hulio after I got locked out of a college apartment (we never left the deadbolt off after discovering that unsettling little fact)-- but the door is built to thwart such efforts. Stupid security. An emergency call was placed to Ash, who was at that very moment, pulling up to the airport to pick up his sister and his cousin. Promises were secured to come straight back as quickly as possible. Another call was made to my mother, who was waiting for us to pick her up at her hotel and take her to the reception hall to decorate, and additional promises were secured to call the reception hall and let them know we'd be later than expected.

By the time everything was back on track and we'd arrived at the reception hall, I had only enough time to help carry stuff in and give some vague instruction as to what to do with all of the things I'd collected for decoration, because I'd made an appointment to have a manicure and pedicure with my mom before the rehersal. When I made the appointment, it seemed that I'd have plenty of time to do it all, but let me tell you, getting locked out of the apartment really put a crimp in the schedule.

I'd never had a pedicure before, and I didn't have very high expectations, since I've had manicures and never really felt that they were all that. The idea of having this appointment was really more about doing something nice for my mom and getting to spend a little time with just the two of us. I honestly can't remember the last time that we got to spend any really time alone together, without my sister or my father.

People! Why didn't anyone ever tell me how fantastic a pedicure feels?? It was so relaxing and soothing. And almost three weeks later, my toenails look great, much better results than when I do it all myself.

And then things are kind of blurred again. We went to the church, there was some instruction as to where to go, when to walk, what music would be played when, and it was all kind of fun, but low key. I was in the vestibule of the church with my girls and my dad and the music was playing and one by one the girls had gone down the aisle and then I stepped into the doorway to wait for my cue... and I saw Ash standing at the altar, waiting for me, watching the doorway, and my heart skipped a beat and HOLY COW. I will never forget that moment. That thrill of excitement that this amazing man is going to marry me.

The rehersal dinner was held at an Italian restaurant. Our little party took up the entire back corner, and it was a companionable night. The groomsmen and ushers seemed to like the monogrammed cufflinks that we chose for them after much solemn deliberation, and the girls liked the white sapphire earrings we had made for them. And suddenly, the night was over-- for me, anyway. Luneray and I headed back to go to bed while Ash and his boys went out for the bachelor party, promising to be back not-too-late, on pain of being woken by an angry bride at the crack of dawn the next morning.

Dearly Beloved

2007-09-26T22:38:00.000-05:00

My Last Post as a Single Woman

2007-09-17T20:29:00.000-05:00

Four days. FOUR DAYS!!! Four days!!!

I am so excited, I could just burst. Things are mostly finished except for little stuff like making favors and placecards. Our wedding rings were delivered to Ash's mother's house on Saturday, and now I'm fixated on the idea that she might forget them. This is, of course, ridiculous, but I actually dreamed about it Saturday night.

One of the things that I'm really looking forward to is the arrival of Luneray, who I haven't seen since 2005. I'm so happy that she's able to come for the wedding, and extra happy that she'll be here for a few days before so that we get to spend some time together. It sucks that there's most of a country between the two of us. It would be so great to meet at the pub for a pint or two, or maybe to go to a festival or a museum, or even just to hang out on someone's couch together. Naja, who knows what might happen in the future?

Lots of other family and friends are going to start drifting in on Wednesday, so it's going to get crazy fast. But the good kind of crazy, you know?

I AM SO EXCITED!!!!

This is going to be such a great time. I get to marry the most amazing man on the planet, the one who was made for me AND I get to have a huge party AND most of the people we love will be there, surrounding us with love and well-wishes AND there's a pretty dress involved?! FANTASTIC!!

Let's Go to the Zoo!

2007-09-03T21:16:00.000-05:00

Happy Labor Day!

Ash and I spent a fabulous day at the Zoo.

Elephants are my favorite animal.

Then we saw the cuddly monkeys.

And African wild dogs, which are NOT HYENAS, as the woman next to us repeatedly informed everyone in about a fifty yard radius.

The poor kodiak bear did not seem to care for the heat. It was a brutally sunny day today.

So we ducked into the aquarium... with approximately 5,477,309 other people, at least 3,694,946 of whom were pushing gigantic strollers. While I was standing in front of the seadragon tank...

... a particularly classy member of our society bellowed "EXCUSE ME!!!!!" and shoved past me with her triple SUV stroller-- empty of children, who I presume were among the teeming mass of brats banging their hands against the walls of every available tank in the lobby. Poor fish.

Luckily, once you got past the first couple of tanks, the crazy thinned just a little and you could actually get to and see the exhibits, which were really cool. Most of the tanks were little tiny worlds with lots of different species interacting, including some small amount of "nature red in tooth and claw", such as these two pescetarians:

We lucked into feeding time at the penguin exhibit and watched as the keeper hand fed a big flock of penguins, who waited patiently for her to toss a fish down their throats. One lone chick stood off to the side, half-molted and timid. We moved on before the keeper finished feeding, so I don't know if she also fed the chick or if the mama or papa penguin would take care of it or what. I didn't get any pictures of any of that because the jostling crowd was just TOO MUCH.

However, I did get two very cool pictures of the jelly fish:

One of the largest tanks held an amazing amount of color and motion. I oculd have watched it for ages.
The more I looked, the more things I discovered, hiding in shadows and crevices...

And this ferocious looking fellow:
I love how you can almost sense the motion, the zipping, swirling life in this picture:

This very friendly ray came right up to the side of the tank anytime someone stopped next to it. I guess it was just as interested in us as we were in it?
I don't think you can really get a good idea of exactly how big this fellow is. I would guess he's at least three feet long.

The polar bears were surprisingly frisky, given the heat today.

A tunnel under their exhibit gives you a different view.

The sea otters are in a neighboring tank, separated by a hall of sorts... which, by the way, you can rent for weddings and such. That would have been kind of cool. It's also kind of pricey, especially once you look at the menu for their exclusive caterers. Oh well, I guess our guests just won't get to meet this little show off at our wedding:

The petting zoo portion of the zoo had several exhibits where you could walk into an enclosure via a double door system and hang out with various "free range" animals. For some reason, the GIANT FREAKING SIGNS explaining the double door policy were not sufficient for some people-- and not even foreigners who might have the excuse of not understanding English. At a couple of exhibits, the zoo had posted staffers to keep people from opening both sets of doors at the same time.

One enclosure held whitetail deer, which surely don't seem to me to be the sort of animal that needs to be kept in a zoo, especially 'round here. We regularly see them standing on our front lawn, in neighbors' driveways, on the sidewalk... Anyway, one of these deer had plopped itself down smack dab in the middle of the path so that everyone could pet it. Ash and I waited our turn and stroked it. I must say, I always thought they'd be softer for some reason. And now I won't feel the urge to try and pet the little spotted fawns that keep wandering across the road in broad daylight.

They also had a kangaroo enclosure, but these guys were staying well away from the paths and from the fences.

So was this guy. However, he was very keenly eyeing the passers-by, as though he had trouble in mind.

This one's a little blurry, but people, this tiger was separated from me by nothing more than a sheet of plexiglas. And that was damned cool.

He came over, checked us all out...

Then meandered off...

...to see what this guy was up to...

Turns out, he was chewing on a PLASTIC WATER BOTTLE that someone had THROWN INTO THE TIGER EXHIBIT. Seriously! WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?

Apparently, though, plastic water bottle = great tiger toy, because the tiger who came to check us out at the other end of the exhibit tried to take the bottle away from the other tiger, who did NOT like that one bit.

And on that note, we left the zoo behind. What a great day!

Surprise!

2007-08-30T21:50:00.000-05:00

I was standing at a collegue's desk, looking at a spreadsheet with her, when the little Outlook notification box popped up on her screen. You know, the one where it gives you a little preview of the message so that you can decide where on the scale of Comparative Importance that email falls and either open it, ignore it, or delete it right away? Weeeellll, the subject line on the email was "Katze's Shower".

Kristi quickly clicked it off the screen, and I acted all nonchalant, as though I hadn't even noticed the little box RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF HER SCREEN with my name on it.

In the car on the way home from work, I told Ash that I thought I'd spoiled a surprise. He piped up, "Yeah, it's on Friday."

"What?! How do you know about it?"

"Oh, I'm invited."*

So then, today walked into my manager's cube and he had a card right on the middle of his desk. A card with a big white wedding dress on it. He grabbed a file folder and jammed the card inside it, very non-nonchalantly. And he got the most stricken look on his face. Again, I acted like I hadn't actually noticed his strange behavior, asked the question that had brought me to his cube to begin with, and went back to my cube, where I laughed silently until my stomach hurt. It was just too cute and funny, especially because he spoiled the last surprise party that they threw for me-- sort of.

See, the morning after my swearing in ceremony at the Federal Court, I was sitting at my desk, eating a chocolate donut and reading email when he wandered over and started talking to me and my former cube neighbor and at one point in the conversation, he made a joking remark that I just thought I was special because I got a chocolate ca-- donut. CHOCOLATE DONUT. And I just looked at him all bug eyed because it was a very, very strange thing to say, especially because he got all red in the face. But then, Mike is a very awkward person sometimes, one of those people who says things that probably sounded funnier in his head, or tries to get in on a running joke just a few minutes after it loses its hilarity. So I didn't think about it too much. Later that afternoon, Angela came into my cube aisle and asked us to come over to the common area in our department for a quick meeting. I picked up a pad of paper and a pen and wandered the couple of aisles over to the common area where I stood talking to someone for at least a minute before I even noticed the chocolate cake with "Congratulations Katze!" in sparkly white letters.

I was floored. And touched! I certainly wasn't expecting any sort of a party-- though in retrospect, I probably should have, because we celebrate everything in our department. It's a fun-lovin' group. In fact, I think I probably work for the best department in the company, overall. Sure, there are some people I like more than others, but for the most part, the group is fairly supportive and cooperative.**

So anyway, I hadn't actually expected them to throw me a shower. It really just didn't enter my mind. But again, I guess I should have known that they would, because not only do we celebrate everything, we've thrown a couple of baby showers since I started. No one in the department has gotten married since I started, but we've had two babies born so far and a third is on the way about 5 or 6 weeks after my wedding. And now that I know but am pretending not to know, I had a very funny day. I kept overhearing snippets of conversation with my name in it and once I witnessed another little email popup while I was helping someone with a termination clause. I hope I've been a convincing actress because I certainly don't want to spoil their fun by ruining the surprise.

*Have I mentioned that Ash is temping at the company where I work for a few weeks? He's in a different department, but as it turns out, on the same floor. It's kind of cool and kind of weird at the same time. I bet it will feel really strange again when his temp assignment is over or he gets a permanent position.
**It's also overwhelmingly female. We only have five men out of a total of twenty four employees. I wonder if that has anything to do with the positive atmosphere? But then again, large groups of women can be far more competitive and cutthroat, so maybe it's just a lucky fluke.

The Devil is in the Details

2007-08-25T19:24:00.000-05:00

A recent email conversation with a friend:

"I know that it's your big day...but I have only Star Wars stamps.
If it bothers you, I'll make a special trip to the post office so that I can RSVP with a more, ahem, appropriate postal art?"

"My impulse is to ask if there really are people who would care about that sort of thing... and then I immediately realized that, yes, there are. And that's why everything bridal is so effing expensive. I, however, care only about *getting* the RSVP... in fact, please feel free to RSVP via the website and don't bother with stamps or anything."

"Well, I figured you wouldn't mind, and Ash might actually find it funny. But I thought I'd ask just in case someone else was dealing with the RSVPs--someone who really cares about this sort of thing."

Two days later...

"So I paid attention to this only because you asked this question, and I'm pleased to report to you that, thus far, fully 40% of our RSVPs have been stamped with some Star Wars character. I don't know what that says about our friends... ;-)"

"I had a discussion with some of my colleagues to determine which Star Wars stamp was most appropriate for a wedding RSVP. :)"

My friends are awesome.

Crunch Time, Part 2

2007-08-22T20:13:00.000-05:00

Last year at this time, every conversation started like this:

"Katze! Hey, how are you? Did you get your bar results back yet? No? When will they come out?"

Somewhere around June of this year, most of my conversations began to start off like this:

"Katze! Hey, how are you? How are the wedding plans coming? Are you excited?"

The last thing I ever wanted was to become That Bride. I was at a party with Ash last summer and it was one of those parties where the men go off together and the women hang out in the kitchen. I knew only a handful of the people at the party, mostly men, and I didn't even know any of them very well, but I had gotten this big pep talk from Ash about meeting new people, so I was bound and determined not to just hang on Ash's arm all night and be bored and anxious. I joined the ladies in the kitchen with a glass of wine in my hand (ahhhh, social lubricant). The topic of conversation? Weddings. One girl's upcoming wedding, another's recent wedding, another's wedding later that year, guest lists, caterers, flowers, colors, blah blah blah blah blah insignificant details that no one should get so worked up over blah blah menu choices blah blah blah favors blah blah linens blah blah gahhhhhhrrrrrgggggggggeiiiiiiiiiiiiiii, there isn't enough wine in this house to make me want to continue this conversation. *

The thing is, it's very hard not to get sucked into the wedding vortex. It would be very easy to let myself get consumed by the sheer volume of stuff to do, and I don't even care what color the table napkins are. In fact, a week ago, the length of my to-do list, which includes several things, all of which must be done NOW NOW NOW and which are truly important-- necessary, even.

Which meant that everytime I'd end up in a small talk kind of situation-- being in the elevator with a coworker, for example-- I'd find my blood pressure rising involuntarily at the inevitable query. How are the wedding plans going? NOT NEARLY WELL ENOUGH, THANKS FOR ASKING, WOULD YOU LIKE TO HELP ME ADDRESS ENVELOPES, FIND A SEAMSTRESS, PICK AN ENGAGEMENT PHOTO FOR OUR GUESTBOOK, ARRANGE FOR A SOUND SYSTEM, PICK OUT THE DESIGNS FOR THE CAKES, wait! Where are you going?? I was just getting started!

The biggest thing that we hadn't done yet, as of last Monday at any rate, was to get our invitations out. I'd already spent several hours hand addressing the envelopes for the RSVPs and for the invitations themselves, but as of Sunday night when we went to bed, I think I was only 2/3 finished. I hadn't made the final edits to the text, set up the template, or even found the exact right ink for the starry tree (the same one I used for the Save the Date cards). I'd bought a DIY invitation kit from Target-- ivory with an ivory pearl border. My original vision involved using a matching pearlized ink to put the tree at the top of each invitation, with the text centered directly under. The only problem is that no matter how shiny or pearly or opaque an ink claimed to be, it simply could not be seen unless you held the paper just so under a bright light.

Hulio and I discussed this problem at length in the week leading up to our visit to Ash's sister, Elizabeth. Once we got there, Elizabeth got in on the action, and the next thing you know, we were wandering the aisles of a Hobby Lobby** somewhere on the outskirts of the city, pondering whether or not a hair dryer would work in place of the $20 heater for melting embossing powder. Just as we were about to give up, we found an ink different from any of the others I'd seen in my multiple trips to various craft stores: dark blue with a gold underlay. I wasn't exactly sold on the idea-- I figured it would clash with the pearl borders-- but since I wasn't exactly brimming with other, superior inspirations that would make Martha Stewart cry with a mixture of awe and jealousy, I bought the ink and figured we'd give it a whirl.

Monday night, I spent the better part of the evening cruising wedding invitation websites, trying to polish the wording. One site in particular provided us with hours of entertainment over the past several weeks, as we read the cheesiest and most obnoxious examples of rhymed couplets full of puns for various wedding "themes".

They turned out better than I expected.

Ash and I were up waaaay past our bedtimes, but we got the invitations out, hallelujah! Because, see, we have to get the final headcount to the caterer, ummmm... right after Labor Day. I swear to you, I didn't mean to procrastinate and put things off to the last minute, I really didn't. It's just that somewhere along the way, what with recovering from the accident, dealing with the insurance company, dealing with getting the new car, going to physical therapy, and trying to dig out from the enormous pile of gifts that have been arriving ever since Ash's family held a wedding shower for us about a week after the accident, we just got a little behind schedule.

The seamstress was turning out to be a sticky little problem, too. Back in My Hometown, I know of a couple of people who could either do the alterations for me or would know someone who could. Here, I hit several dead ends with the handful of recommendations I was able to garner from the few people I know who have gotten married here-- lots of retired seamstresses, and I mean, really now, how could someone pass up the golden opportunity to come out of retirement and hem my wedding gown? I just don't understand people at all.

Finally, I lucked into a conversation with someone who had ended up with a hideously missized David's Bridal bridesmaids gown that required extensive renovation, and lo and behold, she used a woman who she described as nothing less than a miracle worker, and an affordable one, to boot.

I am ALL ABOUT affordable miracles.

The great thing about this woman is that she came to my house. In the evening. At my convenience. She brought her little box and a stepping block, I climbed into the dress, she started pinning and measuring, and 20 minutes later, she sailed out the door with my dress, leaving me with a bill to be paid upon delivery of the dress the first week of September. For hemming the dress, reshaping the bodice, shortening the straps, fixing the broken fastener and adding a bustle, she is charging me only $90. I was very recently charged almost that much to have four pairs of dress pants hemmed at a local dry cleaner***

And the funny thing is, now that I got those two big things off my to do list, everything seems managable again. But the to do list is still three pages long...

* So I guess I'm a dirty hypocrite for writing this blog entry, but then, if you don't want to read this, hitting "Next Blog" is a lot less socially awkward than extricating myself from that little hen party was.

**The aisles and aisles of Sunday School supplies probably shouldn't have surprised me, since apparently, much like Chik-fil-et, they are closed on Sundays to allow their employees to worship and spend time with their families. Still, I was a little mystified at first as to why so many items seemed to have religious overtones in a craft store.

*** I'm pretty sure I got ripped off. Last time I choose convenience above all else.

Bienvenido a Chicago

2007-08-19T11:26:00.001-05:00

Hulio pulled up to the pumps and got out of the car. I stayed in my seat, enjoying the exhilaration of being *away*, even if only for a day and a half. The door to the gas station convenience store opened and out walked a man in full mariachi regalia. He carried a brown paper bag of... something in his hand, and once he had gone three, four steps away from the door, he took a long, quick swig, then another, and another. Then he walked a few steps further, opened the freezer case holding those big bags of ice for sale, and stashed the brown paper bag and its contents deep down inside. He shut the doors to the freezer, ran his hands through his hair, spat on the ground, and --- apparently fortified-- strolled across the street to the Mexican restaurant.

Dilbert Principle In Action

2007-08-14T17:49:00.000-05:00

The sign on the refrigerator door reads "Ice machine broken". One of our department heads walks up to the refrigerator, reads the sign, thinks about it for a second and puts her cup under the dispenser, pressing the lever, which produces nothing more than a weary grinding noise. She stops... then tries again... and again... and again...

Crunch Time, Part 1

2007-08-13T20:12:00.000-05:00

Last Friday morning, Ash and I took the morning off work and appeared before the clerk in the Marriage License Bureau. We signed some papers, paid a fee, raised our right hands and swore that we appeared of our own free will and desired to be married.

We celebrated with hot dogs and Limonata from the cleverly named restaurant in the Cathedral downtown. Then we walked a few blocks and visited the jeweler who made my engagement ring. He remembered us, which surprised me, but at the same time, didn't. He patiently paged through catalogs and their own design files until I found just the right pattern for my ring, then he tweaked the design to fit my tiny fingers and cast several different wax molds in variations on the design so that I could try each of them until it was exactly right. My band will be about 4.8 mm wide, with a delicate design of vines and leaves. Ash's turned out to be a lot easier. It was really only a question of which width he wanted, since he'd already decided on a plain platinum band in the half round design. The rings will be made for us and we'll go for a fitting in a few weeks.

For the first time in months, it really seems *real*. We're getting married! No kidding! And it's not that I thought we were only pretending, it's just that it seemed like one of those things that's going to happen *eventually*, *someday*. And now I'm so excited that I can barely stand it. I can't wait!

And yet, I wish I had more time before the wedding, because I feel so overwhelmed with all the things that are left to do. I've been replaying the advice that I got from Catherine way back when we first got engaged, reminding myself that no matter what goes wrong that day, we'll still end up married, and that's what matters. It's helped me keep perspective over the past several months. Nonetheless, I still think I've crossed into the black pit of wedding obsession. I am quickly losing my ability to think about anything at all other than things I've got to do for the wedding. This is a bad thing, because I'm working two jobs right now and neither of them is the sort of job where you can perform your duties while your mind is wandering around out there somewhere.

New Wheels

2007-08-05T11:18:00.000-05:00

The saga of the insurance settlement continues. In the days immediately following my last post on the topic, I rejected the original valuation with a detailed list of what was wrong with it, along with a copy of my own research on the topic, and demanded that the valuation be re-done on a fair basis of comparison. Oh sure, they told me, no problem. That was on a Thursday.

Friday came and went with no word. I called both adjusters assigned to my case twice in the afternoon. The weekend came and went with no word-- unsurprising, I suppose, since Erie Insurance "doesn't work on the weekends", as the nasty receptionist informed me. Monday morning, I started calling every hour on the hour, beginning at 8 a.m. At 9 a.m., I reached one of the adjusters, who said that he was at another appointment, but would be back in the office within the hour, could he call me back then? 10 a.m. came and went, no call. I left another message. 11:00, 12:00. 1:00... I may or may not have let the words "insurance commission" slip during the 1:00 message. At 1:30, I was filling out a form on the insurance commission website and picked up the phone again to call-- this time from a different phone. The adjuster answered-- how very "mysterious" that he would suddenly be in the office for a number that he didn't recognize on the caller i.d. "Oh. Katze. Um, I just got back in the office and I need to boot my computer up and pull your records. Let me call you back in 10 minutes." Suuuuuure. But OK, if that's the game, I'll play. At 1:45, I called back and left a message that began, "Kevin, this is just getting silly now, don't you think?"

By 2:00, I had the complaint form filled out and decided to wait until close of business to click send, just to give Kevin a fair chance to return the call. At 3:00, I called again from yet another phone and, when Kevin answered, the first thing out of my mouth was, "I have no intention of waiting for a return call that will never come, so let's get this taken care of, shall we?"

Seems that when Kevin ran the numbers using cars that are actually comparable to mine the numbers came up quite differently. "Those Toyotas sure hold their value" was his remark to this. NO DUH. Do you think that's why I might have been utterly insulted by your original offer? The new, revised offer came to $7500-- not exactly a small difference, and much more in line with what I would consider a fair settlement. Ash and I decided that the $400 or so in difference between our average and theirs was not worth fighting over and accepted.

So three days later, we used the settlement as a down payment on a new Toyota Matrix. It was not the car I thought I'd buy, to be honest. When Ash and I first set out, I intended to buy another Corolla. I've had two so far and loved them both. Why mess with a good thing, right? But at the first dealership we visited, the salesman stopped at the Matrix, which was parked right next to the door. Ash was already pretty infatuated with it before the salesman opened his mouth, and after a tour of the safety features and what I call the "cool features" (no idea what the proper automotive industry term for that would be), Ash was in love with the car, and I was developing my own crush.

However, I was starting to hate the salesman.

See, I am not an idiot. I do lots of research before making a major purchase of any kind, and especially before the sort of purchase that you're going to spend what amounts to 2/3 of a year's law school tuition on, and intend to live with for the next decade or so of your life. The second question the salesman asked me* was what kind of car I had previously, and I'd told him that it was a 1999 Corolla CE. So you know, it probably wasn't the wisest idea for him to start his spiel on the safety features of the Matrix by telling me that one advantage of the Matrix over the Corolla is that the Matrix can be ordered with anti-lock brakes, but that you can't get anti-lock brakes on a Corolla. Gee, that's funny-- I could have sworn that I just spent the past 9 years driving around in a Corolla with anti-lock brakes. Trust factor reading at negative 200, Captain!

It's like when I was shopping for my last car. Hulio and I set out together to test drive the two models that I had narrowed it down to after my research: a Civic and a Corolla. At the Honda dealership-- and I swear this is true, even though it sounds like something out of a bad sitcom-- the salesman opened (OPENED!) his sales pitch by flipping down the visor and showing me the lighted vanity mirror. Who does this?? It might have been different had he started with things like safety features and gas mileage, then segued into a tour of the interior that happened to include a quick mention of the lighted vanity mirrors**, but he totally acted like he thought I would whip out my checkbook right then and there.

So Ash and I looked at the Matrix, at the Yaris, at the Scion and at the Corolla. The Yaris and the Scion were rejected as too small-- poor Ash couldn't comfortably sit in either of them. The salesman brought out a Matrix and we took it out for a spin. That's when I started to fall in love a little bit. The interior is very well laid out and surprisingly roomy, given that the Matrix is built on a Corolla chassis. It accelerates well and handles nicely, and it has lots of nice little extras that make a car more pleasant to drive.

We had planned to take a Corolla out after that, but by the time we got back to the dealership, my back was screaming and I was ready for a nap. We made our excuses and started inching toward the door, but the salesman just kept talking, bringing us more brochures, asking us more questions. It took forever to get out the door. Back in the rental car, my first words to Ash were "If we do buy a Matrix, it won't be from that guy."

A few days later, we'd gone to a Pontiac dealership to take a look at the Vibe, which is the same car as the Matrix-- they're even produced in the same plant***-- and Ash's grandfather worked at GM for 45 years, which means that Ash is eligible for GM employee pricing. We liked the Vibe about as well as the Matrix, which I suppose isn't shocking, since the only difference between the two cars is the styling. The quote was at the high end of what we'd decided we could afford to spend, and we decided to visit a different Toyota dealership and see if we could leverage the Pontiac quote to get a better price on the Matrix.

The experience at the second Toyota dealership we visited was much different. Perhaps this was because we came in knowing exactly what we wanted and didn't need to go through all the preliminary stuff. Perhaps, though, there's just a different set of core values at that dealership. I had taken the Corolla there for oil changes once or twice because they're much closer to my office than my regular mechanic, and I was quite impressed with the way the service manager treated me. At any rate, our salesman didn't dish out the crap the same way the first guy did. We told him what we wanted-- a Matrix with anti-lock brakes**** that isn't white, black, or silver, and doesn't have a sunroof (because Ash's head hits the ceiling in the sunroof version-- the salesman at the first Toyota told him he could just lean his seat back further back)-- and then we told him what the quote from Pontiac was and asked him what he could do for us. He searched the local inventory, found a car at a dealership about 100 miles away, and came back with a quote that put the price of a Matrix toward the low end of what we had decided we were able to afford.

I've had it for about a week now, and it's great. I took it home to my wedding shower this past weekend and I was able to fit all the shower gifts, plus 133 candles and holders and 17 glass cake stands, plus a huge basket of laundry, plus a bag full of stuff to make invitations. One of the little things that I really like about it, and it's a silly thing, is that it has a power outlet in the dashboard, a normal power outlet just like the ones in your home. It sits a little higher than my Corolla did, which took some getting used to. It's very easy to drive. It promises to get gas mileage similar to my old Corolla, but it's too soon to really know how that will play out in real life. I've gone through 2 1/2 tanks of gas in about 900 miles of mixed driving, so it seems like it will be pretty comparable-- I was getting about 30 or 31 miles to the gallon in mixed driving and about 34 or 35 miles to the gallon for highway driving.

Next up: dealing with titling the cars, and arguing over medical bills and pain and suffering damages. Hooray!

*The first question was "What brings you here today?", which made me want to answer "We're hungry, could you whomp us up a little chow?".

** Which, STILL! Who buys a car based on the lighted vanity mirror? Especially on the driver's side-- shouldn't you be paying attention to something other than your makeup while you're driving, especially if it's dark enough to need a lighted mirror to see it?

*** I was surprised to learn that Toyota and Pontiac had entered into that kind of joint venture. I guess it's working out well for them because now that I've got one, it seems like I see Matrixes (or, as Ash insists on saying, Matrices) and Vibes everywhere I go.

****Which, apparently, the local dealerships have decided price the cars out of the range at which they can get people in this area to buy. The first time a dealer told us that, I thought it was a load of hooey, but each subsequent dealer told us the same thing, and the stock on lot bore it out. For example, at the Pontiac dealership, they had 20 Vibes in stock, but only 4 had anti-lock brakes. Why on earth would you want to buy a car WITHOUT anti-lock brakes? I think they're one of the best safety innovations since the seat belt! Those anti-locks saved my goose more than once when I lived in Buffalo.

Have Y'all Finished Harry Potter Yet?

2007-07-25T20:54:00.000-05:00

I want to blog about it, but I don't want to spoil it for anyone, so I thought I'd wait awhile. I'll obviously put spoiler warnings on it, but since this is the very last book, I don't want to ruin anyone's fun.

2007-07-23T20:16:00.001-05:00

To the person who came here by googling jerk boyfriend bar exam:

If your boyfriend is being a jerk and is about to take the bar exam, cut him some slack. It's incredibly stressful. He'll go back to normal somewhere around Thursday or Friday of this week.

If you're taking the bar exam and your boyfriend is being a jerk to you, dump him. He ought to be a little more understanding about how incredibly stressful it is.

Caveat Piaculum

2007-07-22T21:40:00.000-05:00

Thank you for all the well wishes, both in comments and in email. It really helped those first couple of days when everything was so overwhelming.

At my follow up visit with the doctor, I was diagnosed with a sprained back. The sprain is causing swelling, which in turn is putting pressure on the spinal cord. It's not the kind of pressure that would, say, cause you to become a parapalegic, but because there are so many nerves, it is causing a lot of pain.* So now I am in physical therapy, which is supposed to help reduce the tension, control some of the inflammation in conjunction with the 800 mg ibuprofen horse pills I've been swallowing, and hopefully help the muscles to heal correctly so that there won't be any lingering problems. It seems like I was lucky and the joints were not affected, just the muscles. The general consensus seems to be that it will be a good month before I'll be back to something like normal.

Unfortunately, things are NOT going so swimmingly with the Other Driver's insurance company. I feel like I've done nothing all week but fight with the various people working on each tiny piece of my claim, and it's pissing me off royally. I bore NO FAULT whatsoever in this accident, and I bore the brunt of the injury, both physically and financially. I am not unreasonable, but I want to be put back into the position I was in before Little Miss I-Speed-And-Don't-Pay-Attention-To-The-Traffic came into my life.

Actually, what I want, what I really want is to transfer my suffering onto her. I want her to wake up every morning in pain, I want her to be unable to carry a basket full of laundry to the basement, I want her to be unable to sit or stand or lay in any position comfortably. And I want her car to be destroyed. Then I want her to have to deal with the jackassery of her insurance company while juggling work, doctor's appointments, and the search for a replacement car, all while being exhausted from being in pain all the time. Oh, and I want her to find that she will be unable to replace her vehicle for anything like the money the insurance company claims her car is worth on the open market.

The best part of the week-- and by "best", I mean "the part that nearly made me lose my shit"-- was when I went to the body shop where they towed the wreckage of my car so that I could get the rest of my personal items out of it before they haul it off to be junked, and the stupid cow who caused the accident was standing there on the steps, talking on her cellphone, bitching to someone about how the insurance company was taking away her rental car, but her SUV wouldn't be finished for two more days, boo freaking hoo. She saw me and fell silent, watching me walk past. I did not acknowledge her in any way, but I wanted to punch her stupid face in. Especially because her insurance company had also ordered me to return my rental car on the basis that they'd determined the value of my car, so...

The second best part of the week was when I got to yell my way up the chain of command about that. I guess I'm just not understanding how it is that I am deprived of my means of transportation due to the negligent action of Stupid Cow-- the means for me to get to work and to the doctor's appointments that are necessary thanks to that selfsame negligence on Stupid Cow's part, not to mention the means by which I would be able to conduct the search for a replacement for the car that she destroyed, but it's not her (or, by extension, her insurance company's) responsibility to provide me with a replacement for the duration of the time that it takes to resolve this situation. It was only after I moved through five different people that I was able to get a temporary reprieve-- a three day extension. I still have to turn my rental car in tomorrow. Now ask me if I've received a check for the car. That would be a big negatory, good buddy! So how am I supposed to replace it? Well, Erie Insurance sure doesn't give a rat's big fat patootie! That's MY PROBLEM to resolve! Screw the fact that STUPID COW WAS AT FAULT, NOT ME.

Then there's the method they used to value my car. I guess I should be grateful that they weren't using the blue book value. Instead, I was told that they would use a database of actual cars listed for sale by dealers and private sellers and pull a list of 1999 Toyota Corolla CE with mileage within the 77,000 that was on mine at the time of the accident. They would then calculate two averages, one national and one local market, and pay the average of those averages. Seems fair enough on the surface. Except when I actually got my copy of the valuation, the fourteen cars listed on it included a) the lesser version of the Corolla (the VE), which cost quite a lot less at the time I bought my car, but which included significantly less in equipment and features, b) several cars with well over 100,000 miles on them, and c) several cars with no mileage specified in the ads whatsoever.

When I performed a manual search of about seven big online classified listings like cars.com, I found a grand total of ten 1999 Corolla CEs with between 71,000 and 82,000 miles on them in the entire country. One had damage on the driver's side door and was selling for $5,800. The others all ranged between $6,495 and $9,599. The average price worked out to something like $7,900. The insurance company's average figure? $5,400. The amount they bumped that for the brand new, just installed in January tires? $10-- $5 for the rear tires and $5 for the front.** We argued. Long and loud. They are doing a second search. I hope that it reveals a much better result, but obviously I'm not holding my breath.

Look, I understand that it's their job to settle my claim for as little money as possible, but that really shouldn't mean acting unfairly. Yes, please do an accurate inspection of my car and please also do a proper valuation based on the actual value of the car, not just what I think it's worth. I'm not asking for them to buy me a brand new Prius*** or pay off my law school loans. In the words of Sally, All I want is what I have coming to me".

Tomorrow is another day. Full of arguing with the insurance company. If I'd wanted to do this sort of thing, I would have sought a job as a personal injury attorney. I'm really starting to wonder if I need to seek out the services of just such a person.

*I probably just mangled that explanation. But we're not in court, so meh, close enough.

**I really, really want to know where they buy these tires that cost $2.50 each. That could totally come in handy down the road!

*** That would totally be sweet, though.

Silver Lining

2007-07-15T21:01:00.000-05:00

Vicodin + Hot Wax = Easiest, Least Painful Hair Removal Ever

Perspective

2007-07-14T07:57:00.001-05:00

It's hard to decide how to start this blog post. Do I write a narrative, starting with the mundane, building suspense to the point of the crash, then show what happened after as denouement, leaving catharsis for a later post once I acheive such state myself? Do I begin with the terrible crash and the horrific moment of flying forward, smacking into another car? Do I go for humor, talk about how the other driver sure picked the wrong car to demolish, what with being owned by a lawyer engaged to a soon-to-be lawyer?

The important thing is that I walked away. Not unharmed, but I walked away, and so did everyone else in the accident. I know this, and I haven't lost sight of that, but I'm still pissed as hell.

I was stopped at a traffic light, waiting for red to turn green, talking to a coworker with whom I've formed an occasional carpool. She-- the other driver, that is-- claims that she never saw us, never saw the light, doesn't remember the accident at all, she just knows that her airbags went off. I call bullshit. I bet the stupid cow was talking on her cellphone. She never touched her brakes-- not only did I not hear a squeal of brakes in the moment before the crash, we drove past the accident scene the next morning on the way to try and get my personal belongings from what's left of my car, and there is not a single skid mark.

My car, my poor, wonderful, well-cared for car, did its job. It crumpled. There is nothing left of the back end, really, and what's left of it is sitting up in the back seat. In fact, the first thing I thought when I saw the car the next day was, If we'd had children in the back seat of the car, they'd be dead. The first thought I had when I got out of my car in the immediate aftermath, glass everywhere, the smell of smoke in the air (I guess from her airbags), the sound of sirens coming toward us, was I can't believe I'm not dead right now. The front end is crumpled from being forced into the car in front of me.

The accident happened right in front of a police station, just a couple of miles from a hospital, and the police and ambulance were there within minutes. The EMT took one look at the wreckage, identified me as the driver, and strapped me to a backboard. I've never been claustrophobic, but the first few minutes strapped down like that, utterly immobilized, were extremely frightening. I started to gasp for air, feeling panicked. They gave me some oxygen and the feeling of panic lessened as I got over the initial shock of being unable to move even a little. I could feel something scraping at my back, and everything else felt like I'd been kicked by a horse. I heard the EMT call in our ambulance MVA, 31 year old female restrained driver, possible spinal injuries, and the ambulance lurched to a start. No sirens, though, so I pushed back the terrible thought that I might find myself unable to walk or worse. The EMT made a joke with me about how I should make sure to call the local TV Personal Injury Lawyer because the woman in the SUV was so clearly at fault, and I started to laugh, because it popped into my head for the first time that I am, you know, a lawyer.

Ash came to the hospital and met me in the emergency room. I cannot begin to describe how distressing it was to know that people were coming and going, talking to me and about me, but I couldn't see them. All I could see were the ceiling tiles, which, because the pediatric room was the only open room when I arrived, were covered with little paw prints. Ash stood next to the bed, talking to me so that I could tell where he was. After a physical exam, I was unstrapped from the backboard, but the neck restraints were left in place and I was instructed to lay still while we waited for a pregnancy test to come back-- and boy, was it fun to use a bedpan! I think I'll go out and buy one for recreational purposes!-- and then they wheeled me off for an extensive set of xrays. The doctors and nurses who took care of me were very kind and reassuring in what was really a frightening situation for me. Finally, it was confirmed that nothing was broken. Official diagnosis: soft tissue damage. I've also got scrapes and bruises from my seat belt (thank you seat belt, for keeping me safe) and my shins are bruised from, I think, hitting the edge of the console. I've picked some glass out of my scalp, and there's a spot on my back that I think may have a small piece of glass in it still.

But I walked away. And if you could see the remains of my car, you'd be amazed by that.

Today, three days after the accident, I am still in a good deal of pain. I missed two days of work so far, but I am hopeful that I will be able to go back on Monday. Thursday was bad, Friday was worse, and today was better than either Thursday or Friday. My back hurts a lot. It feels like my spine is being compressed when I walk. I'll be following up with my physician later this week sometime. I must admit that I am very, very scared about the possibility that the pain won't stop, that I'll join the millions of people who have chronic back pain, and it's pissing me off. The careless action of some idiot driver is causing me physical pain, financial loss, and no small degree of inconvenience and stress in dealing with insurance. And my wedding shower, which was scheduled for today, had to be cancelled because I can't travel such a long distance just yet.

I might not be quite so angry about all of this if it weren't for the fact that she's not taking responsibility for what she's done. Maybe she's very remorseful and I just don't know it. Maybe she hasn't been able to sleep for worry about the damage she caused. But her statement to the police was the biggest piece of bullshit I've ever seen. And just to add insult to injury, when Ash and I went to get my things from the car, we saw hers: it has a dent in the front and the airbags deployed. That's it. Her insurance will pay to have that fixed and her life will go on. My car is obliterated. And they probably aren't going to pay me enough to have it replaced.

You've probably noticed that I didn't mention the driver of the car in front of me. I habitually stop a good distance back from the car in front of me for precisely this reason-- you never know what the person behind you might do. I still hit him, but the damage to his car was pretty minimal-- it looks like I knocked his back bumper off and that was it. Thankfully, the police report specified that I had "no contributing action" in the accident, so even his damages will go back to the SUV driver with no question.

We all walked away from the accident. That's the most important thing.