why did I come home again?

good question.

The joys of parenthood

I never realized how hard it would be to find those little metal buckets (you know the ones I mean; about 3 1/2 inches high, you see them stuffed with candy as a teacher present or whatever) or even just little plastic flowerpots! I mean, jeez! Dollar General - no. Ace Hardware - no. Target - no. Walmart - had some smallish plastic flowerpots, and some miniature washtubs, but none of those little buckets.

Washtubs it is.

So while I'm looking for little metal buckets, or little plastic flowerpots, we run into an old - I guess she's a friend; or used to be a friend. Gah. She's okay, just carries baggage with her from the past that I'd just as soon skip.

J sent me this AWESOME link - said he figured it was right up my alley, and that it reminded him of me, too. I went and read it.
WOW WOW WOW WOW
It's like - the me that could have been. I *wistful sigh* used to be a perfect size 6. Before I got happily married, mothered and domesticated, I had considered becoming a Geisha... and the brain on this chick! Here, go read her: Elle Wakefield

One of the links on her blog led me here: Nationmaster. She was talking about how the US spends more on defense than all the other countries of the world COMBINED, which was bad enough... I started poking around, looking at other statistics. I took a look at percentage of GDP spent on education by different countries, and just about swallowed my tongue.

WE COME AFTER LIBERIA? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
We come FORTY SEVENTH:
#1 Moldova 10.3%
#2 Namibia 8.5%
#3 Denmark 7.7%
#4 South Africa 7.5%
#5 Uzbekistan 7.4%
#6 Barbados 7.3%
#7 Saudi Arabia 7.2%
#8 Sweden 7.1%
#9 Finland 7%
#10 New Zealand 6.9%
#11 Botswana 6.9%
#12 Norway 6.9%
#13 Israel 6.9%
#14 Jamaica 6.8%
#15 Cuba 6.7%
#16 Tunisia 6.6%
#17 Saint Lucia 6.5%
#18 Ukraine 6.4%
#19 Lesotho 6.4%
#20 Estonia 6.4%
#21 Jordan 6.4%
#22 Seychelles 6.3%
#23 Latvia 6.1%
#24 Congo, Democratic Republic of the 5.9%
#25 Ireland 5.7%
#26 Libya 5.7%
#27 France 5.6%
#28 Slovenia 5.4%
#29 Belarus 5.4%
#30 Australia 5.2%
#31 Fiji 5.2%
#32 Lithuania 5.2%
#33 Swaziland 5.1%
#34 Dominica 5%
#35 Austria 5%
#36 Venezuela 5%
#37 Netherlands 4.9%
#38 Macedonia, The Former Yugoslav Republic of 4.9%
#39 Liberia 4.9%
#40 Hungary 4.9%
#41 Morocco 4.9%
#42 Bolivia 4.8%
#43 Panama 4.8%
#44 Belize 4.8%
#45 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 4.7%
#46 United Kingdom 4.7%
#47 United States 4.7%
(Caveat: this data is from 1990-99.)

fever dreams...

Middle school sucked. Add Higgins (from Magnum PI) as your French teacher, and then have him teaching you art that day. Add pissed off new student who gets upset with Higgin's evaluation of her French skills and proceeds to beat the living dogsh*# out of him.

There was lots more, but the mental image that stays with me is sitting in a room in the teachers-only area with my mother (the science teacher) and Higgins, picking fragments of the bicycle (that the girl used to help beat him with) out of his skin with tweezers from my keychain multitool.

It doesn't FEEL like winter...

I want one of these!

While putting the kids to bed tonight, I had a couple of interesting invention ideas.

For deaf people, a wristwatch that has an alarm function that rather than beeping, pokes you. Some sort of mechanical mechanism that makes bumps stick out rather than a beep, or vibrates, or maybe a tiny shock or something - great for deaf people or people who want a silent alarm that isn't obvious say, in a meeting, or in a movie...

altho, now that I think about it, I think I can do that with my cellphone. Hrm.

Altho a deaf person wouldn't have a cellphone, now that I re-read it.

Anyway, the other idea I had (as I was trying to put the kids to bed and the damn phone kept ringing) was some sort of device that you could connect between the phones and the wall (like the DSL filters we have) that had a centrally located button that you could push that would prevent the phones from ringing. ('cause if you've got 5 phones in the house, it's a pain to go around and turn all the ringers off, and if you take the phone off the hook, then nobody can get thru.) When a person called it would answer and say "we're currently trying to put the children to bed, if this is an emergency please press 1, otherwise please leave a message and we'll call you back." so if they pressed 1, the phones would ring, and if not, it would forward them to your voice mail.

Dinner party yesterday was awesome - and our house is gorgeous, and the food was incredible, and I had about 7 people not come, but all the rest were there and it was wonderful.

J & Patrick are still working, so I have the house to myself... it's kinda nice; clean, decorated for christmas house, I got the kids to bed & asleep by 8:30... quiet, calming...

*contented sigh*

I've taken this before, but it's interesting to see what's changed since then...

Your Results:

The top score on the list below represents the faith that Belief-O-Matic, in its less than infinite wisdom, thinks most closely matches your beliefs. However, even a score of 100% does not mean that your views are all shared by this faith, or vice versa.

Belief-O-Matic then lists another 26 faiths in order of how much they have in common with your professed beliefs. The higher a faith appears on this list, the more closely it aligns with your thinking.

1. Unitarian Universalism (100%)
2. Liberal Quakers (96%)
3. Neo-Pagan (89%)
4. New Age (86%)
5. Mahayana Buddhism (82%)
6. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (81%)
7. Theravada Buddhism (80%)
8. Reform Judaism (75%)
9. Secular Humanism (72%)
10. Bahá'í Faith (69%)
11. New Thought (69%)
12. Taoism (67%)
13. Orthodox Quaker (66%)
14. Scientology (66%)
15. Jainism (64%)
16. Sikhism (62%)
17. Nontheist (58%)
18. Hinduism (57%)
19. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (50%)
20. Orthodox Judaism (47%)
21. Islam (46%)
22. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (40%)
23. Seventh Day Adventist (37%)
24. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (31%)
25. Eastern Orthodox (23%)
26. Roman Catholic (23%)
27. Jehovah's Witness (15%)

My mother, bless her Roman Catholic soul, would probably be saddened to learn that it barely made the list. (Of course, I doubt her test results would make R.C. the top choice either.)

What a week

Colonoscopy, sick kids, sick me...

Reminds me of a joke.

"bitch, bitch, bitch...
whine, whine, whine...
You wanted a puppy, so I got you a puppy
you wanted a baby, so I got you a baby
now the puppy eats the baby and what do you do?
bitch, bitch, bitch...
whine, whine, whine!"

Anyway. Hope everyone out there is survivng well & happily; Let's go out & have coffee some time.

Shower thoughts...

Got up early today; am planning on taking M to school and then coming back to take J for his colonoscopy. Poor man - he said he might not be able to be that far away from a bathroom, or he'd come with me.

While I was washing my hair, I had a sudden thought.

I'm going to run for elected office.

(I have a lot of hair, so I had a lot of time to think about this in the shower.)

After reading the latest news about who's taken money from Abramoff, how pork is attached to bills, how congressmen vote for bills having hardly read them, or read just the summaries.... hell, I can do a better job than that.

I'm crazy, you say? Welll, yes, but evidently 18% of the American people will have a mental disorder at some point in their lives, so at least I'm representative of the population, you know?

Sordid past - yup. So what? I definitely learned from my mistakes.

Kids are awake - gotta go get them ready to go. What do you think?

Note to self:

colonoscopies are not for the faint of heart.

Not because having a camera shoved up your ass is less than enjoyable, but because hyperosmotic laxatives are fucking evil.

I can't wait for the weekend.

Bleah

This is the second or third time I've opened up this web page to make an entry, and gone "eh..." and ended up closing it without typing anything.

I had two moments of cheerfulness on the way home this afternoon - drove through two rainbows! I think Moira saw them when I pointed to them, too. I'm not sure.

I'm at that place in my life when I'd like to make a few friends so I have somebody to talk with during the day - but the idea of going out and meeting new people is exhausting. People suck, as a general rule, and I just don't have the energy to use on sucky people right now.

Speaking of sucky people, if I ever doubted it, I now have proof that karma really does come back around.

My Adiumy is a turkey wearing a pilgrim hat.

I think I'm going to see if I can find any sane, mature people who want to play some sort of role playing game. I was looking over the 3.5 edition players' handbook last night... interesting new stuff. J also showed me Victoriana which I think I'd enjoy.

Moira is still sick. She's evidently like me when I was a kid - get a cold; develop a secondary ear infection. *sigh*

It's a wonderful rainy November day here - not very cold; great napping weather. I'm hoping to get both kids asleep so I can check out for a little while.

I'm looking forward to my date on Saturday! I didn't even realize it, but the new Harry Potter is coming out, and J's taking me to the movies! Hopefully our babysitter is available.

More babbling another time.

Does this make me a soccer mom?

Christmas came early!

This should make the trips to Tennessee this Christmas and St. Louis in January much more comfortable. :)

EEEEEEEEEE!!!

As I sit here working on our family webpage, J is playing Neverwinter Nights - he's playing a druid with a hawk companion.

Heeheeheehee

I can't wait to start playing!

It's been so long, I'd forgotten what it was like...

Euphemisms are a wonderful thing.

Am slogging through the days lately. So much to do, so little energy. Sometimes my brain is revving at 300+mph, and sometimes I'm in neutral. It's been hard on the transmission.

Had weird dreams last night. Probably hormone inspired. It was old home night; there were many many many people from my past in this dream. Oddly enough, though, it wasn't a BAD dream.

Wow I'm tired. I wonder if the kids will let me get a nap today.

shower thoughts

Was thinking about what I heard on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me earlier - the Journey song that became the theme song for the Chicago White Sox - after they won the world series, there were probably a ton of fans who ran out and bought it.

And then I thought no, they probably ran home and downloaded it.

And then I thought you know, I think the peer to peer sharing network thing is karmic retribution to the music industry for all those decades of fucking over the artists.

Just a glimpse into how my train of thought works.

And there's the caboose!

Happy Fitzween

I don't feel it's Fitzmas yet. I'm hoping for more. Because I don't think Libby did it on his own.

As my friend said - one rat bastard down...

I wish I could put this on a bumpersticker

This makes some excellent points and would probably remind some people of some of the facts they have forgotten. So, all you supporters of the Iraq war, read on:

".....
Yesterday, the President also said:

"Some have also argued that extremism has been strengthened by the actions of our coalition in Iraq, claiming that our presence in that country has somehow caused or triggered the rage of radicals. I would remind them that we were not in Iraq on September the 11th, 2001 -- and al Qaeda attacked us anyway. The hatred of the radicals existed before Iraq was an issue, and it will exist after Iraq is no longer an excuse."

.....
let's just deal with facts and the way that they are perceived in the Arab world. America (and it various partners) were in Iraq before 9/11. We virtually occupied Kuwait militarily and had a presence in much of the Gulf region, including the Islamic epicenter Saudi Arabia, as part of our decade-long containment and confrontation with Saddam Hussein. We operated CIA paramilitaries and special operations forces throughout the Kurdish zone (Iraqi territory), collecting intelligence, fomenting coups, supporting an insurgency against Baghdad. We were bombing Iraq regularly as part of our enforcement of the southern and northern no fly zones, and we were carrying out even larger bombing campaigns to support United Nations inspections or to exact unilateral retribution. We were doggedly maintaining sanctions until Iraq cried uncle.

So yes, "the hatred of the radicals" existed before Iraq was an issue, mister President, but Iraq was an issue.

Virtually every 9/11 hijacker, virtually every suicide bomber and insurgent in Iraq today grew up in a world where the stand-off in Iraq symbolized a war with the Arab world. Load on top of that a far more consequential concern about the plight of the Palestinian people, and mix in grievances about the bombings of Afghanistan and Sudan, the notions of occupations in Somalia and Kosovo, civilian casualties always framed as America's fault, even the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

The common theme is the impunity of America and the subjugation of the Arab and Islamic (and the powerless) to the western world.

And now in societies where half of the population is under the age of 15, it is not regime change and the grand democratic experiment in Iraq that resonates: it is fighting the omnipotent.

The White House and much of Washington continues to be stuck in a post 9/11 nightmare where I believe the groupthink imagines a monumental threat to the United States and western society that just doesn't exist.

Yes, President Bush, extremism will exist after Iraq. It is made all the more potent and rewarding as we bumble about labeling it "evil" and ignoring what it feeds on.

We may fantasize about a great crusade we are embarked upon, but our greatest danger in the future is a tin ear we also have to Islam's and al Qaeda's equal fantasies. Their fantasies, and our actions, like it or not, drive the violence all around us."



Pass it on.

We're done!!!!

*Dance about, clap hands with glee*

Not only did we finish getting the last of our crap out of the old house last night at midnight thirty, but I get home and get to take a luxurious shower whilst my husband tells me that 50% of people polled think that if Bush lied about the reasons for war in Iraq that he should be impeached. And yes, before you ask, there WERE republicans that were asked. 20% of them said yes. *grin*

Now I just have to figure out our budget and try to get rid of a few bills. *sigh*

News update!

Jeremy must be part cat, because I think he just used up one of his nine lives.

He's at home. From the ICU. He's got a broken wrist, and has to go to the neurologist to check him out because of the brain swelling. He said he has a killer headache, but otherwise seems in good shape.

Fucking amazing.

And I don't have to beat the shit out of him for riding in the back of a truck, either - he was sitting on the side chatting while the truck was idling; the driver didn't realize he was sitting there and floored it, which of course sent Jeremy flying.

I feel much better now.

I'd be screaming in frustration if I had the energy

God I wish we were done moving.

*sorta collapses into bed*

Did I mention I had a really bizarre dream night before last that I seduced Mel Gibson & he fell for me? 'Course, I was way hotter in my dream than I am in real life at the moment. I looked like my 19 yr old self. Ironically, when I was 19, I had a mental impression of my body that I was fat & unattractive. Now that I'm 30, every time I look in the mirror I am shocked that I don't look like the 20 yr old that the inside of my head still expects to see... I look more like the mental impression of myself that I had when I was 19. What a gyp.

Anyway, today was interesting. Stayed up way too fricking late reading comics, news, setting up NewsFire, etc. last night. M woke me up around 6 or 7... I think I managed to get both of them back to sleep at about 10. We were all originally going out to dinner to celebrate my dad's 85th birthday, but Sue's husband Jim (who also just had a birthday) was sick and so they couldn't go, and mom said she had too many papers to grade, and it's parents' weekend at FSU and there's a football game, so it would be hell at any restaurant, etc. - so J says he wants to go cook dinner for dad instead.

Some of J's boss's family lives in New Hampshire, and he'd given us homemade dark maple syrup (damn, is it good), so J made a pecan crusted pork loin that had been brined in Strongbow cider & maple syrup. Black eyed peas, greens, dad made cornbread (yes, we asked the birthday boy to make the cornbread - nobody else's is as good), J & I made this absofuckinglutely DIVINE salad - roma tomatoes, yellow tomatoes, shallots, roasted garlic clove antipasto, some sweet onion, lemon juice, and salt/pepper/spices - I'm drooling just thinking of it. Italian creme cake for dessert (dad really liked it; I was proud of picking out something different for him this year rather than a german chocolate cake like always - this might even become a new favorite!) and then we got out the music.

It was a wonderful evening. M was dancing to Tom T. Hall, Boots Randolph, the Louvin Brothers, Dylan (played Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre for mom, who laughed out loud at it), Marty Robbins... J sat down with dad and played him some great music, which I loved to see.

After dinner and dessert, while J & dad were listening to music in the living room, I actually remembered to take the compost can out for dad - however, either the liner of this can is leaking, or something had slipped between the liner and the can, because when I lifted it out it was positively COATED in eggs and maggots. EEEEEWWWW. Fortunately I'm not squeamish, so I picked up the handles and was taking it outside when one of the handles came off and the can crashed to the floor. It remained upright, so there wasn't rotten produce to clean up - but a whole lot of maggots had gotten shaken loose onto the floor. EEEEEWWWWW So I'm now trying to figure out a way to get maggots off a linoleum floor. It's a bamboo green color, and mom couldn't see the maggots, so I was trying to get them up - let me tell you, best method I found: broom and dustpan. Maggots are kinda cylindrical, so they roll into the dustpan like little squirmy rice grains. (Once they were in the dustpan mom could definitely see them, and was massively grossed out.) Mom jokes about it being an ending to a wonderful evening - and then the phone rings.

It's the 2nd grade teacher at mom's school (who, btw, was MY second grade teacher, and whose birthday is the same day as mine) who mom (indeed, my entire family) has been friends with for years. I'm in the living room, and I hear mom say in that voice that is not like any other, "Oh My God... Oh My God..." So I drift towards her to make sure she's okay and to find out what's up.

Most of you probably don't know this, but I used to tutor children. Math and science, mostly. Jeremy was a kid I tutored in science - he was smart, could be a sweetie, could also be somewhat ignorant - came from a conservative family, I think - anyway, not Nobel Peace Prize brilliant here, but definitely had potential. Lazy and disorganized, so I kinda identified with him. ;) He was a ninth grader this year. He was riding in the back or on the side of a pickup truck, and fell out - he has massive brain damage and they're not sure if he's going to survive.

I used to think I was cold & unfeeling. I've never had anybody REALLY close to me die - kids I'd gone to school with, friends of my parents, my ex-husband's grandmother... and while it was sad, I never really felt deeply touched. First time I saw my dad cry was pretty rough... and when Daniel's dad died in a car accident I felt awful for Daniel, but didn't really know his dad... but none of it was personal. Perhaps it's because I'm now a mother; I have a son. I knew Jeremy's mom. I'd kidded her about keeping Jeremy on his toes with his homework, prodding him to be organized... I'd chatted with Jeremy and two girls he hung out with/dated, and gotten an interesting glimpse into the life of a young adult... I can't imagine what his mother is going through right now, but in some ways, I can...

And after leaving my parents' house, both J & I admitted to having premonitions that dad won't make it to his next birthday... hell, I had the feeling he wouldn't make it to tomorrow morning. I hope we're wrong on that one.

So, off to soothe my son back to sleep for the 2nd or 3rd time tonight... having a stuffed up nose sucks, poor guy.

I love Friday nights

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people are so frustrating

Creationists VS Evolutionists - stupid argument; one does not negate the other (unless you read the bible literally, which I think is goofy)

Pro-life VS Pro-choice - again, stupid argument; I think once the egg is fertilized it is a potential human life, and I'm loathe to knowingly disturb it or negatively influence its odds of survival - however, having learned something from history, I know that making abortion illegal will not help reduce the number of abortions, but instead will result in higher # of womens' deaths - so why don't all you people screaming on one side or another put even HALF that much energy into improving birth control and education? You are never, NEVER going to get everybody to agree on one side or the other, so let's just make it a moot point by attempting to insure that there are no unwanted pregnancies in the first place, hrm?

War on Drugs - dammit, don't any of these people read history books? Remember what happened with Prohibition? An underground black market was created and organized crime took strong root across America. If drugs were legalized, then a good chunk of the money and violence would be removed from the equation - nhow often do you see people killing each other over cigarettes? (to use another addictive drug as an example). You could ensure quality product (eliminating overdoses due to misdosing, poisoning, etc.) and could collect tax on the sale of the drugs to use for education and drug abuse counseling. Making drugs legal would probably cut the population in our prisons in half.

So tired... falling asleep sitting up reading/typing.

You know you're a homeowner when...

you spend an hour or two taking off and replacing the faucets that connect to the washing machine.

We've gotten SO much done today, it's wonderful. The utility room is almost completely set up, the den is half done, the bedroom is half done, the kids' bedroom is 3/4 done, the playroom is half done... I'm going to sit at my desk and put things away in it while listening to Says You, and then it's bathtime, then bedtime!

So much going on

so tired...

took and picked up J & M from work and school, respectively
spent almost 2 hours cleaning toys in hot bleach water
got father-in-law's truck out of long-term parking at airport, loaded it up at old house - haven't fully unloaded it yet.
got oil changed in car
took carload of stuff from old house to new house earlier
was going to renew tag & change address on drivers' license, but too broke - will have to wait
got to hang out with my sister-in-law and let the kids run & play in father-in-law's backyard on new swingset while waiting for step-mother-in-law to get home so I could get truck key


So many things to talk about... Delay's indictment... fire in LA... looming civil war in Iraq... Katrina cleanup & rebuilding... my original bet of 15 named storms this hurricane season has been blown away (and J thought I was nuts, ha!) - we're at 17 now; wonder how many more are coming?... Supreme Court Chief Justice sworn in... wonder who W will appoint to replace O'Connor... stupid court case in Kansas about Intelligent Design (News flash people: SCIENCE DOES NOT NEGATE GOD. SCIENCE DOES NOT DISCUSS GOD. THE CREATOR IS OUTSIDE THE PURVIEW OF SCIENCE. STOP FEELING THREATENED, AND STOP ASKING US TO TEACH ABOUT GOD IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS. Teach about God at home.)... the FBI has created a new anti-obscenity task force - I guess the country is secure and the War on Terror is over... Tallahassee is debating joining a coal-burning power plant that won't help solve the problem of the energy we need in the next 7 years, and when it does come online will only provide a small fraction of the power we need in the area, at the expense of the health of anybody nearby... J has shown me nifty cool stuff at www2.meebo.com and www.writely.com... I've not had a chance to go play any of those games, and muse, did you delete your blog?... if the US was serious about becoming energy independent they'd crank up either incentives for better gas mileage in all cars or penalties/requirements for better gas mileage... they'd grant tax breaks etc. to alternative fuel users/developers... they'd create a nationwide decent rail system and encourage decent efficient local mass transportation... and it's sad, because being energy independent is a major part of our national security... has Abramoff been arrested yet?... the Republicans are crooks... no surprise... the Democrats are crooks... well, duh, they're all politicians... we're living in a plutocracy, and if you don't know what that means, you're part of the ignorant masses that have allowed it to get this bad... of course, the founding fathers created a representative government because they knew the masses were ignorant... I feel like watching Mr. Smith Goes To Washington again... campaign finance reform is urgently needed... wonder if the Republicans will manage to kill CPB this time around... no fat left to cut in the federal budget? please!... How much of what the federal government is doing should it actually be doing? I mean, based on the Constitution... why is it that Christian Conservatives support us going to war in Iraq and want us to create a democracy over there, rather than letting a bunch of radical Islamic fundamentalists create a theocracy - but they want to create a theocracy over HERE, and it's the same God?... I want to put a bumpersticker on my car that says "God gave you a brain, USE IT"... when did it become unpatriotic to point out when somebody is full of shit?... when did logic stop functioning as usual?... if we want to cut fat in the federal budget, how about any senators/representatives/presidents/vice presidents that are millionaires forgo their paycheck?... Republicans talk about "Tax and Spend Democrats" but they've become the "Don't Tax but Spend Anyway And The Next 4 Generations Will Pay For It" party themselves... when will a third political party step up to the plate and tell it like it is? Now's a great time! Republicants are hurting, Democraps are quiet - I say the Common Sense Party has a PERFECT opening right now... dammit, will I EVER stop ripping my nails off? At this rate I'm going to look awful for Matthew & Erin's wedding - fat, face splotchy, hair limp with lots of dead ends, and stubby rough nails... *sigh*...

It's now midnight and I have to get up early. Stream of consciousness writing always felt weird to me. I think I'll try it again and see how it flows. No sign of Cyborgirl yet... and now muse is missing...

I've managed not to go postal

but I'm running low on emotional endurance. Part of it is the physical tiredness; it makes my available emotional energy lower than standard anyway - but the rest is emotional fallout.

I really appreciate all the work that Kaye & Joan put into cleaning out our old place and setting up the garage sale. However, I think I now know where Megan gets her "let's throw everything away!" impulses. It amazes me, because Kaye told me how glad she was that I rescued the first baby blanket that she made for her first grandchild, when Megan threw it out on the street... here's some of the things I found in the trash:

more than $80 worth of cut, polished, loose opals
our wedding certificate
my bankruptcy paperwork
some divorce paperwork
random pieces of childrens toys (large lego pieces, little people, a miniature toy tea set, etc.)
5-10 books, notebooks, 3 ring binders, legal pads, etc.
several pairs of jeans, some t-shirts, a bunch of my underwear, the tops of two of my pajama sets, a silk dressing gown...
the leather lederhosen Justin wore as a child that we're passing on to Christian
aforementioned Capital Children's Chorus tape
the red & white knit footie outfit from Germany that J wore as an infant that we're passing on
one of my silver eeyore earrings (I hope the other one is in the house somewhere... *sigh*)
some diary pages
some photographs
lots of plug covers and other random items

Okay, so YOU tell ME - wouldn't you be pissed? Out of a pile of garbage bigger than our Ford Explorer, there were maybe THREE BAGS that did NOT have something in it that I wanted to keep.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do when I see Kaye tomorrow when I drop off Moira at school. I didn't say anything this morning, because I could understand how a folded up marriage certificate and a cassette tape could get thrown out in a mad rush... but the sheer number of things thrown away has just blown my mind. I'm afraid if I try to get into a conversation with her I'll just totally lose it and say something like "what the hell?! Thanks for all your incredibly hard work, but F*&#!!! ALL I asked of you was that you ASK ME FIRST. How would you like it if I went through YOUR stuff and started throwing away stuff??!!" AAAAAARRRRRGH

Okay, gotta go pick up J from work - we're going to Patrick's house for dinner & the Scorcese special about Bob Dylan. WOOHOO!

OMG

I'm thirty, I have two kids, a wonderful partner, and we're homeowners.

When the hell did I grow up? Unreal.

I survived the whirlwind garage sale yesterday. Got rid of a bunch of stuff - what didn't sell got immediately carted off to Goodwill. I managed not to kill anybody, altho I'm still really freakin pissed about a few things. The only bad thing about having people "help" you with a moving/garage sale is when they get it into their heads that THEY'RE allowed to decide what gets sold or thrown away. This resulted in me finding my marriage certificate, some photographs, and a recording of Capital Children's Chorus (that J & I were in together as children) - amongst other things - in the trash. I'm hoping that I didn't lose anything precious in the stuff carted to Goodwill. *sigh*

Save the aardvarks!

Okay, this is driving me crazy. Somebody wanna go here and tell me what the heck is going on?

I'm going to go back and attempt not to die. Wish me luck!

I need five of me

I
am
going
to
fucking
lose
it
any
minute
now



The cluster of ant bites I just got isn't improving my mood at all.

It still hasn't sunk in yet...

We're homeowners. If I want to paint the front door purple, I can. If I want to rip out the carpet and put down tile, I can. I can plant anything I want to in the front and back yard. I'm so excited, it's a good thing I'm so #*&$ exhausted or I wouldn't be able to sleep.

Joan has been having a blast picking out colors and painting - I have yet to be able to help paint, unfortunately. I've still got to clean up the old house, finish moving, get ready for the garage sale, and go up to Havana to get the last of the things from there that I want before it's sold.

There aren't enough hours in the day. Anybody want to come play with my kid(s) while I work?

amazing, astonishing, awe-inspiring, awesome, exciting, hair-raising, heart-stirring, impressive, magnificent, moving, overwhelming, spine-tingling...

WE'RE HOMEOWNERS!!!!


As I sit here, in OUR VERY OWN HOUSE, on a wireless network (yes, J works fast) I have yet to wrap my head around it totally.

I'm going to go take measurements of everything so we can get all geeky with SketchUp later. :D

Happy Birthday, BB King!

He's EIGHTY today. Wow. And still touring! I hope I've got that kind of energy when I'm 80.

Five hours. And then we'll be homeowners.

We're looking forward to having Thanksgiving dinner at our house this year. Everybody can come to us for a change!

interesting!

Some random things that may or may not be of interest to anybody.

Your Personality Profile

You are dependable, popular, and observant. Deep and thoughtful, you are prone to moodiness. In fact, your emotions tend to influence everything you do. You are unique, creative, and expressive. You don't mind waving your freak flag every once and a while. And lucky for you, most people find your weird ways charming!

The World's Shortest Personality Test

J's was creepily accurate too.

THIS is AWESOME. Anybody wanna come play a game with J & I?

Your Hidden Talent

You have the power to persuade and influence others. You're the type of person who can turn a whole room around. The potential for great leadership is there, as long as you don't abuse it. Always remember, you have a lot more power over people than you might think!

What's Your Hidden Talent?

Your Birthdate: August 15

With a birthday on the 15th of any month, you are apt to have really strong attachments to home, family and domestic scene. The 1 and 5 equaling 6, provide the sort of energy that makes you an excellent parent or teacher. You are very responsible and capable. This is an attractive and an attracting influence. You like harmony in your environment and strive to maintain it. You tend to learn by observation rather than study and research. You may like to cook, but you probably don't follow recipes. This number shows artistic leanings and would certainly support an talents that may be otherwise in your makeup. You're a very generous and giving person, but perhaps a bit stubborn in ways.

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

Okay, am going to stop doing silly blogthings.

I keep forgetting to mention

How utterly neato I think my hubby is. Aside from all the wonderful things he does, he reads random Wikipedia entries. He frequently shares the weirder and/or more interesting ones with me. For example, we were reading about grues last night.

What is it with us going to bed and feeling more tired when we get up than we did when we laid down?

Closing at 4pm tomorrow - hard to believe, you know? I can't wait to hook up with Joan for the garage sale of the century! And then decorating... I've coined a new home decorating style: "Tornado Victorian" - eclectic, cluttered, messy, but comfy.

Oy! Gotta look up our utility account #!

Well POO

Frankspace is no more! :( And just when I was getting to know him, too. Maybe cyborgirl or clichemonster will know how to get in touch with him - I wanna have him over for dinner or something! So Frank, if you're reading this, email me!

heeheehee

How do you titillate an ocelot?


You oscillate his titalot!


heeheeheeheeheehee

I wish we had more statesmen like Jimmy Carter...

Arctic Folly
By Jimmy Carter

Tuesday, September 13, 2005; Page A27 Washington Post

Congress is about to make one of those big decisions that marks an era. Unless wiser heads prevail, it may do it badly -- making the wrong decision in the wrong way and about the wrong place. At stake is America's greatest wildlife sanctuary, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. To dissuade Congress from this environmental tragedy, Americans must rally, and quickly.

Congress had its Pyrrhic energy victory this summer, with a new energy policy that ignores much-needed conservation measures and gives the oil industry large new tax breaks regardless of where it drills and pumps. Surely Congress has done more than enough to increase the profits of the oil industry.

Yet now, in a separate decision, the White House and Big Oil are pressuring Congress to allow drilling rigs to rip into the ecological heart of America's preeminent wildlife sanctuary. We must not confuse this with Prudhoe Bay, which lies west of the Arctic refuge and is already an industrial landscape resembling Houston more than Yellowstone.

With increasing gasoline prices bringing economic hardship and concern to many Americans, we must not be misled by oil lobbyists who are trying to convince us that our energy security is singularly dependent on sacrificing the Arctic refuge. They promote the false premise that development will touch just a few thousand acres when, in fact, it would introduce roads and pipelines spider-webbing across hundreds of thousands of acres on the fragile coastal plain.

We cannot drill our way to energy security or lower gasoline prices as long as our nation sits on just 3 percent of world oil reserves yet accounts for 25 percent of all oil consumption. An obvious answer is to increase the fuel efficiency of motor vehicles, at least to the level we set more than a quarter-century ago.

Instead, the administration recently proposed a tiny increase in gas mileage for SUVs, minivans and pickups. Not effective until the 2011 models, this would save about one month's current consumption of fuel over the next 20 years -- far less than will be saved in just one state by a new California law. The new ruling offers automobile makers an opportunity to avoid the reductions by modifying the size of various models as they persist in manufacturing gas guzzlers. It is not a coincidence that Moody's has just downgraded the debt of General Motors and Ford to junk status, while makers of efficient vehicles prosper.

I have been to the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to study the wilderness wildlife. Far from being the frozen "desert" some suggest, this is a rich, Serengeti-like haven of life: nursery for caribou, polar bears, walruses and millions of shorebirds and waterfowl that migrate annually to the Lower 48. To sit, as Rosalynn and I did, watching a herd of musk oxen circle-up to defend their young and then to find yourself literally in the midst of thousands of caribou streaming by is to touch in a fundamental way God's glorious ark of teeming wildlife.

We Americans use a lot of energy, and millions of us want to do so in a more efficient way that also allows us to cherish our disappearing wilderness heritage. In the Arctic refuge we cannot have it both ways. In the next few months Americans could lose this special and amazing place through a backdoor legislative maneuver.

Each fall Congress endeavors to combine budgetary directives covering the nation's $2.5 trillion dollar annual budget in a single "reconciliation" decision. In a tricky ploy to avoid full debate, drilling advocates have buried their despoil-the-Arctic goal in this mammoth measure. So, conservation-minded Americans must ask our elected representatives to vote down any final budget reconciliation bill that would allow the sacrifice of our Arctic sanctuary.

Now is the time to speak up for the ecological integrity of this unsurpassed 18-million-acre wilderness. Many Americans will be in Washington on Sept. 20 for the Arctic Refuge Action Day rally on the Mall and to contact congressional representatives personally.

If we are not wise enough to protect the Arctic refuge, future generations will condemn us for needlessly sacrificing the wilderness of their world to feed our profligate, short-term and shortsighted energy habit. The pathway to a better, more sustainable energy future does not wind through the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Former President Carter is the founder of the Carter Center in Atlanta.

I sit here...

entering grades into the gradebook program for mom.

These kids suck.

We close on Friday.

Dad was having trouble breathing today. Hope it's not something serious.

I need to clone myself. Soooooooo much to do.

going home. yay

HOLY FUCKING SHIT

Powell is running!

I guess his wife changed her mind...

Interesting

I feel like I've set down a large, heavy burden. I don't necessarily feel lighter, or relieved, but I do feel a sense of closure. Not sure why. Perhaps I've finally come to the emotional realization (my emotional realizations frequently come slower than my intellectual ones) that she was just a stupid kid. It wasn't personal, there was no deep meaning behind any of it - it's just one of those crappy things that happens in a world that doesn't have a discernable plan. I no longer wonder why people that are friends with her are still friends with her - their choice, and it doesn't affect me one way or the other. I don't hang out with them anyway. It doesn't mean I want to spend time with her or anything, but I think I'm finally not actively angry anymore.

That's good - 'cause goodness knows I have enough other things to spend mental energy on.

We're moving! We just bought a house! WOOHOO!!!

Now if I could just shake this cold/fever. Ugh.

First cold of the school year...

Ah, the joys of virus swapping. Could be worse, tho. Just got out of a nice long hot shower, got both kids asleep (they're tired and sick too, C got up to 102.3 today...) Woohoo! We have Alka-Seltzer plus Cold.

Drat - spoke too soon. C kinda woke up; let's see if he'll go back down quietly.

Mamaw is okay - J was right, she was irritated at everybody making a fuss over her. (I personally think Papaw was perfectly justified in being worried; I'd have taken her to the ER too.) They think she might have a blood clot in her lungs - we'll see what the tests show. Keep your fingers crossed and your prayers handy, y'all.

It appears Mr. Cox (of well drilling fame) has screwed us over. The well IS collapsed, evidently, and after replacing wiring and a pump for almost $1300, he's not returning our calls. *sigh* Having now talked to the prospective buyers, however, I like them - we'll probably end up reducing the price to compensate, if we can't get the well working.

Went and looked at the WDO repairs & new roof on our house (our house... wow, that's kinda mind-boggling to write) yesterday - I think there are a few things left to do, but so far it looks great. I've been having fun mentally decorating and furnishing the house when I have down time - something that I usually have because I'm putting off doing something. J found a GORGEOUS platform bed online for not much money that we might eventually get.

Weirdness abounds. My aunt Pat, whom I'm not sure I've ever met (maybe as a baby) and I are talking on IM (I went thru a burst of attempting to reconnect with family many months ago, and actually CALLED them in California - we've chatted occasionally since) - evidently my cousin Cheryl is on her way back home (things didn't work out for her here in Florida) and is going to call me tomorrow maybe. She's evidently in the area. I've nto seen her since she was 15 and I was 8 or 9, I think... she was a very troubled youth, and unfortunately for her, I don't think her adult life has been much less rocky. It'll be interesting to see/talk with her now.

I must be sick - I actually read through my entire online comic list just now. And my daily reading list (friends & family blogs, Felber, etc...)

A coherent thought on the New Orleans mess - there is plenty of blame to go around. From the top of the federal government down to the city leaders themselves, there are mistakes and oversights galore to bemoan. What this disaster shows me, however, is that it is not possible for the two different kinds of US citizens to co-exist in the same country. Those citizens who feel that government really should only be used for defense and a few other minor interstate legal areas, and those who believe in a bigger government that helps the poor, etc.

I used to label myself a libertarian. Some days lately I feel like a socialist. I can see both sides, honestly - I just don't see a resolution. Any ideas?

It's midnight and I'm falling asleep. I'm going to hope the rest tonight will mean I feel muuuuuuch better in the morning.

***SWOON***

Wow.

I'm going to be sore tomorrow.

But it was soooooooo worth it!

I swear, this should be a weekly thing for everybody... the entire world would feel so much better!

In the same vein...

Wednesday, August 31 2005 @ 11:21 AM PDT

When the levee breaks
by William Bunch

"It appears that the money has been moved in the president’s budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that’s the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can’t be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

-- Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 8, 2004.


This picture is an aerial view of New Orleans today, more than 14 months later. Even though Hurricane Katrina has moved well north of the city and the sun is out, the waters continue to rise in New Orleans as we write this. That's because Lake Pontchartrain continues to pour through a two-block-long break in the main levee, near the city's 17th Street Canal. With much of the Crescent City some 10 feet below sea level, the rising tide may not stop until until it's level with the massive lake.

There have been numerous reports of bodies floating in the poorest neighborhoods of this poverty-plagued city, but the truth is that the death toll may not be known for days, because the conditions continue to frustrate rescue efforts.

New Orleans had long known it was highly vulnerable to flooding and a direct hit from a hurricane. In fact, the federal government has been working with state and local officials in the region since the late 1960s on major hurricane and flood relief efforts. When flooding from a massive rainstorm in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA.

Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside.

Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars. (Much of the research here is from Nexis, which is why some articles aren't linked.)

In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to this Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness:

The $750 million Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection project is another major Corps project, which remains about 20% incomplete due to lack of funds, said Al Naomi, project manager. That project consists of building up levees and protection for pumping stations on the east bank of the Mississippi River in Orleans, St. Bernard, St. Charles and Jefferson parishes.

The Lake Pontchartrain project is slated to receive $3.9 million in the president's 2005 budget. Naomi said about $20 million is needed.

"The longer we wait without funding, the more we sink," he said. "I've got at least six levee construction contracts that need to be done to raise the levee protection back to where it should be (because of settling). Right now I owe my contractors about $5 million. And we're going to have to pay them interest."

That June, with the 2004 hurricane seasion starting, the Corps' Naomi went before a local agency, the East Jefferson Levee Authority, and essentially begged for $2 million for urgent work that Washington was now unable to pay for. From the June 18, 2004 Times-Picayune:

"The system is in great shape, but the levees are sinking. Everything is sinking, and if we don’t get the money fast enough to raise them, then we can’t stay ahead of the settlement," he said. "The problem that we have isn’t that the levee is low, but that the federal funds have dried up so that we can’t raise them."

The panel authorized that money, and on July 1, 2004, it had to pony up another $250,000 when it learned that stretches of the levee in Metairie had sunk by four feet. The agency had to pay for the work with higher property taxes. The levee board noted in October 2004 that the feds were also now not paying for a hoped-for $15 million project to better shore up the banks of Lake Pontchartrain.

The 2004 hurricane season, as you probably recall, was the worst in decades. In spite of that, the federal government came back this spring with the steepest reduction in hurricane- and flood-control funding for New Orleans in history. Because of the proposed cuts, the Corps office there imposed a hiring freeze. Officials said that money targeted for the SELA project -- $10.4 million, down from $36.5 million -- was not enough to start any new jobs. According to New Orleans CityBusiness this June 5:

The district has identified $35 million in projects to build and improve levees, floodwalls and pumping stations in St. Bernard, Orleans, Jefferson and St. Charles parishes. Those projects are included in a Corps line item called Lake Pontchartrain, where funding is scheduled to be cut from $5.7 million this year to $2.9 million in 2006. Naomi said it's enough to pay salaries but little else.

"We'll do some design work. We'll design the contracts and get them ready to go if we get the money. But we don't have the money to put the work in the field, and that's the problem," Naomi said.

There was, at the same time, a growing recognition that more research was needed to see what New Orleans must do to protect itself from a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. But once again, the money was not there. As the Times-Picayune reported last Sept. 22:

That second study would take about four years to complete and would cost about $4 million, said Army Corps of Engineers project manager Al Naomi. About $300,000 in federal money was proposed for the 2005 fiscal-year budget, and the state had agreed to match that amount.

But the cost of the Iraq war forced the Bush administration to order the New Orleans district office not to begin any new studies, and the 2005 budget no longer includes the needed money, he said.

The Senate was seeking to restore some of the SELA funding cuts for 2006. But now it's too late. One project that a contractor had been racing to finish this summer was a bridge and levee job right at the 17th Street Canal, site of the main breach. The levee failure appears to be causing a human tragedy of epic proportions:

"We probably have 80 percent of our city under water; with some sections of our city the water is as deep as 20 feet. Both airports are underwater," Mayor Ray Nagin told a radio interviewer.

Washington knew that this day could come at any time, and it knew the things that needed to be done to protect the citizens of New Orleans. But in the tradition of the riverboat gambler, the Bush administration decided to roll the dice on its fool's errand in Iraq, and on a tax cut that mainly benefitted the rich.

And now Bush has lost that gamble, big time. We hope that Congress will investigate what went wrong here.

The president told us that we needed to fight in Iraq to save lives here at home, and yet -- after moving billions of domestic dollars to the Persian Gulf -- there are bodies floating through the streets of Louisiana. What does George W. Bush have to say for himself now?

Read this and tell me it doesn't PISS YOU OFF TOO

August 31, 2005

"No One Can Say they Didn't See it Coming"
By Sidney Blumenthal

In 2001, FEMA warned that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S. But the Bush administration cut New Orleans flood control funding by 44 percent to pay for the Iraq war.


Biblical in its uncontrolled rage and scope, Hurricane Katrina has left millions of Americans to scavenge for food and shelter and hundreds to thousands reportedly dead. With its main levee broken, the evacuated city of New Orleans has become part of the Gulf of Mexico. But the damage wrought by the hurricane may not entirely be the result of an act of nature.

A year ago the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed to study how New Orleans could be protected from a catastrophic hurricane, but the Bush administration ordered that the research not be undertaken. After a flood killed six people in 1995, Congress created the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, in which the Corps of Engineers strengthened and renovated levees and pumping stations. In early 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency issued a report stating that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S., including a terrorist attack on New York City. But by 2003 the federal funding for the flood control project essentially dried up as it was drained into the Iraq war. In 2004, the Bush administration cut funding requested by the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for holding back the waters of Lake Pontchartrain by more than 80 percent. Additional cuts at the beginning of this year (for a total reduction in funding of 44.2 percent since 2001) forced the New Orleans district of the Corps to impose a hiring freeze. The Senate had debated adding funds for fixing New Orleans' levees, but it was too late.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune, which before the hurricane published a series on the federal funding problem, and whose presses are now underwater, reported online: "No one can say they didn't see it coming ... Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions are being asked about the lack of preparation."

The Bush administration's policy of turning over wetlands to developers almost certainly also contributed to the heightened level of the storm surge. In 1990, a federal task force began restoring lost wetlands surrounding New Orleans. Every two miles of wetland between the Crescent City and the Gulf reduces a surge by half a foot. Bush had promised "no net loss" of wetlands, a policy launched by his father's administration and bolstered by President Clinton. But he reversed his approach in 2003, unleashing the developers. The Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency then announced they could no longer protect wetlands unless they were somehow related to interstate commerce.

In response to this potential crisis, four leading environmental groups conducted a joint expert study, concluding in 2004 that without wetlands protection New Orleans could be devastated by an ordinary, much less a Category 4 or 5, hurricane. "There's no way to describe how mindless a policy that is when it comes to wetlands protection," said one of the report's authors. The chairman of the White House's Council on Environmental Quality dismissed the study as "highly questionable," and boasted, "Everybody loves what we're doing."

"My administration's climate change policy will be science based," President Bush declared in June 2001. But in 2002, when the Environmental Protection Agency submitted a study on global warming to the United Nations reflecting its expert research, Bush derided it as "a report put out by a bureaucracy," and excised the climate change assessment from the agency's annual report. The next year, when the EPA issued its first comprehensive "Report on the Environment," stating, "Climate change has global consequences for human health and the environment," the White House simply demanded removal of the line and all similar conclusions. At the G-8 meeting in Scotland this year, Bush successfully stymied any common action on global warming. Scientists, meanwhile, have continued to accumulate impressive data on the rising temperature of the oceans, which has produced more severe hurricanes.

In February 2004, 60 of the nation's leading scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, warned in a statement, "Restoring Scientific Integrity in Policymaking": "Successful application of science has played a large part in the policies that have made the United States of America the world's most powerful nation and its citizens increasingly prosperous and healthy ... Indeed, this principle has long been adhered to by presidents and administrations of both parties in forming and implementing policies. The administration of George W. Bush has, however, disregarded this principle ... The distortion of scientific knowledge for partisan political ends must cease." Bush completely ignored this statement.

In the two weeks preceding the storm in the Gulf, the trumping of science by ideology and expertise by special interests accelerated. The Federal Drug Administration announced that it was postponing sale of the morning-after contraceptive pill, despite overwhelming scientific evidence of its safety and its approval by the FDA's scientific advisory board. The United Nations special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa accused the Bush administration of responsibility for a condom shortage in Uganda -- the result of the administration's evangelical Christian agenda of "abstinence." When the chief of the Bureau of Justice Statistics in the Justice Department was ordered by the White House to delete its study that African-Americans and other minorities are subject to racial profiling in police traffic stops and he refused to buckle under, he was forced out of his job. When the Army Corps of Engineers' chief contracting oversight analyst objected to a $7 billion no-bid contract awarded for work in Iraq to Halliburton (the firm at which Vice President Cheney was formerly CEO), she was demoted despite her superior professional ratings. At the National Park Service, a former Cheney aide, a political appointee lacking professional background, drew up a plan to overturn past environmental practices and prohibit any mention of evolution while allowing sale of religious materials through the Park Service.

On the day the levees burst in New Orleans, Bush delivered a speech in Colorado comparing the Iraq war to World War II and himself to Franklin D. Roosevelt: "And he knew that the best way to bring peace and stability to the region was by bringing freedom to Japan." Bush had boarded his very own "Streetcar Named Desire."

Sidney Blumenthal, a former assistant and senior advisor to President Clinton and the author of "The Clinton Wars," is writing a column for Salon and the Guardian of London.

avoiding the news and my budget sheet

I've been paranoid for the last several years that a big crash was coming. I've had a little voice in the back of my head saying "you should really get a garden going... can vegetables... learn to hunt and dress different animals..." Basically preparing for the collapse of civilization. Having not done any of that, I console myself with the thought that if civilization collapses, the resulting anarchy would probably result in our deaths anyway - look at the bloodshed already taking place in New Orleans.

So I'm lying here, listening to my "calm & soothing" playlist on iTunes, and seeing how many things I can find in Graeme Base's Animalia. My old friend Rebecca introduced me to him with his Eleventh Hour mystery book, which I absolutely adored. I was going to get all geeky and start a list, but I'm falling asleep, so I think I'm going to get some rest. Good night, all.

Hrm, this should be interesting...

Have been at Uncle Khang's house since noon, making a lane cake. I'd not heard of it before he asked me if I could make him one, but the recipe looks pretty good. I gotta say, tho, it's damn near impossible to find candied cherries in this town in August. *sigh* Hopefully it'll work the way we've done it.

The kids have relaxed enough to run amok, which is good, I guess. ;) Right now we're watching the DVDs of The Muppet Show - childhood memories!! It's time to start the music....

We close on the house in two weeks. I'm trying not to think about it, honestly.

Back to baking...

I'm just full of great ideas...

To fix the hole in the levy at New Orleans - string two relatively fine mesh nets across the hole on both sides, extending plenty far on either side of the hole. Then dump a whole hell of a lot of that stuff that turns into a gel when mixed with water. That should hopefully slow the water down enough for them to get a functioning fix.

To fix both our dependence on foreign oil for energy, the obesity problem, and increase the number of jobs in our country - start building large rooms full of stationary bicycles that are attached to generators. Make time on the bicycle something that every american HAS to do, like paying taxes (without all the loopholes) - but like jury duty, you get paid some for the time. People who want to spend more than their mandated time on the bike are more than welcome to. Schoolchildren, who will be attending year round school, will have shorter days, and will get some daily exercise in not only their Phys Ed classes, but on stationary bike rooms set up in the schools - they will help power their own school. People who want to create some sort of power generating thing in their own house - whether it be a stationary bike, solar panels, or a waterwheel from a nearby stream (or maybe built in waterwheels that are turned by sewage flushing into the system...) would be given tax breaks to encourage such things, and any power that they created over and above what was needed for their own homes would be fed back to the grid. We know more about building green, energy efficient homes, with lots of recycled materials, that are safer to live in than standard construction - let's make the building codes a lot stronger, and if you want to build a standard construction home, then you'll have to pay more in insurance, energy costs, etc. We need to change our power structure - rather than having AC power, consider DC power and more local power generating places; that eliminates the energy wasted in transforming DC to AC (or do I have that backwards? Argh. Gotta check that.)

If 293,027,571 people spend ten hours a week on a bicycle that creates 150 to 200 watts at 12 to 20 volts DC an hour, that's 439,541,356,500 watts of power a week. (That's 439541357 kilowatts.) An average US household uses about 10000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity each year (or 192kWh a week). (A kWh is the expenditure of one kilowatt of power for one hour. A toaster running for an hour will use about this much energy.) So, I THINK (altho it's been a long time since I've tried to do these kind of conversions in my head) that the entire population of the US could create enough power for 84,527,184,038 households? That can't be right. I'm running late, however, and have to run get in the shower. I have a cheesecake to buy & deliver and a cake to bake & ice & a kid to pick up and it's already almost 11.

About gas...

Let's get a little perspective here, shall we?

Yes, we're going to try to sell our Ford Explorer. We bought it when we thought we were going to be travelling a dirt road daily - but we're not, and the gas mileage sucks. I would love to own an electric car, or a hybrid, or a diesel that has been converted to burn vegetable oil. (As public transportation in this city was the pits last time I checked - I'll look again, but I hold out little hope. However, I'm not going to school and work full time anymore, so my schedule is much less tight - so I could probably deal with a less than abundant bus schedule...)

That being said, I read an article in the Washington Post that brings up an excellent point.

Gas - currently about $3/gallon in the states (has been higher elsewhere for a while, people, and for a good discussion of prices elsewhere, go here.)

Average prices of other popular liquids:
Coca-Cola $1.87
Milk $3.00
Evian water $4.52
Orange juice $5.98
Snapple $6.36
Perrier sparkling water $7.83
Lemon oil $9.31
Crisco oil $10.36
Scope mouthwash $19.98
Sunflower oil $23.12
Olive oil $31.53
Real maple syrup $42.56
Sesame oil $60.37
Jack Daniel’s bourbon $98.41
Visine eye drops $766.72
Flonase prescription nasal spray $5,669.84

(Now, I can't imagine buying Flonase by the gallon, but you see my point here.)

That being said, gasoline is a different animal. When you add in the cost (to people in the United States) of the oil subsidies to Iraq, the war in Iraq, the original Gulf War, etc... we're paying a hell of a lot more for gasoline than the price we see at the pump. If anybody can track down how much of our tax dollars goes to subsidize petroleum in some form, I'd be thrilled. I'll update this post if I can find any info myself.

Dante's Inferno needs updating

What circle of hell do spammers go to?

Word verification comment posting now activated.

Wonder how long it will be before they figure out a way around that?

a few memes for fun

More Emotional


You have:
70% SCIENTIFIC INTUITION and
77% EMOTIONAL INTUITION The graph represents your place in Intuition 2-Space. As you can see, you scored well above average on emotional intuition and above average on scientific intuition. Your emotional intuition is stronger than your scientific intuition.


Your Emotional Intuition score is a measure of how well you understand people, especially their unspoken needs and sympathies. A high score score usually indicates social grace and persuasiveness. A low score usually means you're good at Quake.

Your Scientific Intuition score tells you how in tune you are with the world around you; how well you understand your physical and intellectual environment. People with high scores here are apt to succeed in business and, of course, the sciences.
Try my other test!
The 3 Variable Funny Test
It rules.

My test tracked 2 variables. How you compared to other people your age and gender:
You scored higher than 71% on Scientific
You scored higher than 80% on Interpersonal

The 2-Variable Intuition Test written by jason_bateman



Yeah, I know I'm very intelligent and very empathetic. I've gotten less empathetic over the last few years because I was so empathetic I was having trouble functioning. I kinda wish when the test was finished they'd have shown us what the correct answers were, though - I'm curious. The other thing that occurs to me is this: does anybody that takes this test and gets a result somewhere in the "stupid" circle actually post their results?




Test Results

Extroversion |||||||||||||| 56%
Emotional Stability |||||| 30%
Orderliness |||||||||| 33%
Accommodation |||||||||||||||| 63%
Inquisitiveness |||||||||||||||||| 73%

Your sloan type is SLUAI

Your primary type is Inquisitive

You are moderately social, moody, unstructured, accommodating, and intellectual, and may prefer a city which matches those traits.


The largest representation of your personality type can be found in the these U.S. cities: New Orleans, Albuquerque/Santa Fe, Greensboro, Memphis, Providence, Washington DC, Pittsburgh, Orlando, Salt Lake City, Portland/Salem, St. Louis and these international countries/regions Puerto Rico, Iceland, Kazakhstan, Luxembourg, Turkey, Ireland, Ukraine, England, South Africa, Greece, Wales, Brazil, Switzerland, South Korea


Well, New Orleans may be wiped off the face of the map after this hurricane. I had wished that J & I had had time to go back there again, so we had more happy memories of the place - but in looking through our pictures last night, I realized that there were a lot of happy memories to be had, and that they were only tainted if my memory let them be - so I'll erase that picture of a hummingbird I took for her while we were there, and in time my memory will probably only cover what the photographs cover, which will be nice.

J's dad just called - he's been holding off on our birthday presents to see if we got the house, and now that everything is official, he's going to get J a lawnmower (how sexist!) and me one of those big portable gazebo things that are screened in, so the kids & I can play outside without getting eaten alive. Eeeeeeeee! I'm so excited! Joan is going to help us decorate and paint and everything - I can't wait; I finally get to say "you know, I think I'd like this room to be green" and I CAN DO IT! WOOHOO!!

Okay, must stay focused. Lot of packing and sorting still to do. J & I spent many hours in the garage yesterday, sorting out keep/trash/garage sale, but there's still a lot to do. Dad brought down a bag full of newspaper, so I'm starting to pack the china and crystal. Mom has more boxes for me to pick up at school today. M woke up eeeaaaarly this morning, and was very excited about going to school, and C is in a GREAT mood, I keep playing kissy monster with him because he's so adorable and cheerful I just want to eat him up! He did the COOLEST thing last night. I was on the bed reading, and he came and laid down next to me on his stomach, and looked into my face, and put his hand back to touch his bottom and said "di?" Sure enough, he needed a clean diaper! How I managed to get such amazingly awesome kids I still don't know, but they're a blast.

Off to pack and clean and do laundry and play with C until it's time to go pick up big sister - I hope everybody's summer is going as well as ours is right now!

Man, some people are such LIARS!

Okay, so my parents and I decided to sell the four acres I grew up on that we've held on to all these years. For years I'd planned on at some point moving back there and building a house... but my life is totally different now, and my desires are different. It's not that I don't still love the land - I do, ticks, giant spiders and all... but I'm not particularly fond of the neighbors.

Anyway, so, love my parents though I do, they're not very good at breaking personal inertia (I can sympathize) so I introduced them to my realtor (If anybody wants to buy or sell a house around here, I gotta say Kathy Reardon has MORE than earned her commission with the house we're buying - she's a great sweetie) and basically held their hands through most of the proceedings... and there were interested buyers willing to pay full price. Woohoo! So they had an inspector go up to check on the well and septic tank that's already out there.

Let me tell you the history on this well. When my parents first moved to this land, they couldn't afford to have a well drilled. Mom was 7 months pregnant at the time. Their neighbors said that when THEY moved in, they had a similar problem, and THEIR neighbors let them run a hose to the house until they could save up to dig their own well, and that they were willing to pass it forward, so to speak. My parents very gratefully said thank you, and took them up on their offer. However, when I was about 4 months old, right before christmas, the water suddenly stopped. When dad went over to check to see what was wrong, he discovered that the couple had evidently been having marital problems, and one or the other or both of them had left, and nobody had paid the electricity bill for a while - so, no power, no water from an electric well. So I'm 4 months old; mom's doing cloth diapers, it's almost Christmas, and they have no water - she starts going down the list of well drillers in the phone book. Everybody says "Sure, we can do it.. in six months." When mom calls Mr. Cox, he took pity on her, and said that they were planning on taking christmas week off, but that they could come out and get a well drilled for my parents. He and his 19 year old son came out during their vacation... so dad cashed in his army life insurance policy, and the family had a well. (Best tasting water ever, too. I miss that water.)

So this well was put in 30 years ago this Christmas. After hurricane Kate knocked 3 trees down on the trailer up there in 85, we moved into town, and the place has been vacant ever since. J & I had been up a few times, and we'd checked the well - still worked, amazingly enough. Well, whomever the buyers had go out there to look at the well said that it had collapsed in, and quoted them $10,500 to take off the old tank & pump and get them a new well. So I called Mr. Cox's son, who was now running his father's business (his father having passed away). Not only did he remember us, he said he'd be more than happy to come out the next day and take a look at it. He explained that the reason for the high estimate was because to close up the old well, they'd have to pull out the pump, and then pump concrete down the hole to seal it off, etc (new regulation) and that most well drillers now use a rotary drill, like they do for oil drilling, only slightly modified. They charge a flat rate down to 150 ft or so, and then $12 each additional foot. Because oil drills were designed to seal off surface water above oil pockets, rotary drills for water frequently don't register any shallow water that they find, and frequently have to go as deep as 350 ft. He said they go fast; they can do that much in a day, but the way he does wells - by punching - that distance would take him 4 or 5 days. However, because of the way he punches wells, he's aware of what's happening inch by inch, and frequently doesn't have to go as deep. My parents' well was only 165 ft deep, for example.

This morning we met Mr. Cox out at the property. I think it was kind of an emotional reunion for mom, so I was glad she was there. I wish dad hadn't been feeling so poorly, I think it would have made his day too. Mr. Cox fiddled with the wires a bit, and within about 5 minutes had water gushing out. (Caved in well my aunt patootie.) He said that the wiring needed to be redone, and that the pump MIGHT need to be replaced, particularly with a slightly more powerful one, but that the well looked fine otherwise. WOOHOO! I can't wait to send his written report to the guy that the buyers had run out there & check - I think his name is Mills. He's either incompetent or dishonest - he said that he'd checked this well 4 years ago. I told the realtor that the guy was on crack or the wrong road, because nobody's been living there for forever, and certainly nobody asked to have the well checked 4 years ago! Mom joked that we should tell them if they actually WERE out there checking the well 4 years ago that she'll have them arrested for trespassing.

I'M SO GLAD IT'S FRIDAY!!!

{bounces about happily}

This has been one of the longest two weeks of my life - but it's actually been wonderful, and just about everything is looking up! I've felt so close to J lately; even through all the stress - it's been really great to have my best friend, my partner, right here. We even came up with the same idea for dinner independently yesterday, which was kinda creepy but cool at the same time. (And it was REALLY yummy.)

Gotta go - it hasn't slowed down yet.

Who Will Say 'No More'?

By Gary Hart

Wednesday, August 24, 2005; Page A15

"Waist deep in the Big Muddy and the big fool said to push on," warned an anti-Vietnam war song those many years ago. The McGovern presidential campaign, in those days, which I know something about, is widely viewed as a cause for the decline of the Democratic Party, a gateway through which a new conservative era entered.

Like the cat that jumped on a hot stove and thereafter wouldn't jump on any stove, hot or cold, today's Democratic leaders didn't want to make that mistake again. Many supported the Iraq war resolution and -- as the Big Muddy is rising yet again -- now find themselves tongue-tied or trying to trump a war president by calling for deployment of more troops. Thus does good money follow bad and bad politics get even worse.

History will deal with George W. Bush and the neoconservatives who misled a mighty nation into a flawed war that is draining the finest military in the world, diverting Guard and reserve forces that should be on the front line of homeland defense, shredding international alliances that prevailed in two world wars and the Cold War, accumulating staggering deficits, misdirecting revenue from education to rebuilding Iraqi buildings we've blown up, and weakening America's national security.

But what will history say about an opposition party that stands silent while all this goes on? My generation of Democrats jumped on the hot stove of Vietnam and now, with its members in positions of responsibility, it is afraid of jumping on any political stove. In their leaders, the American people look for strength, determination and self-confidence, but they also look for courage, wisdom, judgment and, in times of moral crisis, the willingness to say: "I was wrong."

To stay silent during such a crisis, and particularly to harbor the thought that the administration's misfortune is the Democrats' fortune, is cowardly. In 2008 I want a leader who is willing now to say: "I made a mistake, and for my mistake I am going to Iraq and accompanying the next planeload of flag-draped coffins back to Dover Air Force Base. And I am going to ask forgiveness for my mistake from every parent who will talk to me."

Further, this leader should say: "I am now going to give a series of speeches across the country documenting how the administration did not tell the American people the truth, why this war is making our country more vulnerable and less secure, how we can drive a wedge between Iraqi insurgents and outside jihadists and leave Iraq for the Iraqis to govern, how we can repair the damage done to our military, what we and our allies can do to dry up the jihadists' swamp, and what dramatic steps we must take to become energy-secure and prevent Gulf Wars III, IV and so on."

At stake is not just the leadership of the Democratic Party and the nation but our nation's honor, our nobility and our principles. Franklin D. Roosevelt established a national community based on social justice. Harry Truman created international networks that repaired the damage of World War II and defeated communism. John F. Kennedy recaptured the ideal of the republic and the sense of civic duty. To expect to enter this pantheon, the next Democratic leader must now undertake all three tasks.

But this cannot be done while the water is rising in the Big Muddy of the Middle East. No Democrat, especially one now silent, should expect election by default. The public trust must be earned, and speaking clearly, candidly and forcefully now about the mess in Iraq is the place to begin.

The real defeatists today are not those protesting the war. The real defeatists are those in power and their silent supporters in the opposition party who are reduced to repeating "Stay the course" even when the course, whatever it now is, is light years away from the one originally undertaken. The truth is we're way off course. We've stumbled into a hornet's nest. We've weakened ourselves at home and in the world. We are less secure today than before this war began.

Who now has the courage to say this?

The writer is a former Democratic senator from Colorado.

I hate summer

I've never dealt well with heat. Today the heat index was up to 105 - and we went downtown to see the caribbean festival. I wonder how many people got medical attention for heat stroke... needless to say, we didn't stay very long. I've been feeling weird for a week or two now anyway - J thinks I've developed IBS from the stress. I think I'm hormonal. Or something. It's weird, I have days (or parts of days) where I'm on top of everything; organized, with it, on time - and then days like today when my brain just doesn't seem quite connected to the rest of the planet, and my emotions are either absent or very well buried.

Happy Birthday to us!

For our birthdays this year, J & I decided to give each other a house.

Not too shabby, eh? So we're moving again. But probably for the last time in a loooong time.

Haupt, casero, à la maison, domestico, 家, 가정, 家庭, fàrdach, dachaidh, oayll, thie

Be it ever so humble, there's no place like it, no matter what you call it.

WOOHOO!

What a day

I have to agree with Khang, I think I like this one best as well. Having a kick-ass camera pays off!

I love The Straight Dope. Threadspotting is always good, and this thread sounds like a conversation my friends and I would have. Or have had, come to think of it. I remember J & Bill comparing the Hundred Acre Woods characters to WWII countries/leaders. Very entertaining; it's things like that that make me miss Bill. I have an anniversary card to send him - they got married sometime in August, I don't know when. I'll have to do that tomorrow.

Uncle Patrick took both J & I out to dinner tonight - we had a WONDERFUL time. The food at Clusters & Hops is divine - I'd never eaten there before; had always just bought cheese or wine or somesuch. Mom watched the kids for us, which was really nice of her, especially since it had just been the first day of school and she was tired. I'm not going to tell her that I'm planning on going to Mass this weekend; I don't feel like getting into an involved conversation with her right now.

We put the contract in on the house today. Our realtor called us an hour or so later and said "You won't believe this... somebody put in a contract on the house last night." Months of no action, then bam! out of the blue. So, we're hoping that they decide they don't want it, but we know the likelihood is slim and are continuing to look for a house to buy. All the ones I've seen so far & called about have been "sale pending."

Today was the orientation at Moira's school - I think she's going to really enjoy it. Miss Elizabeth, her teacher, seems really sweet.

And I am really tired and am going to go to sleep.

wow I'm tired

We didn't get back from Tampa until 3am - but Tori was wonderful. I got to hear Hey Jupiter live, and during her "Tori's Piano Bar" time (where she plays requests people have sent in to the website) she played Burning Ring of Fire - I couldn't stop laughing, but it was really well done. Then she played I'm On Fire (by Springsteen) and I cracked up again. Khang got some really good pictures, it looked like (we've got our sneaking-the-camera-routine down pat now. heehee) and I can't wait to see them. I've gotta lose some weight; I was looking at what she was wearing and thinking "hrm, that looks comfy and like something I'd like to wear...' but if I tried to wear it now, I'd look like a lumpy pillow that got caught in a wheat thresher.

We were behind the cutest gay couple (actually, we were pretty much surrounded by gay couples); these two guys were really sweet. Khang & I skipped the opening acts to have dinner - thai food! Yummm. He was nice enough to help me look up Alessi bakery - my mom grew up in Tampa and said their cuban bread was amazing - but they were already closed, so I couldn't bring her back a loaf.

Logan was sweet enough to watch the kids for me from 3 until J got off work yesterday; we made really good time on the trip down, thank goodness.

I forgot my mantra

Hopefully it'll come to me.

WTF is up with MSN's popup ad thing blocking what I'm trying to read about the Today show? No, I'm not going to download your stinking MSN popup blocking toolbar crap; I don't have Windoze and I don't use that POS Internet Explorer... once I've clicked on it once, you should darn well remove the stupid thing! {grumble grumble} I wonder if firefox would do something different than safari does...

Wrote a long post and then deleted it. Rationality wins for the night.

Maybe it's a sign...

I have a little quote-a-day flipbook thing that I usually forget for a week or two at a time. I happened to see it as I was walking past today, and went ahead to flip it to the correct day - and the quote for yesterday caught my eye:

"To thee I'll return, over-burdened with care;
The heart's dearest solace will smile on me there;
No more from that cottage again will I roam;
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home!"
- John Howard Payne



Yesterday we went and saw a house that we're going to make an offer on. I'm very excited.

Today's quote? "Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." - Abraham Lincoln

Oh, and if the world gets any nuttier or I can't stand our government any more, I've decided to start saving up money to move. It's not nearly as expensive as I thought it would be...

rejoice and be glad, for the iBook hast returned home!

Your Mood Ring is Purple

Sensual Clear mind Purpose is known

Mood Ring Generator

But no, that would have been TOO EASY...

Well, fudge. A week or so ago, our landlord called and informed us that they were selling off all their single-family properties, and we had first dibs on the one we're in. After discussing it, J & I decided that yes, it was about damn time we became homeowners and stopped throwing money down the rent hole, and went forward, doing research, etc. We had a market analysis done by a realtor that told us we should pay about $150,000 for the house. The landlord, when he had called, had said that he'd not had an appraisal done, but that he guessed the house would go for about $160,000. He wanted to get J & I on a conference call to discuss who was going to do what. When I called him back with a good time for J to be in on the call, he changed it so that we were coming by their office. The next time I talked to him, he mentioned our meeting at the office and signing a "letter of intent" to purchase. I told J about this new development, and we researched letters of intent, and were on our way to the meeting when the landlord's secretary called us; he'd had some emergency come up and couldn't meet us, and was going to be out of town this weekend, could we meet Monday? Sure. We called Monday morning and asked what time we were meeting, and then asked if we could do it Tuesday instead. Sure. So last night we go over there. I've looked up the 2004 Market Value of every house on our street, and what they last sold for... one house on our cul-de-sac with the exact same square footage sold 3 months ago for $115,000. So we walk in, and the landlord opens up his file folder with stuff printed out, and right on top of one side of the pile is a printed up "contract of sale" - J & I never said anything about it to the landlord, but I was pretty pissed. We'd gone from a phone call, to an office visit, to a letter of intent, to a contract of sale, and the bastard hadn't even gotten an appraisal done. We could tell that he was less than pleased that we'd been so diligent about our research, and told us that HIS market analysis came out at $169,900, and that they were willing to give us $5000 off of the closing or appraisal value, whichever we preferred. The jerk said he would not pay for an appraisal unless he had a contract of sale. J & I discussed it afterwards, and decided no WAY were we going to sign some stupid contract for the house when there hadn't even been an appraisal yet. *sigh*

So we doubt they're going to come down on their price, and so we're probably moving again. I'm house-hunting. Anybody know of a 3br in a nice neighborhood for sale that's not too expensive?

And I need boxes again. *groan* At least I can have a big garage sale and get rid of a bunch of CRAP before moving this time.

And I still don't have my laptop back! WAAAAA! Thank goodness my husband is so sweet as to set up a computer in the office that I can log in to... The painter's house usually gets painted last, but he's been doing a really great job of keeping our network up and happy.

Is it Friday yet?

searching for info...

Okay, a loooong time ago in another lifetime, I was reading a webcomic. It was about a girl who had left her city, and somehow the city had disappeared - it was like the city was a legend to the people outside it. Anyway, she's walking through the forest trying to find her way home, and hooks up with a hunter of some sort that she runs across - I can't remember much more, but I wanted to know if the artist continued the story, and for the life of me I can't find the damn thing. Anybody have any help to offer?

Is it friday yet?

I am at the moment enjoying a much needed mental vacation. My mom offered to watch the kids (bless her) and I'm at a local coffee shop taking a break from reality.

I'm in that emotional slump where I've lost the ability to enjoy being a parent temporarily. It's probably because J & I have been running non-stop lately; neither one of us has gotten our alone time in two weeks or so, I think. Anyway, I sit here at a coffee shop... some weirdo in the corner just answered his phone and is talking to "Pastor Nick" and asking "so did he pray about it?" You know, I've been having a real crisis of faith lately - I do think there is something, some creator type thing or somesuch, but to be honest Christianity isn't really appealing to me right now. Maybe I'm just turned off by the followers rather than the religion.

Our landlord called this afternoon - they're selling the house we're renting from them. They're giving us first dibs on it (which is really nice of them) and will take five grand off either the closing costs or the appraisal value, whichever we prefer, and they'll be credit references for us - but they'd like to have it done in the next 60-90 days max, and while our lease is up in February and we're allowed to stay until then, if we're not the ones who buy the house, there's no guarantee the next owner will rent it to us. So we get to either buy a house or move in February - neither of which I was prepared for. I wonder how much it will appraise for?

Gotta run... reality beckons insistently. I think I'll use my gift card to buy myself a new book. I blew through the new Harry Potter already (who the heck is MAB? ARGH! I hate having to wait to find out what happens! It's the only downside to reading so quickly - the books are over so fast!) and I could use an entertaining read. Maybe I'll go re-read Eats, Shoots and Leaves.

I know I go overboard.

I don't know if it's the borderline personality disorder, or if it's my desire for the romantic, elegant, victorian, etc. side of life... nine times out of ten, I could care less if my shoes match my purse; I dress for comfort and utility, not for style... I don't wear makeup.... I do something with my hair maybe once every 4 months or so... and the only jewelry I've worn in the last year or more (with a couple of special occasion exceptions) has been my wedding ring. I hate being hot, but when it's not this time of year I like to be outdoors, getting my hands into things... I miss being in good enough shape to climb trees (gotta work on that), and I miss having a garden.

That being said - there's the frilly, girl side of me that rears its head every now and then. The part that looks at costumes in period movies and wistfully thinks of silks and brocades and elaborate embroidery and gold and jewels and occasions to dress up for... the side that likes to make edible works of art (I miss decorating cakes, and I love watching those pastry competitions on Food Network).... the side that wants to throw elaborate parties with champagne fountains and twenty different kinds of hors d'oeuvres, seven courses, and for dessert chocolate fountains with myriad things for the guests to dip in them.

So what's my point in all this, you ask?

We're throwing a party tomorrow. Only 20 people are coming (and that includes all the kids) and it's only friends and family. It's my son's first birthday party. The theme? Miniatures. (He's tiny and adorable. So it's girly; sue me.) Here's the menu:
mini corndogs
mini tacos
mini pizzas
mini cupcakes (I'm planning on decorating them with letters that spell out a birthday message; one letter per cupcake)
mini waffles with J's homemade chicken salad (you have not LIVED until you've had his chicken salad)
mini quiches
mini vegetables to dip (baby carrots, broccoli & cauliflower heads cut into small florets)
teddy grahams
mini pineapple upside down cakes (Uncle Mike is making these, and I cannot WAIT, it's been so long since I've had pineapple upside down cake!)
mini eclairs
mini ice cream bites (vanilla dipped in chocolate, chocolate dipped in chocolate, and vanilla dipped in Drumstick coating)
mini oreos
mini nutter butters
mini brussels & mini milanos (Pepperidge Farm, *drool*)
I found coke & sprite bottles that are almost half the size of the regular plastic bottles (so cute!)
I'm also doing something with jello, but I've not decided what.


Am I silly, or what? We have almost 100 mini cupcakes.
I was going to do mini hamburgers - like Krystal or White Castle - and slice up cherry tomatoes and pearl onions and quarter american cheese slices to put on plates next to them. That would have been so cute! But I'm trying to not go overboard. I'm really trying. I managed to talk myself out of making mini flowerpot cupcakes (make regular size cupcakes, put enough icing on top to make it sticky, cover sticky icing with blended up oreos, stick a lollypop in it, cut petals & leaves out of sticks of gum or fruit roll-ups and stick to lollypop & stick, and stick the head of a gummy worm out of the 'dirt' - and voila, mini edible flowerpots) because I just knew that was nuts. (Maybe for one of Moira's parties when she's older.) I kept hoping we'd find those champagne grapes (they are DELICIOUS, and so cute!) but I don't believe they're in season yet.

And if it rains tomorrow, then the whole play outside thing is shot - the inflatable jump-in thing Megan lent me, the kiddie pool, the tigger sprinkler and the slip 'n slide - but you know, come to think of it, if the kids are going to be playing in the water anyway, if it's raining it doesn't really matter... but if it's anything like the storm we had today, the lightning makes it a no-go.

Okay, time to get off my butt and go clean the kitchen (now that we've wrecked it with dinner and party food prep)