Recently in Grumblebear Category

I have no idea what I've been doing that I haven't posted since January 22nd.

And since I haven't been blogging, it will remain a mystery.

Let's see. Seamus hurt his paw and had to go back to the vet. They diagnosed him with a sprained paw and arthritis and he is doing splendidly now that he is on daily medication.

Oh, yeah, we got some snow. You may have heard something about that somewhere...

I could go on and on, but you've probably read it all elsewhere. Let's see. We got two feet over the weekend, and then I'm not even sure how much we got on top of that yesterday. A lot more. The winds with round 2 sculpted the snow into rippling sand dune like patterns. All this snow is a huge pain in the ass, but I will admit it is pretty cool looking.

We've been digging and digging and clearing snow off the roof and, oh yes, the furnace stopped heating the upstairs during the first storm. It took three guys with a plow truck and a front loader close to five hours to clear the driveway after Snowpocalypse, and they haven't come back yet after round 2. I made it in to the office for about three hours on Tuesday morning. Otherwise I haven't been there since last Thursday. Luckily I can do a lot of work from home.

This is what my street looks like. I won't be going in to work tomorrow either:

The unplowed driveway, featuring windblown drifts:

Hope your life is a little less snow-filled than mine.

I think it is a well established fact that I do not like mornings. Nor am I a big fan of bugs. And yet I keep encountering them in combination, when I am really not at my best. The other morning I went to walk from the living room to the kitchen to get Seamus his breakfast, and there, dangling right at head level, was a gigantic black spider. I almost walked right into it. With my face. Luckily, I spotted it just in the nick of time and jumped back, yes, shrieking like a little girl. I may not be little, but I sure as hell am a girl when it comes to bugs. Especially when those bugs are hideously overgrown spiders.

Then the next day a huge beetle landed on me while I was in the shower. I yelled again and flicked it off, then scooped it up with the washcloth and threw the whole thing out of the shower stall. Like many of you, I shower naked, so it was particularly alarming to have a bug on my person. Plus I'm practically blind without my glasses on, so I feel even more vulnerable to sneak bug attacks. In this case, I got out of the shower - taking the time to carefully and suspiciously shake out my towel and bathrobe - and the beetle was just gone. There was no carcass in the washcloth, no trail of drops leading out of the bathroom. He had just vanished. Don't think that didn't worry me all day, knowing that there was an angry beetle lurking in my bathroom, biding his time and plotting revenge. Thankfully, the Beetle Disposal Team (while losing points for hearing me yelling about bugs and not running to the rescue) managed to locate and "transport"* the beetle later in the evening.

Dear bugs: I realize you have a role to play in the ecosystem. All I ask is that you not play that role in physical contact with my person. I think that's reasonable. Also, if you could try to limit our interactions to the hours between 10 am and 9 pm, that would allow me to a) be fully awake and/or b) not have to think about you right before bed.
*where transport=flush down the toilet

We love the new house. I try not to gush about it because I think that would get old fast, but yeah, this is the right place for us. I still half expect to find some hideous defect, because it shocks me that this place was in our price range. Thankfully, thus far, we do not appear to be living on an Indian burial ground, nor are we suddenly in the flight path for an airport or next to where they are going to build a highway.

However, now that we've had our first snow, it turns out that our lovely, long, steep, tree-lined driveway does not get enough sun to melt. It snowed on Saturday. We popped out early to get our Christmas tree, and then I spent a wonderful relaxing day baking and watching it snow. We had a fire in the fireplace and there was a Harry Potter movie marathon on TV. I didn't have anywhere I had to go, and the snow turned my already picturesque neighborhood into something out of a Currier and Ives print.

I didn't have to go anywhere on Sunday, either. I'd gotten the lights on the tree on Saturday, but stringing the lights always makes me cranky, so I'd decided to take a break before starting on the ornaments. So on Sunday I decorated the tree and did stuff around the house. There was a Lord of the Rings marathon on TV. I didn't actually mean to watch the whole thing, but I caught most of it as I drifted in and out of the living room between tasks. I love those movies, but I have to admit that sometimes the Frodo bits annoy me. Ok, we get it. Hobbits are innocent and carrying the ring is a burden, and it is precious to Gollum. When it comes to hobbits, I much prefer Merry and Pippin.

And then Monday arrived. I had the day off of work and was planning to go do some Christmas shopping. My driveway had other plans for me though. It took two bags of salt and two hours of shoveling to get the driveway to the point where you could get a car up it. It took another hour to get it cleared to the point where it felt truly safe to drive on. And that was just for our part of the driveway! Our neighbors, clearly more savvy than we are, had cleared the part we share with them on Sunday and left bags of salt along the length of it. Of course, they have an SUV too, so I guess the snow is less of an issue for them. Good thing I didn't have to go to work.

I'd put up photos, but every time I connect the camera to the computer, it freezes. Awesome.

I am not now, nor have I ever been, nor will I ever be a morning person. I hate them. This morning I woke up extra tired and out of sorts, so I'm warning the world: You probably don't want to talk to me until at least noon today.

My weekend, while productive, was over too quickly.
I do not want to go to work today.
I do not feel like dealing with the traffic on 270.
I am not in the mood for any bullshit, of which there will surely be some.
My stupid neighbors who I see every morning while walking Seamus -- a man and his daughter waiting for the school bus -- flat out refuse to acknowldge our presence. It's like we're not even walking directly in front of them and saying good morning. Annoying, but whatever. This morning it practically irritated me to the point of violence. Or at least to the point of letting Seamus poop on their lawn. I totally should have. Jerks.
I came back from our walk promising myself a nice cup of chai to try and make the morning better. But I forgot I used up all the milk last night making a potato and leek gratin. Now I'm mad at myself. Fucking self. Cooking with the milk and using it all up so inconsiderately.

Well, I'm off to share the little ray of sunshine that is me with the rest of the world. If you see me while it is still morning you may want to back away slowly.

I got a flu shot for the first time ever in my life this year. Naturally, since I took measures to avoid getting sick, I've been felled by some sort of sinus crud. Yesterday, with the whole right side of my face throbbing, my ear hurting, and suffering from dizziness and an overwhelming urge to lie down, I gave up and left work at lunchtime. I arrived home, dosed myself with cold medicine, and took to the couch.

I was so hot on the drive home that I had the air conditioning on in the car. An hour later I was huddled under a blanket, shivering. And so it went for the rest of the day. At about 9:30 last night I finally hit on the right combination of advil, sudafed and benadryl to help clear up whatever this is. I still feel crappy, but while I'd like to go lie down, it no longer has that imperative "lie down or fall down" feel to it. Now I'm trying to decide whether or not to go to work today. I think I probably will.

Yesterday's illness adventure has exposed one glaring weakness with my new house. It has lots and lots of windows and is filled with natural light. Normally this is a plus, but when all you want to do is hide in a cave until your head stops hurting, it is a real drawback. Unfortunately, the previous owners took all the curtains with them. Actually, they took everything they could possibly get away with taking, including the mirrors, towel racks and toilet paper holders from the bathrooms. And then claimed that their mirrors were art and they didn't use towel racks or toilet paper holders. Really? Because I can see the marks on the walls where something was attached.

I didn't really care about the curtains though. The house is private, and their window treatments were too fussy for my tastes anyway. But now I see the error of my ways. I guess it is time to go curtain shopping.

I hate to admit it, but the signs are there. Age is clearly creeping up on me. I never get carded anymore, I can't stay up late, and my knee aches in the rain. The newest symptom is even scarier: finding teenage hair annoying.

There's a kid I see sometimes when I am out walking Seamus. He seems like a nice guy, striding around in his Led Zeppelin hoodie, and always takes the time to smile at Seamus and nod at me. But his hair. He's got blonde hair that he is trying to grow long, and the bangs completely cover his eyes. Like down to his mouth. And it's not the Cure-style hair that my friends I may have sported in our younger days. The '80's were the era of mousse and gel (not to be confused with moose and squirrel) and our hair had volume. This hair plastered to this kid's face. I like long hair. I think it is every teenager's duty to have annoying, rebellious hair. For some reason though, with this kid, I have an almost overwhelming urge to grab him and push his blonde bangs out of his face.

I'm a little concerned that the train for old fogeyville is pulling into the station.

Oh yes, and then there's the little fact that my 20th high school reunion is coming up this weekend. 20 years. It doesn't seem like it could have been that long. I can't decide if I want to go or not. It's just a cocktail party at someone's house, but then again, I haven't seen most of these people in 20 years, and for the most part, that's just fine with me. On the other hand, what would it hurt? It might be fun to see some of them again, and if it sucks, I can always leave. Have you been to a high school reunion? Was it fun or a disaster? Maybe I'll just stay home and watch Grosse Pointe Blank.

Ok, universe, I bragged about not getting sick all winter, and I had to be punished. I left you with no choice but to smite me with this cold. I get that. But did you have to saddle me with this annoying, uncontrollable attention-grabbing cough right smack in the middle of the swine flu panic?

Bad enough that I've now lost two weekends to feeling like crap, missed over a week's worth of workouts and was out of the office for two days. Now random strangers hear my congested hacking and give me concerned looks. I saw them step away from me in the bank line on Saturday, and later the cashier at Giant was clearly itching to spray me down with a bottle of Lysol or something. Of course, I was buying a bottle of cough medicine and a carton of juice, so she really shouldn't have been surprised. Those purchases scream "I have a cold!" in my opinion.

Enough is enough, universe. I'm sorry, I really am, and I won't make that mistake again. Can I please get better again before people start crossing the street to avoid me?

I would really appreciate it if you would stop taking promising TV shows and making them suck. You did it with Torchwood (yes, I'm still pissed - that's irritated in American, not drunk - about the finale) and now you've done it with Primeval as well. If you could please stop:

a) overcomplicating the plots and
b) stupidly killing off characters I like

I would greatly appreciate it.

Both Torchwood and Primeval worked because the premise was simple. For Torchwood, a rift in the space time continuum made a lot of weird shit go down in Cardiff, so the members of Torchwood were there to step in and protect the regular people. For Primeval it was that portals to other times would open and dinosaurs would come through and cause trouble, so the Primeval team had to deal with them and get them back to where they belonged so as not to mess up evolution and timelines and such.

But then you start throwing in romances that don't make sense and conspiracies and bad guys that come out of nowhere, and nonsense about clones, and I start to lose interest. And have I mentioned the killing off of good characters in ways that do not seem to advance the story? Plus, and this may just be because you British don't do much with guns in general, but if I ended up on team dedicated to capturing and/or fighting aliens and dinosaurs, I'd get a gun and I'd learn how to shoot it. And maybe I'd practice being able to hit a target once in a while. The fact that these characters are always missing with their first shots is starting to get unbelievable. I bought it for the first episode or two, but now even your military guys seem to miss. Do you need a lesson from your American friends in good old fashioned ass kicking, shooting and blowing shit up? If so, I recommend Die Hard, Reservoir Dogs and Scarface. If you want to look closer to home, I refer you to Mr. Jason Statham's body of work, most particularly the Transporter and Crank.

I sincerely appreciate your attention to this important matter.

I guess I haven't written in a while. I just haven't had anything to say about anything. If you looked up apathetic and unenthusiastic in the dictionary, my photo would have been right there, with a glum expression on my face.

On Monday, I finally admitted to myself that I've been exhibiting some classic signs of depression - negativity (did you know that I'm a stupid, fat, worthless infertile diabetic with bad hair who can't do anything right?), inability to focus, lack of organization, weight gain (four pounds. When my brother gets depressed, he can lose 15 pounds in two weeks. We have the same genes, dammit.), irritability, near constant exhaustion, and an overwhelming desire to never get out of bed again. I got up every day and went about my business, but it was a struggle every single morning.

Now, I've been here before, and I know what to do, so once the light bulb went off and I heard that little ding! noise that accompanies the light bulb, I realized I needed a plan. The only way to get back on track is to take control and make changes. So I made a list. And then I cleaned up my desk at work. And then I made another list. And then I made myself go to the gym. I cannot recommend exercise enough for anyone who is teetering on the edge of depression.

Then Wednesday rolled around, and the universe smacked me on the side of the head and told me to be grateful for all that is good in my life. My company had layoffs round 2. I was NOT laid off. Back when we had the first round of layoffs in November, I was sure that there would be a second round, that it would come in March, and that I would be included in it. Luckily, I was wrong about that third bit. Interestingly, even though I spent the last few months convinced I was going to lose my job in March, recently I had decided that I had been wrong and there would be no more layoffs. I was shocked on Wednesday. Totally taken by surprise.

I'm in the midst of a transition from one team to another, and my old team was hit particularly hard. Of course, I'm sad for all of the people who lost their jobs, not just the ones I worked with directly. It's terrible anytime someone gets laid off, but particularly now. The unemployment situation isn't as bad in the DC area, but everyone knows this is a difficult time to be looking for work. They were all good people, and I hope they find new jobs quickly.

As for the depression, I know it won't go away just because I want it to. At the same time, now that I've noticed the pattern I was falling into, I can work to change it. And you know, at least I'm still employed. Because I could have ended up with something to get really depressed about.

It was supposed to snow here today. It was supposed to snow during the day and I was going to stay home and do stuff around the house, snug as a bug in a rug. Then, when tomorrow morning came, the snow was going to be all cleared up so I could head into work with no trouble.

Instead, chief meteorologist Bob Ryan has let me down, once again. It hardly snowed at all during the day today, and now they say all the snow is coming tonight instead. That means the drive into work tomorrow is going to be a huge hassle. We won't get enough snow for them to close the office or for me to justify staying home, so I'll have to get up, dig out the car, clear off the snow, and deal with all the DC morons freaking out about the snow and forgetting how to drive. Unless the county plows in our access to the main road again and I get stuck here, waiting for the HOA to show up and plow our street. Last time they didn't show up until 5:54 p.m. Why doesn't the county plow my street, you ask? I have no idea. They sail right by though, building up piles of snow my little Honda can't clear.

Snow is so much more fun when you're a kid.

The warm snap here continues, and continues to be awesome too, except for the part where it was at least 80 degrees in my office building today. One more reason to miss having an office with actual walls and a door - I used to have a somewhat noisy, somewhat ineffectual window unit I could turn on in hopes of regulating the temperature. Now we all suffer together, usually due to the arctic level of cold that pervades a massive open space with walls that are all windows.

Which is why, even though it was going to be in the sixties today, I wore a sweater, and long skirt, tights and knee high boots. It is extremely hard to concentrate on writing copy when you're sitting at your desk sweating. All of me was hot. My fingers were sticking to the keys as I typed. My hair frizzed. I think my feet even swelled up a bit. By the end of the day I gave up and took my boots off so my poor toes could breathe and just hoped that no one would notice.

Naturally, by the time they get the temperature sorted out, the weather will have returned to normal and we'll all be back to wearing scarves and coats at our desks. You just can't win.

Way to put the name of the chef who got eliminated in the headline in the entertainment section. Did it never occur to you that maybe people who are big fans of your show might not have gotten to see it yet? Yes, I was cheating on you with another network (edited to clarify: NBC Universal owns Bravo, the network on which Top Chef airs) so that I could watch the season premiere of Lost. That's neither here nor there. Have some common sense, headline writing monkeys. It is not that hard to write a headline without giving anything away.

You know how I know? I've been a headline monkey. While you do have to put some thought into them to optimize them for search and make them interesting so people will click, it really isn't that difficult. You know how you would have gotten more clicks? Try Find out who got eliminated on Top Chef! OR Restaurant Wars on Top Chef - who won?

See...Not that hard. Jerks.

I have fallen victim to a weird zipper curse. Just since September, I have somehow managed to break the zipper on:
• One very expensive purse
• One long plaid skirt
• One long black skirt
• One fancy pillow case for my contoured pillow

The zippers for the purse and the pillow case are completely non-functional, as in, they do not zip any more at all. You can move them back and forth, but the teeth refuse to connect with each other.
The zippers for the two skirts will go up, but only to a certain point, and today, the zipper on the black skirt got stuck and will no longer go up or down.

Thankfully, I was able to take it off over my head, or I would have ended up on the elliptical machine in a skirt and workout pants. I suppose it could have been the start of a new trend. I guess we'll never know.

I don't understand all this zipper trouble though. I admit the purse was probably my fault, and I suspect the pillowcase shrank in the wash. But it's not that the skirts don't fit. They are actually both a little bit too big. Have I lost the ability to use a zipper? I thought this was a technology I mastered years ago.

For years, I mocked my mom for carrying around mammoth purses. They hurt her shoulder and were always filled with stuff she didn't need from six months ago. They made her unorganized and inefficient and she could never find anything, I argued. Besides, who needed all that stuff? And I would gesture dramatically at whatever little purse I was using at the time, and say smugly "see, that's all the purse I need."

The years went by, and my purses got incrementally bigger with each new purchase. My last two bags in particular are quite a bit larger than my standard. And dammit, now I'm hooked on the big purses. I pulled out an old standby medium sized bag this past weekend, and it is driving me nuts. I have to arrange everything carefully to fit it all in properly. It doesn't have enough pockets and compartments for me to organize my stuff they way I like. Tonight at Target I needed to get a photo out of my bag so that I could be sure I was buying the right size frame. When I moved my wallet aside to get the photo, a bunch of receipts and business cards got tangled up with my wallet and fell out all over the floor. I picked them up, muttering to myself, and then in my usual coordinated fashion, stood up directly into the cart handle, whacking the back of my head really hard. Awesome.

I've fallen into the big purse trap, and I don't think I can get out of it. I'm not even sure I want to. Is this a sign that I'm turning into my mom?

I have not been able to get into the Christmas spirit yet. Many of my neighbors have their Christmas lights up, but I have not felt even the slightest urge to decorate. Christmas songs on the radio are annoying me - particularly at the gym. I do not want to sweat along to some new hip hop version of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

I'm also sick of Christmas themed commercials already. I find the toys they used in the "Get yourself a Christmas Mercedes" commercial creepy. Also, who buys a car for Christmas? Someone must though, because I saw holiday car ads for Mercedes, Acura and Ford. I think it was Ford. Some kind of truck, anyway. Then there's the get the "Best Gifts Ever" from Radio Shack campaign, which is just a flat out lie. I beg to differ, Radio Shack. You do not have the best gifts ever.

Speaking of gifts, I have no good ideas for what to give anyone this year. I don't even particularly want anything for myself. See? No Christmas spirit whatsoever.

How about you? Have you decorated? Done your shopping?

Last night I had a Twilight dream. No big surprise as I've been re-reading the books since seeing the movie. And, might I add, reading Midnight Sun for the first time. For those not in the know, Midnight Sun is the story of Twilight told from Edward's perspective. Somehow it got leaked online before Stephenie Meyer finished it, so she posted the manuscript on her website. It's not clear if she will ever finish it, but I hope she does, because I loved seeing the story unfold through Edward's eyes, and all the places that the two stories touched and then spun back out in to different directions. It was also great to see more of the whole Cullen family.

But on to my dream. What happened in the dream, you ask? Was I basking in Edward's beauty and love? Nope. Was I paling around with Alice, my favorite Cullen after Edward? Hanging out in La Push with Jacob? Zipping through the woods doing interesting vampire or werewolf stuff? Nope, nope and nope. I was filing a complaint with Chief Swan because the Ticketmaster outlet in Forks sold me counterfeit Metallica tickets.

There are so many things wrong with this scenario that I'm not sure where to start. First of all, Metallica tickets? I don't think so. Second of all, you'd think that at the very least my brain would have made me a kick-ass vampire or something cool. And failing that, have me do something out of the ordinary. I feel so let down and disappointed with myself. My subconscious really needs to work on its priorities.

I've made it all the way to day 29, and I have absolutely nothing worthwhile to say tonight. I've written and rejected three separate posts, with only one hour and eight minutes left to come up with something, I'm pretty sure it is not going to happen.

I'm sorry, I used up all my energy writing something else, and there's nothing left in the barrel tonight. I'll just have to hope I can pull off a big finish tomorrow. Here's hoping I can stick the dismount.

The day before Thanksgiving is traditionally a very busy one for the people at my company, and in anticipation of that, they ordered lunch in for us today. The vegetarian option was a veggie sandwich with way too much mayo on it for my tastes. Not that I’m complaining. It wasn’t all that long ago that they regularly forgot to include any vegetarian food. It’s just that I find mayo horrifying.

So instead I had a snack sized bag of Cool Ranch Doritos, a snack sized bag of Cheetos, and pickle and a Milano cookie for lunch. I’m sure you’ll be shocked – shocked! – to learn that my stomach was upset after that feast. I didn’t even eat like that when I was a teenager. I don’t know why I thought I could get away with it today.

I spent a large chunk of my day cleaning. And not my usually half-assed job either, but a proper and thorough job. As everyone knows, I hate cleaning. I don't mind vacuuming all that much since I got the Dyson. There's something very satisfying about watching it suck up all that dirt. Dusting is boring, but not that bad. I just don't think to do it until the dust gets fairly thick. Same with sweeping the floors. Washing the dishes gets me a clean kitchen, and that's pretty important to me, so I generally find it worthwhile. Laundry is easy since we moved in to our house and were freed from the tyranny of the crappy frontloading/stackable unit we had in the condo. But oh, how I hate cleaning the bathrooms with every fiber of my being.

Part of the reason is that I used to feel ill after cleaning the bathrooms, so I did some research and then switched from super chemical cleaners to hippy dippy natural cleaners. But I still felt lousy after cleaning, and then I read an article that said it is the aerosol nature of the cleaners that can cause headaches and make you feel awful. So then I switched to an all natural cleaner that I mix with water and scrub on with a brush or sponge, no spraying allowed. That did help me feel better physically, but it did not magically make me want to start cleaning the bathrooms. They are places where we use soap and water. Shouldn't they be self cleaning?

Our hall bath gets incredibly dusty for some reason, and then the dust mixes with moisture and forms this annoying film over everything. I don't use the hall bath much, so I forget about the dust weirdness until I go in there to clean. It's a special little surprise for me every time! On top of that, the previous owners of this house were absolutely obsessed with child safety. They had put down some sort of anti-skid stuff on the floor of the tub that didn't come off properly. You can't really see it until it starts attracting dirt and changes colors. And it is a pain to get off too.

The other bathrooms don't get as dusty, although they each have their own special little irritations. The mirror in the half bath is flimsy and the pedestal sink never really seems clean to me. I suspect that the soap dish in the shower in the master bath is not the original, as it is kind of awkwardly caulked on to the wall, and the grout under it gets grotty. I always wonder what could have happened to the original.

Oh well, at least I don't have to clean them again for a while. Or wait, I think my point at the beginning of this post was that I should really clean more frequently so it wouldn't be such an ordeal...perhaps I'll try to change my ways.

Wednesday night is kickboxing night. If I'm feeling energetic and not totally hungry, I'll stay for the short abs-focused class after. Kickboxing was fantastic as always. I even think I may be getting ever so slightly better at it.

There is this woman who first came to class last week, and who was there again tonight. Plus she was in the weights class I take on Mondays. She's tiny and clearly very fit, without an ounce of fat and on top of that, she's very nicely toned. Here's the thing that's killing me...I'm stronger than she is. I'm way better at the abs stuff, and I'm (slightly) better at the kick boxing, and I used heavier weights than she did in class on Monday. Why am I not a skinny, toned, compact person? I work out a lot. And while my eating is not perfect, it's not terrible either.

I'm pleased about having evidence that I am fit. I've made so much progress since I first started working out, and that's important. But damn it, I want to be skinny too. My doctor says my diabetes will always make it harder for me to lose weight, and I know it is harder for women to lose weight in general, but seriously, there's got to be something that I can do. I guess for now, I'll refocus on eating better and then work out harder. I'm not explaining it well, but I'm feeling both encouraged and discouraged.

This morning a guy two streets over from my house decided to start using his leaf blower at 7:00 am. I was up already and out walking Seamus, but it struck me as particularly inconsiderate of him. You could hear the buzzing all over the neighborhood. It sounded like someone was running a massive vacuum cleaner.

His house is at the end of the street, and as we made our loop through the common area, we came upon him in his shorts (the weather was actually quite lovely this morning) and watch cap, wielding the leaf blower, and he had the nerve to give us the stink eye as we went by.

If I were him, I'd have taken a moment to consider which one of us was violating county noise ordinances and pissing off the neighbors, and which one of us was quietly and law abidingly walking her dog through open space, armed with a bag of fresh poop. And then maybe I'd have smiled politely and nodded instead of giving her the narrow eye. I'm just sayin' it might be the smarter move to make.

John and I agreed last night that we'd like to have some newspapers to commemorate the election. We knew we wouldn't be the only people who wanted copies of the paper, but we had a plan. John would hit up Barnes & Noble as soon as they opened and snatch up one copy of each paper.

It was an excellent plan except for two factors we hadn't expected. First, they only get two copies of the New York Times at the Barnes & Noble in Frederick, and both copies were gone at 9:01. John suspects Barnes & Noble employees of absconding with them before the public ever had a chance. Second, we didn't count on out of town people asking us to get them copies of the Washington Post. I would have stopped on the way in to work, but I got stuck in traffic and I had an early meeting . I can look for the New York Times at lunch, I thought.

But by lunch, there were no New York Timeses or Washington Posts to be found anywhere. I tried three different stores. Whole Foods briefly and cruelly misled me by having papers in their bin, but they were from Sunday. Then I heard they were doing special print runs of the New York Times and the Post and there would be additional copies available this evening. Lies! I tried again after kickboxing - 2 CVS, Wawa, Giant, Rite Aid and a Bottom Dollar later, I had found no papers. My poor mom was out at the same time, trying to do the same thing (although she got a copy of the NYT this morning at Starbucks, consarnit) and having no luck. In the end, we each managed to find the final couple of copies of the special commemorative edition of the Post, and that will have to do for the out-of-towners.

Ironically, just a couple of weeks ago I went through the same damn thing with the Washington Times. It's a piece of crap conservative paper that I would normally never buy, but someone I know was quoted in an article and I thought he'd like a copy for himself. I ran all over town trying to find a place that had the Saturday edition, but they all had a Friday/Saturday edition instead, which was the wrong one. Who knew newspapers were still so relevant in this day and age?

For more newspaper fun, check out this link from my brother: http://www.newsdesigner.com/top50/

This morning I successfully dragged myself out of bed early, in to the dark, cold morning. It was something like 25 degrees out, which is ridiculous for October. I took Seamus for his walk, gave him his breakfast, took off a couple of layers and dragged myself downstairs to do 30 Day Shred. I was tired but determined, and I gave the workout my all. Then I staggered upstairs and got ready to go to work.

I was sleepy but pleased with myself for following through on my morning exercise plan. After I got to work I went to the kitchen to make my usual morning oatmeal, and ran into one of my co-workers. "Good morning," he said. "Are you feeling ok? You don't look well." And here I thought that morning workouts were supposed to put a spring in my step and make me brighteyed and bushytailed. Instead, I got to be tired and insulted by my co-workers. This had better pay off in the long run!

I could not come up with a single interesting word to say Sunday night or last night (Monday night I was very busy watching TV), but now all of a sudden there are about different five posts floating around in my head. Hopefully they won't come out at once in some sort of mutated jumbled mess.

Writing has always been a part of my job, no matter what I was doing for my company. In my new role writing accounts for a large portion of my responsibilities. The timing couldn't be better because it is so easy to write about stocks and the stock markets right now. Ha! Actually, I have plenty of my own opinions about the stock market, investing and the state of the national and global economy, but no one is paying me to write about that. Mostly, I'm responsible for taking the opinions of experts and parsing them in interesting and accessible ways so that people will want to buy our products. Generally people want to hear about how you are going to make them money, but in the current climate, no one actually seems to believe that is going to happen. Right now they want advice on protecting what money they have left, and encouraging words about when this is all going to get better. The problem being, of course, that even the experts don't know exactly when that will happen.

I spend a lot of time staring at my computer these days, waiting for inspiration to strike. I write outlines and come up with themes, and then I look at Yahoo Finance and the market has completely changed direction. Even today, I knew the numbers weren't great, but I didn't see any horrific losses. Then I checked at 4 to see where the indices closed and just about fell out of my chair. Not that this massive drop was unexpected. Anyone who was all "oh, everything's going to be fine now" after Monday's rally is a moron and shouldn't be allowed to trade stocks. Look at the fundamental problems with our economy. It's going to take a while to sort this all out, and even then, there's no guarantee that things will turn around and shoot back up.

Sorry, I digress. That was just a really long way of saying that I've been struggling to feel productive at work these days. I read, a lot, and when I get stuck I go play free mahjong online while the ideas swirl in the back of my head. Sometimes that helps jar an idea loose, but I'm not sure my boss would actually buy that as an explanation, so I try not to do it too much. I write stuff and discard it, and then I write more copy and rearrange it a bunch of times, and then I Frankenstein in bits of other people's copy and hope for the best. I'm good at what I do, (really, I am!) so I know it will be fine in the end. Hopefully five different ideas for work copy will strike soon.

I've never made any secret of the fact that I am an indifferent housekeeper at best. I put off cleaning the bathrooms for as long as I can possibly justify delaying. I don't vacuum as much as I should. I don't dust until I can actually see the dust piling up on the top of the bookcase and the back of the desk. I have an ingrained ability to ignore clutter. I've lived in this house for over three years, and I've never washed the windows. So I'd never claim to keep a scrupulously clean house, nor would I say that I have really high standards.

However, after this weekend I will never feel bad about my housekeeping skills or lack thereof again. Allow me to explain. My mom has discovered the joys of freecycling and is on some list exchange that delivers approximately 8 gajillion emails per day with one free thing after another. While I fully support freecycling, I find the stuff that people try to recycle sometimes borders on the ridiculous. No, you don't need to post each 25 cent plastic report cover that you're trying to get rid of separately. However, my mom got some nice stools for her breakfast bar through this exchange, and she's forwarded other offers to me that looked pretty good. This time, she'd scored two bookcases from Scan, a furniture store she's always liked. This guy was moving to a smaller place and was downsizing, so he was giving away a six foot and seven foot bookcase. He even lived conveniently close to her house. Even though I had no idea where my mom was going to squeeze two bookcases in to her very crowded house, I agreed to help her pick them up.

Well, we got to this guy's house, and I was astounded at the horror that greeted us. He opened the door, and the stench practically knocked me back on to the porch. The whole house reeked of cat piss. I didn't actually see any cats, but he must have had 10 of them stashed somewhere to raise that level of stink. The carpet was totally trashed. Where it wasn't stained, it was coated in fur. It barely even looked like carpet anymore. There was stuff piled on every surface, and all the stuff had inches of dust on it. I was only in two of the rooms, but they were truly the two filthiest, smelliest, nastiest rooms I have ever been seen. My mom said the only time she'd ever seen worse was when she was a public health nurse in DC, when she visited a house that had been infested with roaches. The bookcases were not contaminated by the smell, thank goodness. Two very tall and very helpful German guys who had shown up for the entertainment unit the guy was giving away helped us get them down the stairs. Actually, they helped with the first one, and then tactfully suggested that they bring the second one down without my assistance. I think maybe I was in the way. As you might imagine, I had no objection to them doing the work. It wasn't that the bookcases were heavy - it's just that they were hard to maneuver in the crowded house and down the twisty stairs, and stinky cat guy was kind of clueless. We'd left John back at my mom's to save room in the car for the bookcases, and my mom has no upper body strength, so I was pretty much on my own until the Germans rode to the rescue.

The place is on the market, and I feel so bad for his real estate agent. On top of the dirt and the stench, there was sticker on the door leading to the deck saying it had been condemned and couldn't be used. Who is going to want a house that needs to be gutted, fumigated and have the deck rebuilt? Hey, it's just crying out for Jeff Lewis from Flipping Out! Except I don't think he's interested in crappy real estate in suburban Maryland.

I can tell you one thing for sure. I will not be beating myself up over my standards of cleanliness anymore.

I've been trying to think of something positive to say about my day, and this is what I have come up with so far:

I had a surprisingly good hair day today.
Kick boxing class was excellent. Talk about a stress reliever!
Becky and John have a way of helping me see good in every situation.
I wrote some decent work-related copy.
In good news/bad news, the newish sweater I wore today was a little too big. That means than I'm less of a cow than I thought I was when I bought it. But now I have a recently purchased sweater that doesn't really fit. Here's hoping it shrinks in the wash.

...and that's pretty much all I've got.

I've had an oppressive sinus headache off and on for the last week or so. Describing this beast as a sinus headache doesn't really do it justice though. It's more like, grinding pain and pressure on the right side of my face, with stabbing pain behind my right eye, combined with a sore neck and very tense shoulders. Sudafed and Advil can sometimes put a dent in it. Caffeine appears to help somewhat. Excedrin PM does the best job of beating it into submission, but that's Tylenol plus Benadryl, so I get one good hour and then I'm out cold. Not really practical for daytime use. Exercise also helps for a while, but it can be hard to motivate when you feel like crap. I have been motivating though. See above: feeling like a cow.

On Sunday it was about 1 million degrees out with 9,000% humidity, and between that and the headache, I came home from running errands in tears. Target didn't have the dog food I wanted, Giant didn't have the bread I wanted and I had two slots at the pump the gas station stolen from me (one deliberately and one unintentionally) and I just couldn't take it anymore. This stupid headache is wearing me out, and sucking all of the creativity and fun out of my days. It needs to go away.

On top of that, the stock market and attendant financial troubles is making me and everyone I work with nuts. It's great to have a business giving stock advice in a week where the markets go absolutely insane. If you're wondering about the stock market, by the way, here's the short version which pretty much all of our experts seem to agree on: It's going to get worse before it gets better. Don't panic. It will eventually get better. Eventually.

That actually seems like a good philosophy which could apply to many parts of my life right now. I think I'll give it a whirl.

What was good about your day today?

As I mentioned earlier, my friend Jules asked me to bake her wedding cake. The practice cake I made was a lot of work, but in the end, pretty manageable and kind of delicious. The actual cake is turning out to be a different story. Should you ever consider making a wedding cake, please, please take a moment to listen to my advice here. When the moment comes that your friend asks you to bake their wedding cake, tell them, honestly, that you are honored they want you to play a part in their wedding. Explain how flattered you are that they think so highly of your baking skills. Then look your friend/sibling/cousin directly in the eyes…

...and offer to do a reading. Hell, offer to pay for a baker to make the cake. But whatever you do, resist the urge to say you’ll make the cake yourself.

Before I start to tell the saga of the cake, I want to make it clear that I do not harbor any resentment toward my friend. She doesn’t bake very much, and I’m sure she had no idea what she was asking me to do. I bake all the time and I had no idea what I was getting into with this cake. I had to buy equipment, because I did not have the right sized pans. I had to buy supplies. Lots and lots of eggs and butter and cake flour and sugar. I have spent a ridiculous amount of time stressing out about this cake and how it is going to get up to Boston safely. I have spent even more time actually making this cake. It is currently taking up two shelves in my refrigerator. I had to bake it ahead of time because the steps are so time consuming, but I’m terrified that I’ll be serving stale, dry cake on Saturday. Stale dry cake that is going up there unassembled and only partially decorated because supposedly it will travel better that way.

Then I’m going to do a quick assemble and decorate up there. In a strange kitchen, under a deadline. No pressure though. And that’s if the whole thing doesn’t disintegrate during the 8 hour drive up to Boston. I bought the biggest cooler I’ve ever seen, so hopefully it will stay cold, but to say I’m anxious is a mild understatement. Seriously, I now truly understand the meaning of the word “agita,” which previously was just something they said on the Sopranos.

Now, if you’ve read all of that and are still determined to try making a wedding cake on your own, I highly recommend that you read this book: Wedding Cakes You Can Make by Dede Wilson. It has been invaluable. Then learn from my mistakes.

1) Do not agree to make a cake that has to be transported 500 miles on a Friday night for a Saturday wedding. Particularly if you have to work all week.

2) Do plan ahead, which I tried very hard to do.

3) But plan for mistakes to happen. Buy extra eggs, cake flour and butter. You can thank me later. I think I went to the grocery store five times this weekend.

4) You’ll need more frosting than you think you will.

5) Believe the lady in the book when she says that your egg whites must be at room temperature.

6) Plastic wrap is your friend.

7) There is no shame in deciding (after having a tier completely disintegrate on you) that you don’t need to torte the cakes. Two layers per tier is enough, dammit.

8) Try to remember that it is supposed to be fun. Slap some frosting on the tiers that totally stuck to the cake pan and terrify your friend by emailing it to her as part of a progress report on her cake.

It's delightful, no?

I've had to bake the 6 inch tiers twice, I had a 12 inch tier completely fall apart on me (requiring more baking), and there was an incident with the meringue buttercream. There's still a chance this will all be ok in the end, but it is going to require an act of Congress or a request from the queen to get me to agree to bake a wedding cake ever again.

One of the things I’ve learned since we bought our house is how much I enjoy gardening. Sure, it’s hot and messy and sometimes a drought comes and kills off your azaleas, but overall, it is fun and deeply satisfying. Part of the reason I never knew I liked gardening was that my mom hated it. So once I discovered my love of working in the garden, I told her I’d be more than happy to help her with her garden.

Way back on the 4th of July, I went down and to wrestle her small back garden into shape. It went fine. I weeded, I trimmed, I dealt with choking vines and out of control forsythia bushes and everyone was happy by the afternoon. Aside from a small mulch over buying incident (apparently I just cannot get mulch quantities right) it was a complete success. Until later that night when I realized my left arm had been the victim of a vicious bug attack.

Or what I thought was a vicious bug attack. There appeared to be a string of bites going up my arm, clumping together, and culminating in one huge bite. The big bite got swollen and hot and painful. The little ones itched and burned. Then they all started oozing clear liquid. It was all very painful and disgusting, and you had better believe I did a lot of bitching and moaning. I was putting one of those cortisone creams on it, but that wasn’t doing anything. Then I stumbled across my knight in shining pink armor tucked away under the sink in the upstairs bathroom – Caladryl. Caladryl made an enormous difference. I love Caladryl.

By Sunday I thought I had recovered enough to stop using it, which was a complete mistake because all the nastiness came roaring back. It was at this point that John finally took a close look at the arm I had been so dramatically and piteously waving in his direction and came up with a different diagnosis. Dr. John thinks I have poison ivy, poison oak or sumac. Now, when I was kid, I was hideously, horribly allergic to poison ivy. I’d get it, it would spread, and soon my eyes would practically swell shut. That hasn’t happened, but this also isn’t going away. The battle for the supremacy of my left arm continues. Caladryl and I will fight the good fight, but does anyone know how long it takes to get over poison ivy/oak/sumac?

At 11:03 this morning, I had this conversation with a coworker: “Well, if we left right now, I bet we could find a bar somewhere that’s open.” “Yeah, or maybe a crack dealer,” he replied.

We might have been having a slightly stressful morning. My day eventually calmed down, but it sure got off to a crappy start. However, I keep looking for the positive. Positive fact #1 is that I have a four day weekend coming up, and not a minute too soon.

And now for the fun. They are having the equivalent of a Spirit Week at my office in July, with one goofy event planned for each Thursday. I was never one for Spirit crap in school – in fact, I’m not sure if we ever had a Spirit Week in school – but I do try to participate in this stuff at work. We all work really hard, and I support the people trying to bring some fun into our jobs. Anyway, while I’ll probably skip Red White and Blue Thursday, I am willing to go all out for Crazy Hat Thursday. I’ve started doing some research, and I’m leaning towards an animal themed hat, like the ones seen here. But which animal hat? The mooing cow? The shark? The gator? Or perhaps the flamingo? The penguin is out of stock, alas. Maybe I should go a completely different route. Please feel free to nominate your favorite crazy hat in the comments.

I’ve spent most of the last two years trying, with some success, to get in shape. While I am most definitely fitter and healthier than I was when I first got diagnosed with diabetes, I have really struggled with the weight loss portion of the program. I initially lost a bunch of weight. Then I gained some of it back. Then I lost some of it again, but could never get back to my low. Then, this year, somewhere between my trip to London at the beginning, during which I actually lost a couple of pounds, and the end of May, I gained an unacceptable few pounds. I was already feeling pretty low and crappy about it. My clothes aren’t fitting the same, and I saw a few photos from the reunion, and I look heavier than I did in my London photos. Things took a turn for the worse on Monday though, when someone asked me if I was pregnant.

I don’t actually know who was more upset – infertile Hillary or the Hillary who just got called fat. I sort of stammered something, ignored the lame “Oh, because you look tired” CYA statement that followed (like they were going to say Oh, because you look kinda fat today) and fled. Since I neither hauled off and socked the person nor burst in to tears, I think I handled it as gracefully as I possibly could have. I know why it happened. Not only have I gained a few pounds, but I wore a really lightweight floaty top on Monday because I knew it was going to be about 100 degrees out. I suppose from some angles you might think it was a maternity top, but who the hell doesn’t know that you never ask a woman if she’s pregnant if you don’t already know she’s pregnant? I thought everyone had been informed of that rule. It was a really cute outfit, but now I might just have to burn it.

So anyway, I am, here and now, publicly recommitting myself to getting skinnier. No more sneaking off to Starbucks for iced Chai Lattes, no more hitting the vending machine when I get hungry at work, and no more skipping spinning class or making excuses because my knee hurts. Portion control, discipline and exercise are going to be the rules around here. I’m weighing myself tomorrow morning, and we’ll see (ok, you won’t, because I’m NOT sharing what I weigh with the world right now) where I’m starting from. Please wish me luck. I have the feeling I’m going to need it.

Today I went to the endocrinologist for my quarterly diabetes checkup. I was worried about traffic, because they are doing some sort of bizarre and complicated construction project on the road that my doctor's office is on, so I was pleased when I realized they didn't have it down to one lane today. The weather was lovely, and I even scored a great parking space. And then I went to check in. "Hillary Penguin?" the girl at the receptionist desk said. "Um, your appointment was yesterday." Whoops. I didn't realize that 37 was the age where senility started to set in! I have never done anything like that before. I just put it in on the wrong day on the calendar, I guess, but wow did I feel like a moron.

Luckily, they were able to squeeze me in anyway. In fact, I think I had to wait less than I usually do. The doctor even said, "I was so surprised, because you're just not the sort of person who would not come and not call to cancel." Which is true. I'm not that sort of person. I don't make mistakes like that! But this time I did.

In other duh news, did you know that postage rates went up last week? I didn't. Yep, 1st class stamps now cost 42 cents, not 41 cents. I wish I had known that before I mailed my gas bill off last week, although luckily, they seem to have some sort of amnesty for people like me, because it didn't come back to me.

Now I'm wondering if idiocy happens in threes, like so many other things. If so, the next few days could have the potential to deliver a really whopper of stupidity. I sure hope this is a short term burst and not the start of a longer trend. Time will tell.

I’ve been taking it easy since the whole ten miler debacle. After the first few days my knee seemed to be improving, but I didn’t want to push it. I went to my weight training class, but did not do lunges. I did ok on the elliptical and the exercise bike, but my knee got tired and sore toward the end, so I didn’t do as much as normally would. I skipped spinning class. And really, laziness seemed like a decent course of action for a couple of weeks. I didn’t want to go to the doctor, and I was hoping everything would just clear up with time. Then last Sunday, a massive rainstorm hit while I was at Target. It had been raining all day, but this storm was nuts. You could hear the rain slamming in to the roof, and the thunder rumbling outside, even way at the back of the store. Naturally, I was parked at the end of the parking lot, and I had left my umbrella in the car. It wasn’t a terribly cold rain though, so I decided to go for it, and ran across the parking lot with my cart full of stuff. It actually felt good to run! But then within five minutes my knee started to throb, and I knew I had a problem.

Monday morning I called the orthopedist, and was able to get an appointment for Friday. The visit was fine, but it encapsulated everything I hate about going to the doctor. I saw the doctor for about seven minutes. I was there for an hour and a half. First came the time in the waiting room. I had to fill out forms, and then I got to wait. They had three magazines in the waiting room. Twenty plus chairs for people to sit in, mostly full, and two issues of Parents and a copy of Highlights to occupy their attention. The perfect selection for an infertile like me, and all the old people getting their hips replaced. I amused myself sending cranky and bored emails and listening to the other people in the waiting room. One woman with her arm in a sling was giving her husband all the information for her form. I had to laugh when she flat out lied about her weight to him at one point. I mean, sure, fudge five pounds or so (who doesn’t?), but she underestimated her weight by a good 30 pounds.

I finally got to go back to wait in the exam room, where they did have a decent magazine supply. The nurse was very friendly and efficient and took me off to get x-rays without wasting any time. Then it was back to the exam room to wait for the doctor. He zipped in, listened to my story, had me stand so he could look at my knees, and then had me lie down on the table so he could check range of motion. And then he pushed on one particular spot and asked, “Does that hurt?” Yep, it sure did. You can bend my knee any which way you want, but don’t push on that spot, and don’t ask me to do weight bearing stuff.

According to the doctor, I either have torn cartilage in my knee, or I have an “irritable kneecap.” Who knew kneecaps could even get irritable? If I have torn cartilage, I have to have surgery. If I have an irritable kneecap, I have to strengthen my quads and avoid certain types of activities. For example, I could still run, but I’d have to avoid hills and run on a treadmill. Oh, darn. Although I will admit that as Becky and I trained for the ten miler, I began to see the appeal of outdoor running. Just not in my neighborhood which is too damn hilly. For now I am forbidden to do lunges and squats and I’m supposed to take it easy on stairs. My knee is still sore, and it spends a lot of time feeling hot inside and getting stiff, but I’m not limping anymore.

The next step is to go get an MRI. I’ve never had an MRI, and I’m not particularly looking forward to it, although at least he said I could get one of the open ones. Being stuck in a tube and not being able to move while a machine makes loud noises at me is not my idea of a good time. I also don’t particularly want to have knee surgery, so let’s all root against torn cartilage. In fact, the notion of having a bitchy kneecap kind of appeals to me. Perhaps I can use it to threaten people. “Don’t cross Bad Penguin,” they’ll say. “She seems really nice, but her kneecap will cut you.”

That's about the only positive thing I can say about this day. I think I’d like to request a do-over for today. On second thought, perhaps we could just arrange for today to be expunged. That way I don’t have to live through it again.

My day got off on the wrong foot right from the start. I literally got up on the wrong side of the bed when the phone rang and I got up to answer it at 6:15. It was some moron looking for a car repair shop. Hey buddy, NOTHING IS OPEN AT 6:15 am. My alarm was set to go off anyway, so I got up. The grand plan was to get up and out early so that I could get in to work early, because I knew I was going to have a crazy day. And you know how much I hate getting up early – but a look at my to-do list on Wednesday evening convinced me it was time for extreme measures. Unfortunately for me, there was terrible, hideous traffic for some reason. I ended up getting to work at about 8:50. Not quite the bright, shiny start to my day I wanted.

Then I realized I had left my pad with all my current notes and the stuff I had brought home to proofread last night sitting on my desk. So I got to proof some stuff again.

I won’t go in to the details of the rest of my day, but I’ve decided that everyone in my company needs a spring break. Everyone is stressed out and cranky and pushing way too hard. I’d say we all need a few days away from each other and all of the deadlines and projects and meetings and the endless stream of email after email after email. Too bad there isn’t some business-friendly way to do that. I like it much better when we’re not all overloaded and snapping at each other.

Oh well. At least tomorrow is Friday. And I’m expecting a nice day on Saturday. I’m getting my hair cut in the morning, and then having lunch and going shopping with my mom. A little pampering could go a long way for me right now. Do you have any exciting plans for the weekend? Also, I’m bored with my hair, so any curly hairstyle suggestions you have to offer would be greatly appreciated.

So, the knee. The knee hurts. I can bend it for a while if I’m sitting down, but then it starts to get this stiff/hot feeling, and I have to move it, which hurts. I lurch around like Frankenstein, because bending it while putting weight on it is extra painful. All day long today I had the pleasure of explaining to people that I was supposed to run the Cherry Blossom Ten Miler yesterday, but I only ran part of it because my stupid knee hurt. Having to tell a dozen different people how I failed was a blast, even if they were all sympathetic.

Going up and down the stairs takes approximately 12 years. In fact, it takes me forever to get anywhere, because I can’t walk like a normal person. My entire right leg and hip complex are starting to get sore and tired from all the extra work they are doing while my left leg is all stiff and not bendy. Last night I kept waking myself up, because every time I rolled over or even moved, my knee gave me a jolt. I’m a ridiculously restless sleeper to begin with, so that was a lot of waking up happening. And tonight, as I was telling my mom the story of the race, she chimed in with a helpful story from her own past, saying “I once walked around on a broken patella for two weeks without realizing it. But you probably didn’t break anything.”

Thanks. That was very reassuring. I have to say, there was no real improvement from yesterday to today, which has me a little worried. Let’s hope it is better tomorrow.

I have some complaints about Chevy Chase Bank. Would you like to hear my problems with Chevy Chase Bank? Here is my review of Chevy Chase Bank: Chevy Chase Bank customer service is terrible. Chevy Chase Bank thinks it is ok to take my money and not give it to me. Chevy Chase Bank is run by a bunch of inept morons who have stupid policies. Chevy Chase Bank certainly does not care about its customers at all.

There, do you think I packed that 1st paragraph with enough phrases that will turn up in online search to ensure that the world will learn of my extreme dissatisfaction with Chevy Chase Bank? Now, let me tell you what they did.

I have had a bank account with Chevy Chase for about 10 years now. At some point after we got married, we added John's name to the account. Now (and this is key to the story), John's name is not actually John. That's what everyone calls him, but his legal name is long and multipart and reflects his ethnic heritage. We have, over the years, deposited many, many checks made out to John Ourlastname, and they have always cleared the bank with no trouble. Until last week. Last week, we deposited what for us was a very large sum of money. In person, at the teller, because we wanted to be sure that everything went ok. We asked questions, like how long would it take for the money to clear, and got answers. At no time did anyone suggest that there would be any problem with our deposit. They sent us something in the mail confirming what the teller told us. The money was in our account...until suddenly it wasn't there anymore. You see, they decided that since the name on the check didn't match the name on the account exactly, it had to go to their security department.

Now, I am all for them being careful about fraud. However, no one asked us about the discrepancy. No one asked the holder of the account who wrote the check if there was a problem. No one contacted the issuing bank to see if there were any concerns. No, they just pulled the money out of our account without telling us. So it was there, and then it wasn't. It is a miracle that I didn't send out any checks spending that money. If it weren't for the fact that I am so cautious about everything that I triple checked before mailing out the first check, I never would have known there was a problem. And then when I called customer service to find out why there was substantially less money in my bank account than there should be, the nice customer service lady didn't know anything.

The next day, instead of calling me at work or on my cell phone as I requested, they called the house. After 9 am. When I was unlikely to be there. Luckily, John was home. They were rude to him, they were rude to me, and they were rude to the person who wrote the check, who called to reassure them that there was no fraud occurring. When John called and asked to speak to the branch manager, she was "at lunch." And then, "oh, she left for a meeting." The person I spoke to had a serious attitude problem. I suppose she expected me to be mad at her, and well, I had reason to be, didn't I? Being preemptively nasty to someone your company is screwing over is an interesting way to approach the situation.

They are refusing to give us the money, by the way. Apparently there is not one person at that bank who has the intelligence to look at the minor difference between the name on the account and the name on the check and make the connection. Or who can see that we've already deposited checks from that account written to that name before. Or who can look at the fact that I've been banking with them for a fucking decade, and we are not shady con artists. Instead, they are cutting a registered check back to the account the original check was drawn on. Once they get around to doing that, we then have to wait for it to get back to the bank, be deposited, and then get a new check written to us. A new check which we will put in the new bank account we are opening. I expect we'll actually get the money about a month later than we were supposed to.

Ok, enough bitching about how evil Chevy Chase Bank is. Got a favorite bank you'd like to recommend? Or perhaps a bank that you'd avoid? So far I've heard PNC Bank is good, and M&T is decent. Apparently Commerce Bank is wonderful, but they don't have them here.

No, the other thing…no the other one…running outside.

This week’s training run distance was eight miles. Now, I conquered 7 miles last week, so while I was a little nervous about running eight miles, I thought I could probably do it. However, I wanted to run outside this time because a) I will not be able to run the actual race on the treadmill, and b) it was supposed to be nice out today, and I’m desperate for even a hint of spring.

This meant that it was time for coping mechanism #1: shopping. First, I went in search of that dorkiest of accessories, the waist pack. I desperately need to get new contacts, so I have to be able to carry both my contact case and my glasses with me when I run in case I have to take my contacts out at some point. Yes, I really am blind enough that if I don’t have either my glasses or my contacts, running around outside would be seriously dangerous for me. After securing myself a sweet little fanny pack (shudder) I went looking for a lightweight running jacket. Why is it that so many of the exercise clothes makers assume that women want ridiculously ugly workout gear? I’m not interested in magenta or lime green clothes. And Under Armour, why is your crap so incredibly expensive? I don’t care if your jacket is made from the same advanced polymer as the space shuttle, $90 is way too much money for a little jacket. I couldn't find a jacket to buy, so coping mechanism #1 was only partially successful.

Coping mechanism #2: read a book, didn’t really seem to apply. I’ve tried reading running magazines a couple of times, and typically I find their training tips confusing. I’m all for articles like “we test new running shoes and rate them” but I find the profiles of people who run ten marathons per year in 2 hours and 19 minutes too intimidating. And what the hell is a tempo run anyway?

Coping mechanism #3, baking, would have been actually counter-productive, so I didn’t bother with it.

So I came home, ate lunch, and loaded up my fancy new gear (aka the waist pouch), got changed, and headed out for my run. It went pretty well at first. I had forgotten to charge up my iPod, so it conked out on me about three miles in. At four miles, I actually felt surprisingly good. At five miles, I hit a hill and wanted to lie down and die, but kept going. I may have walked just a little bit on the hill. Then my right foot started to hurt, so I walked a little bit more. Finally, the end was in sight! I turned in to my neighborhood, ran half a block, and my body just flat out quit on me. It was like it went “hey, we’re home! I’m done.” even though I still had half a mile to go. I’d run a few steps and then walk, then run a few more, and walk. Mostly I walked. As I crested the overly steep hill upon which my house sits, I gathered enough energy to run the last tenth of a mile, and then I was home. At which time I caught a glimpse of myself in the storm door – crazy hair straggling out of my pony tail and frizzing, red, sweaty face, runny nose, and huffing and puffing chest. Wow, do I make running glamorous.

I staggered inside, feeling like crap. After a shower and some time hanging out on the couch I felt closer to human, but now I am completely exhausted, and my ankles hurt and feet hurt. I’m going to keep at it, because I really want to do this race, but outdoor running? Still not my friend.

At least I can say I (mostly) ran eight miles. Farthest I've ever run!

Listen, stock market, we need to talk about your attitude. You’ve been a real bitch pretty much since last July, although it has gotten much worse since the start of the new year. It’s really starting to wear those of us whose livelihoods are tied to your actions down.

And yesterday was the worst one yet! Your vertiginous (like that? I learned a new word. One of my coworkers said, “Hey, would you describe today’s market as vertiginous? “ “I might, if I knew what vertiginous meant.” And there it was on her word-of-the-day calendar, the perfect fancy word to describe your behavior. Vertiginous, meaning dizzying, I guess like vertigo.) activity yesterday really crossed the line.

While I am glad you decided to end the day in positive territory, you really complicated my life yesterday. You changing your mind on direction every 15 minutes meant that I kept having to rewrite copy – the markets are down! The markets are up! The markets can bite my shiny metal ass!

Pretty much everyone is saying that 2008 is going to be a crazy volatile year for you no matter what happens, so you’ll have plenty of chances to act up, but just for today, how about you give us a break? Think about it, ok?

Thanks,
Your pal,
Bad Penguin

I had one main desire for my dinner tonight – that it include guacamole. I bought three small avocados on Sunday, and I was sure that they’d be ripe by this evening. I gave them each a thorough yet gentle squeeze before heading out to work this morning, and I was full of plans for delicious, nutritious guacamole. But I was sadly mistaken, and thus thwarted by unripe fruit. Stupid sneaky avocados.

I know I should be grateful that I can even get my hands on avocados in January, but damn it, I really wanted guacamole. And don’t tell me that I should go buy guacamole. No one makes it as good as I do. Actually, that’s not true. My friend Julie’s mom makes better guacamole than I do. Otherwise, though, I make the best. My dinner was fine, but it guacamole-free.

On a completely unrelated note, John and I have spent the last two nights obsessively researching hotels in London for our trip this spring. We were looking at this special British Airways promotion where you supposedly got two nights free in a hotel, but it turns out most of the hotels you can get for free are the crappy ones that do not meet my standards. So the researching continues, and we can’t seem to agree on a hotel. I want to stay some place fancy, and John wants to worry about not spending too much money. I’m not trying to book us in to the Ritz for crying out loud! Anyway, if you have a favorite London hotel, we’re looking for recommendations.

I read this horrible article on MSN recently, which freaked me out quite a bit. It made two main points:

1) There is a huge zone in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that is full of old plastic crap – plastic bags, plastic rings, plastic containers, plastic nets, plastic everything. This is bad for the animals in the ocean, and bad for the ocean itself, and on top of that, bad for the planet overall.

2) Plastic may be a hormone disruptor, contributing to fertility problems, and health issues for babies and children.

Naturally, I found this article pretty disturbing on a bunch of levels. I mean, of course I care about the environment, and yes, the fertility thing made me perk up my ears. Plastic is everywhere, and in everything. Food, beverages, toiletries, packaging, hairbrushes, my keyboard, my car, my toothbrush, my TV remote, my everything. I can sit here in my living room and spot like 50 things with plastic in them. How are you supposed to know when it is ok to use plastic and when it isn’t? Is it bad just to be near it, breathing in plastic fumes? If you store your food in plastic, is that worse that using shampoo that is in a plastic bottle? And what about my massive Tupperware collection? I have a friend who’s mom has a Tupperware distributorship, and she usually hits me up to come to a party once a year or so, and I always get a bunch of stuff. I love Tupperware. It is bright and well made and allows me to store things in a variety of convenient sizes.

And would it be more wasteful to chuck (or recycle) all of my Tupperware stuff and switch to glass? If I knew for sure that the plastic stuff was bad, then that would make it an easy decision, but the article was kind of vague on exactly how the mechanics of plastic causing health problems works. Instead, I can’t quite tell how much energy I should put into worrying about and trying to change the level of plastic usage in my life. Now, from an environmental standpoint, trying to cut back on plastic makes sense, and I am going to work on doing just that. Although does anyone have any good ideas for dealing with dog poop without using plastic bags? Because I’m coming up dry there.

If you’re ever using a knife, and you think to yourself, “I should be using a smaller knife. This one is too big” you should do yourself a favor and switch knives. If you don’t listen to that little voice, you’ll feel like even more of a dumbass when you take a chunk out of your finger. And it will HURT, too. I love my knives, because they are good and they are sharp. That's very useful when chopping vegetables, but not so great when my clumsy finger gets in the way.

Oh well, at least I didn’t bleed on dinner.

According to my fancy new Beagles 2008 calendar, today is a holiday called Day After New Year's Day in New Zealand and some mysterious country abbreviated as SCT (right now all I can come up with is South Connecticut, which was not a country the last time I looked). Now, I don't know why the day after New Year's Day qualifies as a holiday in these two places, unless they are all such prodigious drinkers that everyone in those countries gets two day hangovers, but I think I need to consider relocating. Going back to work today did not go well. I had a horrible day, and frankly, I don't want to go back tomorrow.

Seriously, this day sucked the life out of me. Yes, I've been off for eleven days, but four of those days were weekend days (and I actually put in a full day of work on one of those weekend days), and three were holidays, so technically, I only missed four days when my company was open for business. I have to say, I don't quite understand how so much stuff happened in what is typically a pretty quiet week. 15 different people jumped on me as soon as I walked in the door with questions and meeting requests and problems and new projects and I got absolutely no time to ease back in or even get caught up. While I was out, I got something like 1,700 emails which naturally I still haven't managed to wade through completely. Oh, some people were glad to see me back in the office. Pretty much everyone else seemed determined to make me start fervently counting down the days to Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Plus, it was ridiculously cold and windy here today. You all know how I feel about cold and windy weather.

Tomorrow had better be better. I am determined to find a way to make tomorrow better, if only through sheer force of will, but I don't see this as a shining start to my new year. Hope your day was better than mine!

Aargh! The Toffee Squares didn't set right in the fridge last night, and now I am down to one cookie to hand out today. That's not a festive assortment. That's one sad little cookie in a half-empty treat bag.

I think I'm postponing cookie/gift distribution until tomorrow. Except for my boss, who isn't in tomorrow, and who probably doesn't care if she gets cookies or not, seeing as how she's married to an extaordinary cook/baker/all around gourmet.

Hey! As I was typing this, John's dentist called with the estimate for our portion of his current dental adventure. I about had a heart attack. Let's just say that between the two of us, we're keeping the local dental community in luxury cars this year.

I wish I could go back to bed.

Tomorrow we're having Pie Day at my office. They asked me to make a pie, as everyone knows I bake. And I am more than happy to provide a pie for pie day. However, by the time I got the email, (probably late due to being in a meeting) all of the standard pies I usually make were already taken, or just plain unsuitable for a winter pie. Why, yes, I do have a pie reportoire. What of it?

After some pie-related polling, I agreed to make a Lemon Meringue pie. Pie Day was originally supposed to be today, which was great, because I was going to bake a pie last night, and then cookies for my team tonight. But they had to move Pie Day, and I ended up having to do all my baking tonight.

First, I ruined the crust. Knowing that I was going to have a lot to do tonight, I cheated and bought a frozen pie crust. Normally I make my pies from scratch, really I do, but I've been trying to clamp down on my tendencies to take on way more than I can handle in a particular time period. Hence the frozen pie crust. Well, I opened the freezer to take the crust out, and something must have disturbed the balance of power in there because whammo! The package came flying out, aimed straight at my head. I ducked, and it hit the floor and shattered in to a gazillion pieces. I think I may have shouted "Motherfucker!" and meant it right at that moment.

So after a few minutes of debating whether or not it would just be easier to make a damn pie crust myself, I ran back out to the market to get another frozen one.

Then, while I was separating the egg yolks from the egg whites, a huge blorp of yolk got mixed in to the whites at the very last second. All of the cookbooks go on and on about how you can't have any fat in your egg whites to get a good meringue, so I had to throw them out and start over. And before I could do that, I had to warm four more eggs up to room temperature. All of which left me severely behind schedule, and most definitely cranky. I usually do three or four different kinds of cookies for my team, and this year they are getting one cookie and oatmeal toffee chocolate bars. Well, and little presents too. I do try to be a nice boss.

The meringue-making actually went fine (thank you Kitchen Aid Pro Mixer, retaining your title as the best purchase I have ever made), as did the filling. My pie certainly looks like a Lemon Meringue Pie. It had darn well better be delicious, is all I'm saying.

Wondering why I haven't commented on your blog lately? Perhaps a peek at my schedule will help to clear up the mystery. I only wish I was exaggerating or kidding for comedic effect. Instead, this is actually my life.

Get to work at 8:40 because I have a 9 a.m. meeting. I typically get to work between 9:30 and 9:45, coming in a little bit later and staying a little bit later because the traffic is exponentially better for me that way. Because the traffic can be so ridiculously and unpredictably bad, I have to leave the house by 7:30 if I want to ensure that I'm in the office by 9 a.m. Which means I have to get up and out earlier than usual, and as well all know, morning is not my best time.

8:40 to 9:00 Eat oatmeal, read emails that have come in last night and this morning.

9:00 - 12:00 Vendor demo. This meeting ran over by an hour. I also really, really should have tanked up on caffeine ahead of time. Plus for some reason my normally comfortable cotton tights were itchy, and I had to fight the urge to fidget. Due to the meeting running long, I missed my weekly development team meeting from 11:00-12:00. Luckily, the team is pretty self-sufficient, and they figured out that I wasn't coming and went on with their days.

12:00 return to my office. Feel a little overwhelmed when I get a look at all the email that has piled up in my box in just three hours. Deal with the various people who come by my office with questions.

12:40 realize I don't have much time left to eat lunch.

12:45 to 1:00 Microwave lunch, eat lunch. Pop online to see what the stock market is doing.

1:00 Off to a meeting with the VP of IT about some stuff that needs building.

2:07 Realize I'm late for my pub team meeting. Leave programmers debating a solution. Dash over to the conference room and tell them we'll reconvene at 2:30. Run back to the programmers. Make progress! Feel good! But not quite enough progress, so we have to meet again tomorrow!

2:32 Pub team meeting commences in conference room that smells, oddly, of fish and wine. I like meeting with my pub team. They are a good bunch. That is not to cast aspersions on my poor development team who got ditched earlier in the day. They are also a great bunch. I'm lucky enough to really like all of the people I work with right now.

3:00 Run to next meeting. Establish test plan for Monday.

3:20 Oh look! 10 blissfully free minutes until my conference call. Holy crap. How did I get so many emails just since 1 p.m.?

3:30-4:30 Conference call. This is a weekly call that is sometimes a complete disaster. It goes ok today.

4:30 Snack time. Yippee! And now I get to try to start actually getting some work done. Return phone calls. Go through emails. Try to remember all the stuff I promised I'd send to people, follow-up on or write out in my various meetings.

8:10 I could probably work for four more hours, but I decide it is time to give up, pack it in and go home.

8:45 Home! I'm so happy to see Seamus wagging at the door and John smiling at me. I owe John special thanks for walking Seamus this morning (I'm usually on mornings) and for cooking dinner, both of which made my day much easier.

Tomorrow looks very similar, with meetings from 10:00 to 11:00, 11:00 to 12:30, 1:00 to 3:00, 3:00 to 4:00 and 4:00 to 4:30. Wish me luck - I'm going to need it.

So last night I was all “Whee! Relaxed! Blissful!” Today I returned to reality. Traffic was pretty light this morning, which made for a nice drive in to work, but then the fun really started. My work computer just up and died. You know you’re screwed when IT tells you they have no idea what the problem is with your machine. It’s one thing when I can’t figure out what is going on with my computers. It’s something completely different when the smart guys don’t know what the deal is.

So my computer was out of commission for most of the day. They gave me a loaner, but it didn’t have my stuff installed which was kind of a hassle. And I had meetings. Lots of meetings. Perhaps it was just the usual back to work after four days off ennui, but man, I could not seem to get anything accomplished the way I wanted to today. And they had to reformat my computer to get it working again, so I lost all these graphics I had saved on the hard drive, and all my saved passwords and login info, and I had to go re-download a bunch of crap.

Then I got to thinking about how all I wanted to do was get a pizza and fries and come home and sit on the couch eating cupcakes. But I can’t do that because I have stupid diabetes and I don’t get to eat junk food anymore. Also, we don’t have any pizza, cupcakes or French fries. So instead I sat in traffic (because it was raining), and came home and worked out and then had a baked potato for dinner, which should have made me feel virtuous, but really just made me even more cranky.

Stupid Monday.

A while back I wrote a somewhat cranky post about the problems I was encountering while interviewing people for a job opening we had on my team. Now I'm hiring again, and I'm seeing a whole new set of problems. First, we've had multiple candidates send us resumes, and then just never return our call when we contacted them to set up an interview. Is the job market that great that when someone wants to interview you, you can't be bothered? It's not like we're waiting three weeks to call them.

Then there are the people who clearly haven't read the job description or our requirements. If you want $120,000, you really shouldn't be applying for jobs that have Assistant in the title, unless that job is something like Assistant US Attorney. Although I think we've decided to start looking at slightly higher level candidates, so we may change Assistant to Manager. Even so, we're not going to pay $120,000.

And most of all, if I actually make you an offer and you tell me that you'll call me with an answer on Monday, well then, call me with an answer on Monday. It's ok to turn me down, or even to try to negotiate with me. I generally don't go in for a lot of game playing bullshit though, and not calling me is not going to make me desperate to throw more money at you. In fact, it's going to make me want to withdraw my offer to you altogether, which is probably not the response you had in mind. You may think you're playing hardball, but you're making me think you don't take deadlines seriously.

I sure hope I find someone good soon. This is getting old.

Uh-oh. I think I'm getting old. Not only did I catch myself making a face the other day that looked like a face I've seen my mom make...not only did I recently realize that my friends who had kids right after college now have children who are teenagers... today I actually saw a generational difference in action. I shouldn't be old enough to have generational differences with adults who are younger than me, damn it! We took one of my team members out to lunch for her birthday today. She's ten years younger than I am, making me Generation X, and her, Generation Y, I guess. When the bill came, the three old fogey over 30 year-olds pulled out cash - and the rest of the group, all firmly in their 20's still, each pulled out their debit cards and wanted to split the bill up among the five different cards. They all knew we were going out to lunch. It wasn't a surprise. None of them ever carry cash.

Now, I don't carry cash much either. As far as I'm concerned, the Visa ATM card is the most convenient invention ever. However, if I know I'm going out for a group meal, I always stop and get cash. It wouldn't have occurred to me that they could split the check up on to so many cards. Back in my day, people in restaurants either couldn't or wouldn't do that. Probably because we were all too busy walking barefoot uphill both ways in the snow and wearing onions on our belts (which was the fashion at the time) or something.

What's next? An inability to adapt to new technologies? Turning the heat up to 78 degrees? Driving slow in the fast lane? Hopefully I still have a few good years left in me!

I don't have this week's vegetarian Thanksgiving recipe ready yet. I tried a new recipe for baked stuffed onions this weekend that I thought might be suitable, but in the end, it wasn't all that good. Particularly when you consider that it took something like two and a half hours to make. Not worth it.

But that's ok, because I have to take a moment to address the lies being spread by my very own brother in the comments on my last post. No, I did NOT break someone's leg while playing field hockey. I admit that I am somewhat spectacularly uncoordinated, however, I've never actually brought physical harm to another person. I believe the story my brother is misremembering is actually one in which I was the victim. It goes like this:

At my school, there was no signing up for teams. In sixth, seventh and eighth grade, if you were a girl, you played on the field hockey team in the fall and the lacrosse team in the spring. For boys it was soccer in the fall and lacrosse in the spring. I was neither particularly good nor particularly bad at field hockey. They'd put me in, I'd play, and then it would be someone else's turn to go on the field. Anyway, this one time there was a group of us fighting for the field hockey uh, ball. Ball, right? It's been a long time. Anyway, we were all clumped up, whacking away at the ball and trying to get control of it when my middle school arch-nemesis got hit with a stick and decided I had hit her. She was sure that I had hit her on purpose (I hadn't - in fact I'm not sure it was me, but either way I wasn't evil like she was) so she raised her stick up over her shoulder and slammed it in to my shin as hard as she could. Our own coach pulled her off the field for that one. I wasn't wearing shin guards for some reason and to this day, there is a dent in my left shin. Nothing was broken, although I think I had a fairly impressive bruise.

So there. See? I did not go around maiming people in middle school. Or ever, but most particularly not in a field hockey game.

Last night I wrote a post for this blog. It may not have been the best post I've ever written, but it covered a) my joy that John decided to give up the fight against Comcast, declaring "Our grand experiment has failed" after watching me try and fail to log in to my computer at work for an hour on stupid dialup. He may also have been influenced by losing three eBay auctions in a row because of the slow connection. I don't really care what his motivation was. I'm just glad to cast off the shackles of dial up.

Then I went on to write about how I was baking for Chocolate Day at work. And then I stepped away from the computer for a minute to go check on my cake, only to have my laptop freeze, followed by the blue screen of death. Since it was almost midnight, at that point I had two options: Go on a rampage, or shut down the machine and go to bed. I chose bed.

I didn't even try to start the laptop tonight. Sigh. I have got to figure out what the hell is going on with that machine. But not tonight.

I have spent the last hour and half fighting with my laptop to get it to start up properly. I finally gave up and decided to reformat it, and it won't let me. I keep getting some stupid error message about dismounting my volume or something like that, and it will not reformat! John finally had the idea to go in and disable everything on the start menu, because that is where it was hanging up every time. That's working for now. So, after an hour and a half of wrestling with Windows, the hideous dialup connection is killing me. I'm supposed to work from home tomorrow morning, and that is going to be a complete nightmare.

As frustrating as this is, I spent a bunch of time today reminding myself that I have a good life, even with multiple malfunctioning computers. I'm lucky enough to own more than one computer. I'm lucky enough to be in a position that I can threaten to buy a new laptop if I can't get this one working to my satisfaction. And for that matter, I'm lucky enough to be able to work from home from time to time, even if I have to use dialup. So, I'll try to quit bitching and be grateful.

I have had one lousy weekend. No, lousy's not a strong enough word. Let's go with shitty instead. That's closer to how I really feel.

Let's start with Enterprise Rent A Car, which, much like the rental car company in that Seinfeld episode, knows how to take a reservation, but does not know how to actually have the vehicle you have reserved ready and waiting for you. The admittedly very apologetic girl told me there'd been some sort of mix-up when I made my reservation online. Never mind that I had actually called that branch in person with a question and the guy told me he couldn't give me the rate I'd been quoted online and directed me to go ahead and make the reservation that way. And what I needed was a cargo van, which apparently was very hot commodity in this area on Saturday. Thank goodness for UHaul, who I had initially dismissed in favor of Enterprise because I found their website so incredibly annoying. No, I don't need boxes, storage, movers, a dolly or packing tape. Why do I have to tell you what I had for dinner last night so I can get a quote on a van rental? At least when I called them rather than going online (see next item) I could say that to a person and speed the process along, and unlike Enterprise, they not only took my reservation, they actually rented me a van.

Shortly following the Enterprise debacle, two of the three computers in my house decided to stop working. My laptop is still a little shaky. I'm not sure exactly what I did this time that got it started and running, so who knows if it will start again the next time I try. Goddamn Bill Gates and his crappy operating system. Seriously, all of this was because Windows just decided to stop cooperating on both machines, for completely different reasons. Two different manufacturers, two different versions of Windows, two different people using the computers on a regular basis, and they both just stopped working. Words fail me when I try to express how insanely frustrating that is.

Let's see, we treated ourselves to takeout both Friday and Saturday nights, and on both nights, the food was disappointing.

And then today rolled around. I really did not enjoy today. John and I had a fight, which we rarely do. We're a good fit for each other, and while we can argue over slight differences of opinion on the separation of church and state or music or interpretations of history for hours, we just don't fight. This one was even worse because it came out of nowhere. One second I was in the car congratulating myself on buying Dunkin Donuts but not getting any for myself (sadly, this virtuousness was later rendered completely useless by me scarfing down three cupcakes and a glass of wine, but this day sucked and my diabetes can bite me, just this once), and the next, whammo, we were in the middle of a fight.

Even better, we had to go see my mom immediately afterwards. She was at the opening of her stupid farmer's market that is outside, and yet does not allow pets - a fact she might have mentioned to me since she knows we take Seamus with us to most places where he might be welcome. There were a bunch of people who showed up with dogs in the ten minutes that I was there, so I think they are going to have to reconsider that rule. It's a dumb rule. But whatever, at that point I wasn't really interested in making polite conversation with her friends and fellow farmer's-market-starters anyway. And then we got to go hang out with John's sister and dad and pretend we weren't mad at each other while divvying up John's mom's possessions and loading up our UHaul rented van with stuff to go to the dump. Actually, that part went far better than I thought it would, even pre-fight. It was good to see John's dad, and my sister-in-law behaved herself, and she had my small, sweet new little niece with her. There was this one moment, as I sat there watching John cuddle with and nuzzle this tiny little baby, that I had to work very hard not to cry. It was simultaneously very touching and heartbreaking to see, given my current lame, barren state. And so we made it through our day, and came home to sit on the couch, in my case reading and eating cupcakes. I sure am glad this weekend is pretty much over.

The Internet and I have been feuding. For a variety of reasons, mostly having to do with crappy service, John and I discontinued our Comcast high speed Internet last week. The switch to dialup has not been exactly smooth. First of all, wow is dialup slow! I’m practically chiseling cuneiform into clay tablets over here. Second, a quick memo to the fine people at Verizon – if the login code you want me to use is two digits forward slash username, but your instructions tell me it is three digits forward slash username, well that’s bound to cause problems, isn’t it? We did not start off on the right foot. Your customer service guy was very friendly, even if I did have to battle a crappy connection to India and wait on hold for a ridiculous amount of time. Way to gear all of your customer service to broadband and FIOS customers – which, by the way, I’d be happy to be – if only you offered it in my neighborhood.

Anyway, it all seems to be sorted out now, provided I don’t go insane while waiting for a graphics-intensive page to load. I’m sure we will eventually cave and go back to Comcast since we have no other high-speed options, but we’re going to hold out as long as we can. Until then, I’ll be over here standing on principle, dodging dinosaurs and cavemen, tapping my foot and waiting for stuff to download. So, back to the posting!

The Internet may not be great, but at I still have television. The new TV shows are starting to pop-up. So far, I have checked out Journeyman, the Bionic Woman, and Reaper. Journeyman is about a reporter in San Francisco who suddenly finds himself shifting through time involuntarily. It was ok. I’ll give it a couple more episodes to develop, because it features Lucius Vorenus from Rome and the story has promise. Reaper’s premise is that this kid turns 21 and finds out that his parents sold his soul to the devil before he was born. Now he has to go start collecting souls of bad guys who have escaped from hell, or the devil will take one of his parents. It was funny and clever, and I’m definitely going to watch it again. Of course, I usually like Kevin Smith directed stuff. This Bionic Woman is not the slightly hippie leaning show I remember from the ‘70’s. It’s much darker and more action oriented. It definitely shows promise.

Have you found any new shows you like? Or hate?

The technology won.

I live 27 miles from my office. On the weekends I can make it down to that general area in 25 minutes, but during the week it is a different story. It frequently takes me an hour or longer, and one of the ways I keep my cool while I'm sitting in traffic is by listening to morning radio. This morning, out of nowhere, my car radio just started refusing to tune in to most stations. All of my favorites were fuzzy and switching back and forth to other nearby frequencies. It only lasted for the half of my drive that is closest to Frederick, and I've heard that occasionally they do something at Fort Detrick that messes up people's garage door frequencies, so I'm wondering what they were up to this morning. Either that, or aliens are on their way.

Whatever it was, the problem was solved by this evening. Still for a little while there, the only station I could get was Mix 107.3, and I cannot stand that stupid, smug Jack Diamond morning show. It was like being trapped in a mobile version of hell. And naturally, the one time I would have been ok with stop and go traffic so I could try to dig the neglected tape box out from where it is wedged under the passenger seat, I didn't get any. Luckily by the time I hit Clarksburg the radio came back. It was still weird, and annoying.

But technology wasn't done messing with me yet. We have a great IT department at my company - staffed with really friendly and helpful guys who are not even a little bit condescending when I call up with whatever stupid problem I'm having at the time. However, today they were doing something that resulted in an email I really needed to receive getting quarantined, and while they notified me of the quarantine, I couldn't go retrieve the email for some reason. And then my computer lost the ability to save. That's right, when I went to save the changes I was making to my document, my stupid computer froze. At first I just thought it was Word acting up (I'm always ready to judge Microsoft like that) but then I cut and paste in to Notepad, and that wouldn't save either. I ended up printing out my all the stuff I was working on and leaving everything open on my desktop. Hopefully there will be no restarting or power surges overnight ,and the problem will have resolved itself by the morning. John pointed out that I could have pasted the copy in to an email and sent it to myself. I wish I'd thought of that, but, well, I didn't.

At least I made it home without any more incidents. And tomorrow is another day.

I don't know what the hell is going on with my body this week. My hair, which has always been dry, dry like the Sahara, has suddenly decided to start getting greasy at the roots. Oh sure, the ends are still dry (and frizzy - let's not forget frizzy!), but by the end of the day, the rest of my hair is just gross. I went and bought new shampoo tonight, which had better help. Otherwise I have no idea how to handle this. I've never ever had oily hair before in my life.

On top of that, I have an enormous, glowing, Rudolph-like zit on the left side of my nose, another one perched comfortably right where my glasses sit on my ear, and a third one that appears to be lurking on the other side of my nose. Oh yes, and there's one on my back too. Nice. I generally don't have trouble with my skin, but you'd think I'd just gotten a job at McDonalds or something. I have not been eating fried foods, or dipping myself in vats of oil.

Do you suppose I could be going through some sort of second puberty? I wouldn't mind hitting a growth spurt - after all, shooting up an inch or two would make me instantly thinner - but it seems unlikely to happen at age 36.

Jean Paul Sartre ain’t got nothin’ on me, lately. My brain has been locked in a loop for the past few days, spinning in circles as I worry over this and that, searching for the meaning I’m supposed to be creating in my own life.

First there’s the never ending infertility treatment vs. losing weight debate. I’ve gained 10 pounds since Easter, when we found out Nora was dying. So instead of being seven pounds from where I wanted to be, I’m 17 pounds from where I wanted to be. Aside from being pissed off at myself for gaining the weight, even though I’m not entirely sure what I could have done differently, I’m upset that I’m that much farther from being where I thought I should be to start fertility treatments. And so round and round I go in my head. Do I take three more months, focus as hard as I possibly can, and see if I can’t ditch those 17 pounds? I sit around concocting these convoluted plans where I work out every morning and evening and turn myself in to a little mini-athlete. Or, do I say fuck it, and just jump into treatment now? I even briefly considered trying to convince myself that maybe I don’t want children, but I had to call shenanigans on myself for that. Yeah, that whole intense longing/sadness/wistfulness thing that happens every time someone I know (or don’t know, a la Nicole Richie) gets pregnant, has a baby or even sends me a picture of their kid is a pretty good indicator that I want kids. And that’s kids, plural, and here I am 36 years old and needing to get my shit together and get moving.

Not to mention my continuing ambivalence about fertility treatment. I don’t want to do IVF. I know that’s exactly where I’m headed, and it’s not that I have any moral objection to it. I just don’t want to have to do it. I’ve never been able to make peace with the notion that I’m not going to get pregnant without some sort of intervention or assistance. Although four years in to this process, I probably need to start working on my accepting skills.

On top of that, my job is extra challenging right now, so whichever parts of my brain aren’t taken up plotting exercise schedules or wondering about infertility are busy struggling with work. I have one project that is extremely complex and taking a lot more effort to get off the ground than I thought it would, and another that clearly is not going to make its goals for August. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I may not even be doing anything wrong, but I had this moment today where I thought, “Oh crap, they are going to declare you a fraud and demote you back down to marketing manager where you can’t do any harm.” Which may, just may, have bit a bit of over-dramatizing on my part. Hey, I had to go to the dentist today. That always gets me a little high-strung.

And finally the creative side of my life just isn’t happening. Oh sure, I still write copy at work from time to time, but that’s not the kind of creativity I mean. My writing here has been mostly crap for months now. I’ve only been happy with a few of the posts I’ve written the last few months. I had a great idea for a graphic novel something like two years ago, and I haven’t done a damn thing with it. John and I came up with a bunch of cool stories on our non-vacation last October, and I haven’t done anything with any of mine. John’s got a whole outline written for one of his ideas, and I’ve got a shiny, empty notebook sitting next to the couch waiting for me to fill it with my brilliance. The ideas are there. I just can’t get them to come out properly. All the thoughts and words are jumbled up in my head. Writers write, but I’m not writing. I’m not doing anything. And that’s got to change.

Dear Universe,

I want to know what you are doing to address the following:

* I suffered through a horrific conference call today. I have a follow-up tomorrow. Please make tomorrow's better. No one should have to sit through two calls like that in one week.

* The Democrats have officially completely wussed out and caved on every issue that I think is important. Just listening to the news on the radio while driving home tonight, they covered how instead of moving troops out of Iraq, more troops have been steadily moving in...instead of impeaching Bush, that's been "taken off the table"...instead of tightening car emissions standards, they've decided they don't want to fight with the auto industry. Uh, hi. You're the fucking government. They have to do what you tell them...instead of ensuring health care for uninsured children, they are letting the Republicans turn it in to a debate on immigration. What the fuck? Stand for something you bastards.

* My dad is such a jerk. Lately he's taken to insulting my mom, It's the one part of their divorce that he ever handled with any class, but for some reason he's decided to take the gloves off. And now his crappy credit is making my mom's life difficult, even though they've been divorced for years. Why do we live in a society where my dad's finances are still considered a factor in my mom's finances? Stupid sexist society, and stupid, stupid dad.

* This turned out to be true. Why am I so obsessed with Nicole Richie being pregnant when I am not? I don't know. I just find it particularly unfair for some reason.

I'll tell you this though -- if Paris Hilton gets to have a kid before I do, that'll be the day I take to a clock tower with a rifle. Consider yourselves forewarned.

Universe? The ball is in your court.

I've been extra cranky this week, and I've been trying to figure out why. Sure, I'm running at a higher level of stress than usual, but that's really become the norm over the last two months. Yes, I've got a dying mother-in-law, a crazy sister-in-law, a crown that fell off (yay, more expensive dental work!) and I felt lousy on Sunday and Monday, and I'm down a team member at work. Oh, and all of our infertility plans are on hold, which sort of ebbs and flows as a situation that's irritating me. However, even accounting for all of that, I've just been downright out of sorts. I haven't even been able to get excited about possibly buying a new car. Normally, I'd be obsessively researching car prices and options and loans on the Internet, but instead, it has just felt like one more hassle.

Well, the light bulb finally went off for me this morning. This is the week we were supposed to head to Europe. Given our tentative itinerary, by rights at this point I would have art-geeked my way through Amsterdam and should be sitting in a café in Montmartre, sipping wine giggling over a snotty Parisian waiter and plotting to drag John to look yet another architectural gem that he could really live without seeing.

Instead, I went to work, did work stuff all day, visited my mother-in-law and then went to the Safeway of the damned to purchase ginger ale and ramen for John, who is a bit under the weather. Somehow, it's not quite the same, and I guess I've been subconsciously resenting it.

I've been feeling a bit surrounded by babies lately. My boss's boss's wife just had a baby girl on Thursday. My friends Dave and Valerie had a baby boy on Friday. I attended a baby shower for a co-worker on Friday. Even though I was happy for her, I did just about burst in to tears at one point when they were holding up the incredibly cute little girl outfits. Then when I left the shower, there was a guy standing at the elevator telling someone how he and his wife just found out they are having a girl. And my sister-in-law will be having her baby soon.

So, babies, babies everywhere. And I'm happy for all of them, really, even the random stranger by the elevator. Until today, when I saw two stories that just put me right over the edge. First, Sasha Baron Cohen and Isla Fisher are having a baby. Why do I care? I have no idea. Obviously, I don't know them. He's pretty funny (although I have not seen Borat) and she seems like a decent actress. I've never really thought about either one of them all that much, but for some reason, the fact that they are having a baby got under my skin. And then, well then I saw this story about the rumor that Nicole Richie is pregnant.

Seriously, universe, if that is true and Nicole fucking Richie gets to be pregnant and I don't, we are going to throw down. How can someone that thin even ovulate? And yes, I know no one ever promised me life would be fair, blah blah blah, but damn.

I got my first clock radio at the start of the school year, I think in seventh grade. I’m such a light sleeper that I never did well with alarms. My parents are both heavy sleepers who had to keep their alarm clocks across the room in order to be sure they woke up. I, on the other hand, would fly out of bed and across the room, frantically pushing buttons in order to make the noise stop. It was like waking up having a heart attach every morning. There were even times that I stomped down the hall to my parents room, threw open the door and pounded on their alarm to get it to turn off, grumpily shouting “Your alarm is going off!” at them.

So the switch to waking up to the gentle sounds of the radio came as a very welcome change for me. I’ve stuck with it ever since and it has worked very well. Well, once there was the time that it accidentally got set an hour ahead somehow. I didn’t realize the time was wrong until I got in the car to drive to work and thought, wow, it is awfully dark outside. I was seriously pissed off that morning. I don’t like mornings to begin with, and to realize I had gotten up at 5 am unnecessarily really, really bothered me. And then there was last night, when I apparently lost the knowledge I’ve had since I was 13 and set the alarm for 6:30 pm instead of 6:30 am. Thank goodness I have a little dog with a keen sense of time to wake me up in the morning. That didn't help me feel any less stupid, but it did help me get to work on time.

Warning: I've had two margaritas tonight, and I rarely drink. I'm not saying this is drunkblogging, but it might just be slightly impaired blogging. Oh, and I've been up since roughly 4:30 in the morning, when a parade of people who were most definitely drunk went charging down my hallway. My body is still on east coast time, and that was all it needed to decide that I was awake for the day. I stayed in bed and kept trying to sleep for a while longer, but I wasn't very successful. So I'm tired and choc full o'booze.

I suck at gambling. I'm theorizing that I have a magnetic field that makes the machines here hate me. Practically everyone I work with on this trip has won money gambling except me. I'm down $46. Other people sit down to gamble and their totals go up and down. They get a little ahead, and then lose a little and so on. Not me. I just lose, lose and then lose some more. We were playing this stupid Wheel o fFortune game earlier, and everyone else got extra credits and got to spin the wheel. I never even got to spin it once! At least If I'd gotten to do some of that it would have been fun, instead of frustrating.

I have $20 more or so that I'm willing to risk on giving this whole gambling thing one more shot, but Vegas is on the verge of losing me forever. I see other people win money, and it looks like a good time. I'd like to to do some of that winning, please.

Hey,you know what is harder when you've been drinking? spelling. Or to be more accurate, typing the words correctly. Sorry for any typos.

I'm about to turn in to a pumpkin again. Hopefully the alcohol will make me sleep deeper and not wake up for the fabulous drunky parade this morning.

My mother in law is still insisting that she can go live at home by herself instead of at the hospice. I thought we had settled this argument. She can't cook for herself, or even make a snack for herself. She gets exhausted very suddenly and can't even manage to sit up in a chair. She needs assistance to walk to the bathroom, or anywhere, really. She gets confused about her medication and has, at various times, either insisted that it was not time for her medication or that she hadn't had any medication at all that day.

And yet she's convinced she can manage at home. Never mind that she isn't capable of feeding or bathing herself. Or cleaning her house or going grocery shopping. Never mind that the steroids she's on could stop working at any second and she could find herself paralyzed or unable to speak or totally incoherent. Never mind that the doctor told her in writing that she needs 24 hour supervision. Never mind that the burden on John and I would triple with her 40 miles away instead of 12 miles away. Never mind that at the hospice they cook for her and clean for her and keep her company when John and I can't be there, and provide reliable medical care 24 hours a day, with back up medical care on top of that.

I am so sick of having this argument. I don't want to be angry and frustrated with Nora, but she just won't listen. I know part of it is the cancer making her confused and forgetful. And part of it is her natural stubbornness. She's got it in her head that hospice care is too expensive. Of course, we'd be criminally negligent, not to mention hideously immoral to let her go home on her own when she is this ill, and home health care isn't any cheaper than the hospice.

And my sister-in-law isn't helping. Some part of her wants her mom to go home, I think because in her mind that means Nora isn't really dying. Or something. She was telling me yesterday that we should really get Nora in to the doctor to be reassessed because maybe the doctors were wrong and she had longer to live and the hospice is expensive. She knows - somewhere in her heart of hearts, she knows - that the hospice is the best place for Nora, and there is NO WAY Nora could live on her own at home. Which means at the very least, a home health aide, and that costs as much if not more than the hospice.

There are all of these people I want to shout at, and I can't yell at any of them. So far, I'm just being firm, rational and unyielding, but I have my limits. On top of that, I'm not getting to exercise as much as I should...I'm always exhausted...I have a ton of work to do...my house is a messy, filthy pit...there is so much laundry that it could stage a coup...I have to get ready to go to Vegas for work next week...and I still haven't bought my mom a Mother's Day gift.

So, heard any good (or bad) jokes lately? Puns or knock-knock jokes, maybe?

Remember how earlier this week I said I was starting a six week focused burst to break through my weight loss plateau? That has been a complete and total bust. I ate healthily on Monday, but I didn't get to work out. I didn't get to exercise last night or tonight, either. In the past three days I've eaten approximately 6,923 Cadbury chocolate mini-eggs, and this morning, after arranging my mother-in-law's birthday lemon bars carefully on a plate, I may or may not have scraped lemon bar crumbs out of the bottom of the pan with a fork and devoured them like Cookie Monster.

Yeah. Not exactly a resounding success. So my six week burst starts now.

...maybe after one last Cadbury mini-egg.

Imagine a day without the internet. Is that a scary picture or a good one for you? We had no Internet access at my office for hours today. None. For hours. It was awful. By 10:00 a.m. my hallway (the e-business team hall) was filled with twitchy, shaky, pale co-workers muttering to themselves about storming the Starbucks across the street for wireless access.

Pretty much my whole job involves accessing the internet for one reason or another. Every five seconds I would think “I’ll just pop on the internet to look up…oh.” “Well, I can go run this report…oh.” “I know, I’ll just go assign some keycodes…oh” To make it even better, I had a project that had to be done today that was impossible to do without getting online. I had even made sure that I got in to work earlier than usual, just to ensure I had plenty of time to work on it. Ha!

I contented myself with sending emails for a while – all those little follow-up emails I’d been meaning to send and just hadn’t gotten to for one reason or another. That worked until I realized that we were having email problems too. Delivery was very spotty, and I couldn’t get emails from anyone outside our building. I ended up resorting to emailing people from my trusty Sidekick. I love that phone. I admit it was a frivolous purchase, but I don’t care. It makes me happy.

Then I discovered how hard it is to eat lunch at your desk without the internet. I had no idea how dependent I’ve become on lunchtime entertainment via the computer. I couldn’t read blogs, I couldn’t go check out eonline, I couldn’t do anything! Verizon finally fixed the problem around two. You could actually hear the huge sigh of relief that raced from one side of the building to the other as people realized they had their connection back.

Please, please, please, dear Internet, don’t ever leave me again.

I'm actually so busy right now that losing an hour out of my day from springing forward is a problem for me. That's a little pathetic, I know. If Daylight Savings were three weeks from now like it used to be, I'd probably be in better shape to deal with it. This week though, between it being birthday season in my family (my mom, my brother and I all have our birthdays in the space of one week) and it being annual review time at work, I am seriously behind on everything, running around like a crazy woman, and overtired.

And man, am I tired! Which has got to be all in my head, because it's not like I got up earlier than usual or anything. I didn't even change the clocks until this morning, so I got up at my regular time. I have been pretty much ready to go back to bed since I left it. Oh well. Just one more week of craziness, and then everything should calm down. Here we go!

You know what is not good? Annie's whole wheat deluxe creamy macaroni and cheese. In fact, I would go so far as to say it is awful. I have always been an eager supporter of Annie's products. I like their philosophies. I like that they are headquartered in Wakefield, MA, which is my mom's hometown. I like their salad dressings. I even usually like their macaroni and cheese. However, I most certainly do not like their whole wheat deluxe creamy macaroni and cheese. It is particularly not good when you are sitting down to dinner at 9:40 at night. At 9:20, I said to John, "I'd really like to have soup, but if I make that, I won't get to eat until 10, and I'm really hungry. I think I'll try this new whole wheat macaroni and cheese I bought." And then I tried it, and it was inedible, which left me back where I started, except by then I was even hungrier, and also slightly bitter.

At that point, my quickly available for eating choices boiled down to ramen, a bowl of cereal or a cheese sandwich. I went with the ramen because it was the most soup-like and that was I what I wanted in the first place. I'm not sure that the cereal wouldn't have been a better option from a healthy eating standpoint, but I made my choice and I can live with it. Why is it that whole wheat noodles are so hard to make taste good?

Dear Winter,

We're through. I've had enough of you and your bad behavior - the freezing cold, the bone chilling winds, the ice, the snow, the sleet. It's time for you to pack your bags and head to the southern hemisphere. Don't forget to take all those nasty, dirty mounds of ice and snow still hanging around with you when you hit the road.

I got a taste, a tease really, of Spring on Friday, and I want so much more than what you have to offer me. I'm ready to be free of the tyranny of wearing coats. I long to have warm toes again. I dream of exposing my ridiculously pale arms and legs to the sun again, of lounging aimlessly in my little back yard. I want "outside" to be my friend again. I'm so heartily sick of having to pile on layer after layer of clothes to stay warm. I want green grass and leaves on trees and forsythia and azaleas and dafodils. It's time for a change, Winter.

So, see ya. Don't go away mad, Winter. Just go away.

Sincerely,
Bad Penguin

For some reason, our TV has started insisting on running closed captions when we hit mute. For a while they were all displaying in Spanish, which was even odder. Now they are in English, but they won't turn off. You can turn them off manually, but then they turn themselves right back on again. Sometimes they show up in different colors, like red or yellow. Usually the words in color really don't have anything to do whatever is on the screen, so it can get kind of surreal. You start wondering if you are part of some sort of They Live scenario with subliminal messages everywhere. No Rowdy Roddy Piper or ridiculously long fight scenes though.

It used to only happen on certain channels. Now it happens on all of them, and during the commercials too. If I wanted to watch the commercials, I wouldn't have muted them in the first place. I blame Comcast. They just bought Adelphia, and I'm sure it is their fault. Yep, this is just the first instance in what will no doubt be a downward spiral in our relationship with the cable company. It's a shame too, because we were perfectly happy with Adelphia.

I would like to make it clear that we aren't idiots who can't work the TV. We've had the TV for almost two years now and this was never a problem before. We've turned the captions off many times, and they keep resetting all on their own. It's annoying. Plus, I have to put extra work in to ignoring the commercials.

I had a lovely weekend, and I hope you did too. I'd give you the details, but I'm very busy freaking out about the two - count 'em two - different presentations that I have to give tomorrow. The first one will go fine, I think. So there I'm just dealing with my usual dislike of public speaking, and so after a bout of nerves and maybe a wee bit of panic I'll be ok. But the second...I don't feel as confident. I've had the outline done for days, but I've just written it up, and I'm worried that I'm not communicating what I really want to say. I will have a little time to practice in the morning, but still, "ack" is the major emotion I'm feeling right now. Stupid irrational fear of public speaking. I wish it would go away.

Please, please, please cross your fingers for me!

◦ Memo to the jerk in the ugly brown coat who slammed the door in my face at the post office this morning. You sir, are an asshole. No matter what sort of day you were having, not holding the door for the woman who is right behind you carrying three boxes and two bags full of packages is just rude. And I know you saw me.

◦ Memo to the two cops sitting in the median on 270 with their lights on for no apparent reason. Way to screw up traffic, guys. You added 25 minutes to my commute this morning.

◦ Memo to the guy who held the elevator for me when I got to the office. Thanks for making up for the first two items on this list.

◦ Memo to self: No you can't call into work because you're feeling bitchy as opposed to calling in sick. Damn work ethic.

◦ Memo to everyone: This piece by Anna Quindlen in Newsweek says everything I want to say about the Iraq war and why wanting to bring our troops home is supporting them, only more eloquently and forcefully than it would turn out if I wrote it.

◦ Memo to the food genie: I want nachos and cheese fries with ranch dressing and chocolate cake. And Indian food. Please make that happen.

What memo would you like to send?

It has been unrelentingly, brutally cold here lately. Single digit temperatures, wind chills down to or below zero, pathetic "highs" in the 20's. It's the kind of cold that seeps in to your bones and will not go away. Pretty much the only time I've felt warm for the last two weeks has been when I was in the shower or tucked into my bed with flannel sheets and two comforters. I don't know how you people who live in places like Minnesota and North Dakota do it. I don't even want to leave my house. Going anywhere or making extra stops once I am out is incredibly unappealing, because it is so damn cold.

Right now I'm sitting on my couch, under a blanket, wearing two pairs of socks and two shirts, and I'm still kind of cold. If it doesn't warm up soon, I may be forced to hole up in a cave somewhere to wait for the return of more reasonable temperatures.

This morning I had a meeting in Crystal City at 8:30 am. That's approximately 55 miles from my house. 55 of the most traffic clogged miles in this area, might I add. That meant that I had to be out of the house by 6:30 am. As I may have mentioned a time or two, I am not exactly a morning person. In an effort to be on time, I got everything ready last night, packing up my various work materials and my laptop and even picking out my clothes. John agreed to walk Seamus for me, and even cleared all the snow off my car, which was very sweet and very helpful. He's an excellent husband.

I don't normally drink coffee (I just don't like it) and I generally don't have much caffeine, but this morning I thought I might need a little boost, so I volunteered to pick up Starbucks on the way to my boss's house (we went to the meeting together and her house was on the way). I almost never go to Starbucks, but I have five different gift cards that people gave me for Christmas, so I thought might as well use one of them. Well, the parking lot where the Starbucks is was very snowy so I thought I'd use the drive through. For once there wasn't a huge line, but I guess there aren't that many people out and about on cold, snowy winter mornings at 6:30 am. Ok, by that point it was more like 6:40. I drove up to the window, pleased that I didn't have to wait, and proud of myself for remembering what my boss wanted (Grande Skim White Chocolate Mocha, no whip) only to find myself dealing with a slightly startled barista. "It's cool," she said, "since there's no one else around this morning. But you're really supposed to order through the intercom at the box with the menu." Whoops! Like I said, I'm not a morning person. Or a Starbucks person. Still, I did grow up in the 20th century, and I've ordered from many a drive through in my life. You'd think I would have mastered it by now.

You suck. Guess how long it took me to get home tonight? Two fucking hours.

You know why? Because it snowed maybe a half an inch. And somehow, hours after rush hour is supposed to be over, traffic was still hideous. No, make that hideous squared. I left the gym at 8:15. I got home at 10:15, starving, cranky and very, very tired. All because people around here freak out when it snows and forget how to drive. It's really not that hard. You just go slower and brake very carefully. Idiots. Of course, there's always some fuckhead in a Hummer whipping around people on the shoulder because they think they are invincible. I've got news for you, Hummer driver. You can still skid and slide into to someone else and cause all sorts of damage, so cut it out.

To end on a positive note, I'd like to heap praise on my wonderful husband, who had food ready for me to eat when I got home, and who taped Veronica Mars for me. And also on my fabulous brother, who took time out of his evening to chat with me so that I wouldn't go postal and start ramming other drivers in an effort to clear the road. He entertained me as I sat, crept forward at five miles an hour, and then sat again. I did promise him that I'd make up some creative insults for the other drivers, but I'm too damn tired. Let's just call them all asshats and leave it at that.

Yesterday we got breakfast and lunch in from Balducci’s to eat during the video shoot, and everything they sent was delicious. I had a little tiny pastry with strawberry jam for breakfast, and a tasty veggie/whole wheat pita sandwich for lunch, along with fresh fruit, potato salad and some fancy cheese and crackers.

Today, on the other hand, they forgot to send breakfast, so someone from my office had to run out to Panera to grab bagels and cream cheese. And she had to place a last minute order from Chicken Out for lunch. Guess who doesn’t really feature any vegetarian options? That would be Chicken Out. They have chicken Caesar wraps, and barbeque chicken wraps, and Asian chicken wraps, and something that I think was turkey, but they definitely did not have any veggie options. I know this because I wasted a bunch of time doing the awkward “poke the wrap without touching it while trying not to hold up the line” maneuver. I had mashed potatoes and a quarter of a chocolate chip cookie for lunch, which is not exactly healthy.

Stupid Balducci’s. And this isn’t the first time they’ve screwed me either. We had some meetings over the summer and specifically requested a vegetarian sandwich for me, and they sent tuna as the veggie option. I believe that day I had yucky pasta salad and potato chips for lunch. Fancy potato chips, but again, not exactly healthy.

They may have all sorts of wonderful gourmet foods, but I have to say, I’m no fan of their catering practices.

I heard a story on the radio today about a doctor in Kansas who has designed a diet that helps her patients with Type 2 diabetes (what I have) get to the point where they no longer need medication to control their blood sugar. This isn’t necessarily new news, although that’s how they presented the story. I had read that if a diabetic loses enough weight, exercises regularly and carefully manages what they eat, they could get to the point where medication is no longer necessary.

This particular diet, however, involves severely restricting carbs, and focusing on eating nuts, cheese and meat. Vegetables are ok, and fruit less so. I already keep my carb intake to 30-45 grams per meal, which is pretty low, although not as low as I think this doctor recommends. I try to include nuts in my diet, and I have no problem eating cheese. Mmmm…cheese. And I eat plenty of vegetables, but I’m sure there is always room for more. As a vegetarian though, the meat portion of this diet is right out for me. I was thinking about it on the drive home, and even if someone could guarantee to me that eating meat, poultry and fish again would help me become not diabetic, I wouldn’t do it. I don’t think that’s true, first of all, and even if it was, my reasons for not eating meat still feel valid to me. I think I am healthier as a vegetarian, even now that I’m a diabetic. And it is better for the planet. And I still don’t want another creature to suffer and die for my dining pleasure. If my choice was to eat meat or starve to death, I’d eat the meat. But as long as I have other options, I will take them.

And then there’s the flip side. If I absolutely knew for sure that my health problems would be solved if I never ate pasta, bread, beans, rice or potatoes, cookies, cakes or brownies ever again, could I give them up? Is life without bread and chocolate worth it if it means I don’t have to worry about my blood sugar anymore? Frankly, I think I’d rather add an extra mile to my runs or an extra half an hour to my workout every day than completely give up carbs. And technically, I’m not sure you can ever completely give up carbs. Even carrots have them. Cheese doesn’t, and I guess meat doesn’t, but my Exchange Planning for Diabetics nutrition booklet talks quite a lot about how diabetics also have to watch their fat intake, so I can’t run around eating cheese all the time. And how would I get any fiber? I like eating oatmeal for breakfast every day.

So, does my continuing vegetarianism and my clinging to my sugar, flour, rice, potato and oat consuming ways make me stubborn, smart or stupid? I guess we’ll find out when I finish losing weight and see if I can go off my medication.

I’ve been in a weird mood all day. I think maybe it partially due to the weather. It was cold and rainy and generally unpleasant all day today, which left me uninterested in venturing outside, but also unusually restless. Deepest fall arrived with a vengeance last night, grey and windy and rainy, particularly cruel in contrast to the glorious warm day we had. Even though my week had left me pretty much drained and exhausted, I got up yesterday morning and hit the gym for my run (4.92 miles. I definitely need to work on getting faster and more consistent in my running) and then went for a lovely short hike with John and Seamus. There are a bunch of state parks close to our house with really nice trails. Even when they are “crowded” by Frederick standards, you can still get the feeling that you are alone in the woods at times. And Seamus loves, loves being in the woods. It’s fun to make him so happy. And then we came home, had lunch and I feel asleep for an hour and a half. Well, I said my week had left me tired.

While I was sleeping the rain rolled in. It had stopped by the time I took Seamus out for his evening walk, but the wind was still whipping in off the mountains, sending clouds flying across the night sky and whipping up an army of dry leaves to scuttle ominously down the street behind us. I could still smell the rain in the air, and sure enough, it started back up again as we neared the end of our walk.

It poured all night, and this morning even Seamus wasn’t all that interested in being outside. So we cocooned ourselves up inside, and I ate some oatmeal and then read the paper for hours, and then flipped through some catalogs in search of Christmas gift ideas. Later I finished up a book I’ve been reading. I did not vacuum or do laundry, both of which were on my list at the start of the day. I just didn’t feel like it. Nor did I go to Target or the grocery store, both of which I probably should have done. I fought off the urge to bake. Something about cold weather makes me want to bake stuff, and I do have that fancy new mixer, just begging to be used. But I’m also still on this diet, see, so I didn’t bake a single crumb. Instead I went down in the basement and did my longest and toughest workout video. Not quite as enjoyable as baking and eating cookies or cupcakes or brownies, but it has its own rewards. And then it was dinner time, and now here I am, watching the Wizard of Oz on TV and still feeling a bit off kilter. Hopefully it will have faded by morning.

If I were to assign a theme to my weekend, it would be “almost.” As in I ran almost five miles. And I almost made French bread.

On Saturday I headed to the gym with one goal in mind – to run five miles just to see if I could do it. I was pretty sure I could, and I’m still pretty sure that I can. I just didn’t get to prove it. I apparently need to run a little faster. The stupid treadmill cuts off after 60 minutes and forces you into the cool down program. I was so close! The problem is that I walk for a few minutes at the beginning to get warmed up, and then I had to walk for a couple of minutes when I was two miles in to the run. Since I run at about 12 minutes per mile, I can’t quite fit it all into 60 minutes. So I ran 4.77 miles. I’m determined to get to five miles though. It will happen!

Today I tried to make French bread. I got a new mixer last week – which sounds so ordinary, but it was an event that will go down in history as the one that my baking life forever. It’s a KitchenAid Professional mixer, which I’ve wanted for a ridiculously long time and happened across at a huge discount at the Williams Sonoma Outlet. I think it was so cheap because it is kind of an odd color. Whatever the reason, I got a $400 mixer for $249, and it is awesome. It’s like I’ve stepped out of my black and white Kansas farmhouse and now I’m baking in the Technicolor land of Oz.

The first two things I made with it, apple cupcakes with caramel frosting and pumpkin spice cookies, were virtually effortless and turned out delicious. And then today I decided to try to make French bread. The mixer was a kneading marvel, but the bread just didn’t rise properly. I didn’t proof the yeast because I had just gotten it, but I guess I should have. Anyway, I did make bread. It’s not bad, and it’s almost French bread.

And now the weekend is almost over. I guess I’m ready to go back to work. Almost.

I have a classic approach-avoidance relationship with my father. He ignores me for months and I am grateful; then I feel guilty for feeling grateful. He ignores me for months and I wonder why he seems to value my brother more than he values me; then I am glad not to be on the receiving end of his attention for a while. He ignores me for months and I am hurt that my dad has so little interest in me. And then I see him and I am reminded of all of the reasons I have such a tangled relationship with him.

In another century, my father would be a holy man, a mystic, perhaps even a prophet. In this time and place, he is simply a crazy man struggling to make his way in a world in which he does not fit. His mania, his obsession, is religion. He’s primarily focused on Christianity, although he is interested in all religions to one degree or another. His world is filled with symbols and portents, and he genuinely and truly believes that God speaks to him. That he has discovered a truth that other people can’t see. And he tries – he tries so hard to explain it all to me – this legacy of truth that he wants to pass on to me, but he can’t. Because it only makes sense to him. It is like he is speaking a language that only he can understand. The words are English (most of the time) but they aren’t strung together in the proper order. I’ve heard the same things time after time, but they never get any more comprehensible. The math problem that he got wrong in college that has something to do with sine and cosine and that can be tied to Hebrew and the character Shin. The fact that 4’s can be turned into Apollo sun signs and 7’s into Nazi swastikas. Fucking photos of a stained glass window from the chapel in Sibley Hospital over and over and over and over again. Seriously, if you ever hear of some bizarre act of vandalism where someone breaks into a hospital chapel and spray paints or steals the stained glass windows, well, that will probably mean I’ve finally snapped and gone on a rampage.

The irony in all of this is that my father’s life-long efforts to proselytize me have left me completely unable to believe in the God he so desperately wants me to worship. I resent my father’s craziness, his inability to relate to me in any way other than as the vessel to receive his wisdom, his general disinterest in me on many levels until I got to be an adult and it’s all tied in to the particular Christian view he espouses. So instead, I believe in karma and rebirth, in the possibility of other life in the universe, in the potential for all sorts of happenings under the sun that can’t be explained by science, but I can’t accept that God reached out to touch my father. He speaks of “carrying the light of Jesus Christ inside” himself, and I wonder if he went crossed over from bipolar to schizophrenia.

It makes me sad, and beyond sad, to reject everything he holds so dear and beliefs he has spent decades weaving together. He’s my dad, and I love him. But I can’t believe what he wants me to believe. I don’t even understand what he wants me to believe.

I decided I should really go make sure that I can run 5 kilometers, just to be on the safe side. I mean, it would be terrible to show up the day of the race and not be able to finish or something. And it’s not that I haven’t been working hard to get in to shape, because I have. I just have never been much of a runner.

So I went off to the gym yesterday morning, hopped on the treadmill, programmed it for 3.5 miles, set it for random, and picked level 4. Then I plugged in my headphones and looked for something to watch on the little treadmill TV (I went with the A-Team Marathon on TVLand) and pushed start. It went ok at first, but by 25 minutes in, I had only gone about 1.7 miles and I was about ready to die. At this particular gym the treadmills are right up against a mirrored wall, so whenever I looked up from the TV, all I could see was my bright red flushed and sweaty face. My heart rate was way up and my legs were tired. I had to slow down to a walk a couple of times, and I eventually ended up down at level 1. I ended up doing 3.25 miles, which took me 45 minutes! Yeah, I guess I’m not quite as fit as I thought I was. And today my leg muscles hurt. A lot. I’ve been gimping my way around the house all day like I’m 90 years old.

As much progress as I’ve made, I’ve still got a long way to go. I didn’t feel up to running again so soon today, but I did do one of my exercise DVDs. I’m committed. I will get fit, dammit. Too bad it involves so much work and so few donuts.

Because I’m not quite brave enough to use “Bullshit, Fuck, Joint” as a title.

Anyway, as I was driving home from work this evening, I found myself yelling “bullshit! Bullshit!” at the radio. Not because I disagreed with anything that was being said, but because the radio station I was listening to took it upon themselves to blank the word “bullshit” out of the Pink Floyd song Money. I hate it when they do that. They used to leave it in, but now they take it out, along with a “fuck” from The Who’s Who Are You and the word joint from that Tom Petty song that has the line “let’s roll another joint.” Joint isn’t even a swear word for fuck’s sake. Like we’re supposed to care if a musician smokes pot. As John said about the guy who recently searched Willie Nelson’s bus and found pot and shrooms – “You figured out that Willie Nelson was likely to have pot on his tour bus? Way to go Sherlock.”

As far as I’m concerned, this bleeping out of lyrics that used to get played is just one more symptom of all that is wrong with this country.

Population: Me. My day was so lousy it’s like I was the victim of some conspiracy of craptacularosity.

First, there was the argument with LabCorp over the latest bill they sent me. They felt I owed them $110. I felt they were mistaken. Three phone calls and one very annoying tussle with a malfunctioning voice recognition system later (it kept asking me for my birthdate, and then repeating it back to me, over and over. Just what I needed in the midst of a frustrating battle over benefits) I finally got someone at LabCorp who was a) not an idiot and b) actually helpful. I managed to convince them to actually submit the claim to my insurance company with the correct information, rather than just sending me a bill.

Then everyone at work was in a bad mood. I don’t know what the problem was, but my co-workers were a cranky bunch today, and I waded right in to the mix with my own personal black cloud hovering over my head.

Adding to the storm clouds: a crowded trip to Whole Foods for lunch and frustrations over trying to line up a vacation place for our trip in October. I don’t know what was up at Whole Foods today, but the place was packed with morons, cluttering up the aisles and not letting me get by, going through the salad bar at a glacial pace, and generally annoying the hell out of me. Also annoying the hell out of me? The Outer Banks.

John and I wanted to go there for our vacation. After a number of fruitless searches on the Internet, I finally decided I wasn’t going to find a hotel that meets my standards and allows pets, so we started looking at renting a condo or house. It’s the first real vacation we’ve taken in forever, so I want it to be nice. I found a little condo right on the beach in Kill Devil Hills that was pet friendly, and only $400 for a week. I sent the property management company an email with some questions and got a bunch of satisfactory answers back today, so I went to make the reservation. Imagine my surprise as I watched the $400 cost turn into a $760 cost with the addition of a $100 pet fee (not mentioned in the listing), a $100 administrative fee, a $75 security deposit waiver fee, taxes and some sort of required travel insurance fee. Just include all of that in the upfront price, you assholes. And let me tell you, for $760, I want something a lot nicer than that crappy little condo. So if anyone has any Outer Banks recommendations, I’d love to hear them. Otherwise, we may very well end up taking our vacation in Rehoboth. At least that’s closer.

I thought I was going to get to hang out with Jules and Laila this weekend, but it looks like that isn’t going to work out as planned. Hopefully I will still get to see Laila at least.

When I got to the gym, I had to dodge 800 parents circling the parking lot to drop off or pick up their kids from the Karate school. Those people are a menace. And their kids just wander through the parking lot not paying any attention to the people who are trying to drive. Then my ponytail holder snapped as I tried to put it on my hair, and I kept having coordination difficulties with the stupid elliptical machine. At least Becky was there to provide excellent conversation and sympathy about my day.

And hey, just to put a cap on my day my fucking blood sugar was 180 when I checked it after dinner. To give you context, last night it was 113, and it is frequently lower than that. I guess they aren’t kidding when they say stress can raise your blood sugar. Well, stress and a piece of apple cake. It’s not fair. I should be able to eat a damn piece of cake every once in a while. Particularly after 4+ miles on the elliptical machine. Let me eat cake!

All I have to say is if tomorrow knows what is good for it, it will be a better day.

I haven’t been getting enough sleep lately. Unfortunately, I’m one of those people who is really not at their best when they get too tired. My focus suffers, and I do stupid things like driving up to the wrong side of the gas pump, going to the kitchen to make myself breakfast but forgetting to actually make the breakfast and wandering through the grocery store buying a bunch of food that doesn’t really add up to meals. Not that I did any of those particular things yesterday or anything.

And when I get really, really overtired, I start with the melodrama. For example this morning when my clock radio turned on, I almost burst into tears because I was so tired and didn’t want to get up.

Then I logged on and checked the results from the local primaries that were held yesterday, and when one of the races didn’t go my way, I launched into a tirade about how the deck is stacked against the little guy and nothing will ever change, so we might as well all chuck everything and go live in a log cabin, Unabomber-style. (Interesting sidenote: Word knows to capitalize Unabomber. I wonder how Ted Kazcynski feels about that.) (Less interesting, more bitter sidenote: To the residents of Montgomery County who didn’t support my candidate – way to vote for an elitist, out of touch, developer-supported stooge just because he was the incumbent. Enjoy your steadily worsening traffic, increasingly overcrowded schools, and disappearing agricultural reserve. Don’t come crying to Frederick when your county becomes completely unlivable, you shortsighted losers.)

Then there weren’t any bowls in the kitchen at work when I went to make my oatmeal for this morning’s breakfast, and I almost burst into tears again.

And that was all before 10 am. There’s a whole lot more ridiculous behavior on my part that happened today, but I think I’ll spare myself the embarrassment of sharing all the gory details. Let’s just say that I exaggerate and carry on in my mind when I’m over tired and leave it at that. I’d better wrap this up so tonight maybe I can get some damn sleep and return to my normal self. Frankly, I find myself annoying when I’m like this.

Ok, an episode of Futurama just made me cry. It was about how Fry’s dog missed him after he got frozen, and it was really sad. Still, I’d say it is definitely time for me to get some sleep.

I am sitting at that auction that John and I go to from time to time, feeling triumphant because we just got a china cabinet for $90. It is on the small side, but I didn't want huge one. I particularly like this one because it is old -- possibly even an antique -- and doesn't look like your typical china cabinet. We need to polish it up a little, but it is cool. And such a bargain!

Unfortunately, I'm also feeling just a bit bored, too. John also bought a bunch of other crap, so I'm sitting here watching over our cabinet while he takes his new books and records home and unloads them. Then we can (hopefully) cram our new cabinet in the car and take it home. I had brought a book with me, but I stupidly left it in the car.

I'm entertaining myself with my beloved Sidekick instead. I'm so glad I bought this gadget!

I am currently trying to hire a marketing manager for my team. It seems like I have to do this every summer. Not because I am a bad boss – I don’t want you to get the wrong idea – but because that just seems to be the timing of things. Two years ago I was adding a new member to the team. One year ago a perfectly happy employee was lured away by our former sister company. I may still be a little bitter about that one. And then this summer I lost a wonderful team member who decided to relocate to Denver.

The ad I’m running clearly states the skills I’m looking for, and yet I’m getting all sorts of resumes from people who have no related experience whatsoever. I ask for a cover letter and a salary range. Strong writing skills are a must (also clear from the ad) and yet I’m getting half assed cover letters that are poorly written, or totally generic or riddled with mistakes. I did get one where the person made a valiant effort at composing a letter with some customization, but forgot to fill in our company name where it said [Company Name] in the letter. Then there are the two resumes I’ve gotten where people sent them with their tracked changes still showing. Oh, and let’s not forget the person I spent 45 minutes interviewing only to discover that she wanted $20k more in salary than I can pay. I’m never going to make that mistake again – I may stop calling people who don’t give a salary, and at the very least the person scheduling the interviews will have to ask the question. Speaking of salaries, don’t even get me started on the people who have no experience and want $50,000 per year or the guy who has three years of marketing experience and wants $95,000-$100,000. And then there were the two people who scheduled interviews and called back with some flaky excuse for not showing up. If you can’t make it to the interview, you’re not going to be someone we can rely on to get the job done, so no thank you, we won’t be rescheduling.

Here are just a few handy tips for anyone looking for a job, but most certainly for the people looking for a job from me.

1. Pay attention to detail, and proofread your stuff. If you can’t get your resume and cover letter error free when you should be trying your best to make a good impression, I’m not going to waste my time interviewing you. You’ll be a sloppy worker.

2. Actually read the ad and look at the job requirements. If you don’t have the necessary skills, or any related skills whatsoever, don’t waste my time applying for the job. If it says it is looking for someone with 3 years of experience and you’re a VP of something or other, don’t apply. It’s a marketing manager job. I can’t afford you, and I won’t call you.

3. Tailor your cover letter to my ad. If I say I want someone who has strong analytical skills, highlight something from your resume for me that demonstrates the analysis work you’ve done. Your cover letter is your chance to sell yourself to me. I’m looking for a marketer. Hey, here’s a chance to trot out the very skills you’ll be using if you get the job…dazzle me!

4. I can understand if you don’t want to give an exact salary. But when I ask for one, I’m just trying to avoid wasting my time and yours. At least give me a range to work with. If you’re outside my range, you won’t want the job anyway.

5. Do a little research on the company. We have a website. You can learn a bit about us before sending in your resume. And if we call you for an interview – do some prep work for crying out loud!

6. Also, you’ll want to get to the office a little early for the interview, not a little late. There’s this great thing called the Internet, and you can get directions off of it. Or failing that (although I work in ebusiness, so you had damn well better be familiar with the Internet, or we’ve got problems) look at a map and plan your route.

7. Don’t call us and ask if you have to dress up for the interview. I don’t care if your office is casual. Stop somewhere and change, moron. It’s an interview. You want to put your best foot forward.

8. Don’t send your resume into us 18 times in one month. If we don’t call you after the first two (because it is possible that we missed the first one), we’re not interested. Particularly when you don’t really have relevant experience.

9. I’ll refer you back to item #2, because that is one of the biggest problems I’m having. For example, marketing does not necessarily mean sales. I’m not looking for a salesman. What I am looking for is right there in the ad. All you have to do is read it.

10. Please keep in mind that interviewing you is no more fun for me than being interviewed is for you. Help me out here. Don’t give me one word answers. Show me who you are and what you can do. I want to like you. Just give me a reason – or two – to like you. Please?

I had a longer post planned, but I’ve got quite a headache, so I think I’ll be brief instead. I don’t allow myself many treats these days, what with the trying to lose weight and the keeping control of the blood sugar (apparently my headache is forcing me to use some sort of pseudo-German syntax, as I originally typed that sentence “…and the keeping of the blood sugar under control”) but lately I’ve been craving sweets. Well, actually sweets and French fries, so if you know of any stores that sell fries and chocolate fudge, please hook me up.

Anyway, there’s a vending machine at work with the usual assortment of chips, cookies, Ho Hos and so on, and I’ve been curiously eyeing this new candy they put in there called Hershey’s Kissables. They are little tiny Hershey’s kisses in a hard candy shell. And today, my curiosity and my craving combined to convince me that I had to buy them. I thought they’d be like M & M’s, but sadly, I was wrong. They are terrible. The coating tastes yucky and it ruined the chocolate. I ate two of them, made a face and put the bag away (put the bag away because throwing out candy, even crappy candy is surely some sort of sin. I’m sure I can find someone who wants to eat them). It was such a letdown that I actually sat at my desk and pouted for a little while. My highly anticipated and rare snack treat turning out to be lame. How could the good folks at Hershey’s disappoint me like this?

Do not worry though – I picked up a chocolate chip cookie in the bakery at Whole Foods tonight to fulfill my craving and console myself over the Great Kissables Fiasco of '06.

Why is it always so very hard to get back to work after a few days off? Probably because you are so busy making up for all the work that didn’t get done while you were out. I didn’t have a bad day at work, just an extremely busy one. Which meant that I worked until 7:23, and then had to go to the grocery store, and then got home at almost 9, and still had to exercise, and then got to eat dinner at 10:15.

And that would all be fine. Is fine, although I’d prefer to eat earlier in the evening. I’m quite pleased with myself for working out after I got home so late. The problem is dinner. I love to cook, so much so that I have an entire (small) bookcase of cookbooks. I’m even pretty good at it, and I’m a great baker. But lately I’m so worried about what I can and can’t eat, what is healthy for me, how much I’ve already eaten for the day and what my blood sugar is going to be, that I just can’t enjoy making dinner. Tonight as I sat at my desk at work thinking about going to the grocery store, the thought of coming up with one more low carb, low fat, low sugar, healthy vegetarian meal had me ready to snap. I just can’t get excited about cooking dinner anymore. I don’t look forward to eating. I’m not interested in making anything.

The rest of the day is fine. I’ve got my breakfast and my allotted snacks all sorted out. I could happily eat oatmeal every day for the rest of my life. Lunch is usually leftovers or something from a salad bar. And my veggies and hummus and string cheese and whole wheat crackers are all tasty and satisfying. Every once in a while I even get to eat fruit, a popsicle or some rice pudding. Dinner, on the other hand, is my new nemesis. My big plan for tonight was to pick up something from the Whole Foods deli, but all their dishes were very meat focused tonight. So I totally lamed out and bought an assortment of frozen dinners, arranged them attractively on the counter and told John to pick whatever he wanted. Classy. So now I feel guilty for not preparing a healthy or yummy dinner, and I’m still left with the same dinner dilemma I had before. Stupid dinner.

Warning: Tantrum ahead.

I had my follow-up visit with the endocrinologist today. My numbers supposedly look fine, although since I want to get pregnant, she’s considering putting me on insulin because we can’t quite get my fasting blood sugar under 100. I can get it right to 100, but not under it, which is good if you don’t want to get pregnant, but bad if you do. I can’t explain why, but that just makes me want to say every swear word I know over and over again in a no-doubt futile attempt to express my frustration with all of this.

Also, they weighed me. And let me say right now, that I have absolutely, positively, without a doubt lost weight. I am not imagining that. Clothes I haven’t worn since I got married four years ago fit me now. Clothes that I was wearing three months ago are baggy and some of my pants would actually fall off if I didn’t wear them with a belt. People at work stop me in that hall because they can see the difference. So it is clear that I am not delusional.

The last time I went to the doctor, her scale said that I had only lost 8 pounds instead of the 15 I thought I had lost. I was not pleased by this turn of events, but I figured that perhaps my old and busted 35 year old rusty bathroom scale was the problem, so I went and bought a new scale a day or two later. My new scale was a pound away from the doctor’s scale, so I decided that meant I was starting from the same basic place. Now, I weighed myself before my diabetes class on Saturday, and my new scale said that I had hit the magic really losing 15 pounds number. I have to admit, I’m not entirely sure how to judge what my beginning weight was, because I can’t remember if I got the number from the crappy old scale or my checkup in March. Either way, today they weighed me again and the stupid scale said that I had gained a pound since I was there six weeks ago. That is physically impossible. IM. POSS. I. BLE! And yet the doctor won’t give me any credit for the weight I know I have lost. It really pisses me off.

And once again, she was very discouraging about my diet and exercise plan. She seems to think that I won’t lose weight no matter what. And she thinks I’m lying about how much exercise I’m getting and what I’m eating or something. It’s really, really annoying, and I don’t like her at all. I am working very hard. I’ve completely changed my eating habits, my routines and my life to get control of this disease and I don’t need some woman who had talked to me for a total of maybe 45 minutes to be telling me what I am and am not capable of achieving. She even had the nerve to tell me that my goal of getting down to 120 pounds is unrealistic. I’m 5 ft 1. That’s more than I should weigh, but it is where I think I can get. Shouldn’t she be encouraging me to get as fit as possible? I’ll tell you one thing – if that scale doesn’t show that I’ve lost weight when I go in for my next follow-up in two months, I am picking the fucker up and throwing it out a window, Keith Moon style.

I spent the day at a diabetes education class, which was exactly how I wanted to spend my Saturday, particularly after the extremely busy week I had. Oh no, wait…that’s not right. I wanted to sleep in, go to yoga and then lounge around the house aimlessly, hanging out with John and Seamus, maybe doing a little reading, then perhaps taking a nap.

The class was fairly interesting, even though I didn’t particularly want to be there. Most people take it as a series of three classes during the week, but apparently most diabetics are shiftless layabouts who don’t have to work, because those classes are offered from 9-12 and 1-4. Not exactly convenient for those of us who have jobs 25 miles away. It was just me and one other lady who was accompanied by her very young, (possibly teenage) pregnant daughter. I think they thought I was snotty and a kiss-up for taking notes and asking questions, but then again, I may have judged them as being ever so slightly white trash, so we’re probably even. And yes, I can admit it, I was jealous of the pregnant teenager.

But anyway, I learned some new facts about managing diabetes and diet that I think will be helpful, and the lady teaching the class confirmed what just about everyone has said to me – I’m very young to have type 2 diabetes without being severely overweight. Just the luck of the genetic draw, I guess. But the thing I found frustrating about the class is that it was geared toward incremental changes, as if the people taking it would be resistant to doing anything to improve their health. And you know, even my endocrinologist was skeptical that I’ll be able to stick with a completely changed diet and exercise plan.

I’ve never been particularly good at doing things halfway. I’m either into a project 100%, obsessing about get it absolutely perfect, or really, I just don’t care all that much. But if I do care, well then watch out, because I am going to be all over every little detail. And what project could be more important than my long-term health? So don’t tell me that I only need to lose 10% of my body weight or that I only need to exercise 30 minutes a day. First of all, I’ve already lost 10% of my body weight, and it is clear that I have a long way to go. Second of all, I was getting 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise a day walking Seamus before I ever even knew I had diabetes, and obviously that wasn’t enough to keep me healthy. Incremental changes aren’t going to get me to where I want to be, which is managing my blood sugar and cholesterol without medication. Oh, and getting pregnant, of course, which means I have to lose enough weight that I can then stand to gain some back while I am pregnant.

Unless…perhaps they are using reverse psychology? Because if there’s one sure way to make me want to do something, it is to say you think I can’t do it. It’s almost guaranteed that you’ll get an “Oh yeah? Watch me.” type response. I can’t help it. That's just the way I am.

…and we’re all going to die. Not to get all alarmist on you or anything. I'm sure the truth lies somewhere in the middle, as usual.

I recently read an article somewhere that talked about how they suspect, but do not know, that declining fertility rates in first world countries could be tied to exposure to everyday household chemicals. Now, this theory plays right into my hippie-crunchy tendencies to worry about pesticides and fragrances and chemicals created by evil corporations, so I decided to do a little more research into the matter. Plus, some cleaning products seem to trigger headaches for John and sinus problems for me, so I figured maybe I’d pick up a couple of recipes for cleaning stuff with vinegar and baking soda and lavender or whatever, and then everybody wins!

So I got a book. I worked in a bookstore right after college, and I was a geeky library girl before that, so I usually turn to books for my answers. Well, books and now the Internet, but I still tend to favor books. In this case, that may have been a mistake. According to this book, just about everything in my house, from the foam in my couch, to the carpets, to my non-stick pans and my beloved Tupperware products, to the detergent I use to wash my dishes and my clothes, and the wax coating on my dental floss is chock full of harmful substances that disrupt hormones and cause cancers and destroy the planet.

It’s bad enough that I already spend a huge chunk of my time worrying about every single bite I take and the effect that it is going to have on my blood sugar and my efforts to lose weight. I do not need to add obsessing about the chemicals that apparently loom all around me, just waiting for their chance to strike. Seriously, this book makes it sound like you have to go be Amish to lead a healthy life. And the worst part is, it is filled with scary facts, and not nearly enough in the way of solutions. Now obviously I’m not going to trade in my Honda for a horse and buggy, nor am I chucking half my house into the front yard for some sort of purifying bonfire. I like modern life and its conveniences. I don’t really know how to react to all of this information. Can all of these products that are so readily available and so much a part of American life really be that bad for you? Aren’t there agencies and commissions and such that are supposed to protect us from this sort of thing? But then I think about how they’ve known forever that tobacco causes cancer, and yet I can go buy a pack of cigarettes any time I want to. Although there, at least it tells you right on the box “will cause cancer.” I don’t recall seeing a warning like that anywhere on my bottle of 409, my skillet or my couch.

Until I figure out what to do, I’ll just be cowering over here in the corner on my undyed cotton blanket, hoping that bottle of Windex doesn’t notice me. [Not really.] But I am trying to figure out what changes it might be worthwhile and reasonable to make. Perhaps I’ll poke around on the Internet for a few of those cleaning product recipes.

There I was, celebrating two years of blogging to not all that much in the way of acclaim, when suddenly out of nowhere, hundreds of comments started pouring in. And all saying such complimentary things, too.

Too bad they were all spam.

And I have to say, I just don’t get it. I work in e-business. I know what the metrics are, and there is no way that spam comments, no matter how many of them are scattered throughout my archives, are going to make anyone any money. I love, love, love the people who come and read this blog every day, but let’s face it, you are a very select group. A good looking bunch, too, with excellent taste who would never be interested in whatever crap these people were selling.

So all they’ve really managed to do is upset me (it particularly bothered me to see them on the post about my friend Leo’s suicide, even though I know it is just some stupid spam bot and not a person) and inconvenience me, and probably frustrate the people at my hosting company who had to deal with my confused emails and pleas to be unsuspended.

The biggest irony? Before I discovered this little problem I was working on a post about how my faith in humanity had been restored by, of all people, my former nemeses at the Geek Squad and the clerk I had a run-in with at Borders, (both! In one night!) only to have it dashed when I came home to an incomprehensible warning from my homeowner’s association. I guess the spammers wanted to get in on that action.

Jerks.

I was just exhausted this morning -- and I mean zombie falling asleep while I was brushing my teeth tired -- so even though I had already overslept and was running late, I decided to stop at Starbucks for some much needed caffeine. Which I rarely do, since I don't like coffee. But I do like chai, and I have a couple of Starbucks gift certificates and I really, really wanted to wake up.

So I got to Starbucks, and I had to wait in line, and then I had to wait for the slowest barista I have ever seen take forever to make the drinks, wasting 10 minutes I did not have to spare.

Only to get out to the car and have the cup sort of implode? disintegrate? completely fall apart, and spill all over the car door as I was getting in. So I got to waste time, not get my drink and now I have a sticky car door. And I'm still soooo tired. I fucking hate mornings.

I’ve been debating whether or not to write about this at all, because naked insecurity and self-pity aren’t exactly pretty. But then I went down the hall this afternoon to say goodbye to Amy and wish her good luck. She asked me how I’m feeling, and I just about burst into tears right in her office. Which would not have been cool. I think she could tell, too, what with me not having any sort of poker face at all. So, thanks, Amy, for not panicking in the face of me looking like I was on the verge of a breakdown. Really, I’m not.

But here’s the thing. As much as I have enjoyed watching a group of bloggers I read and like all get pregnant, have babies and discover and write about the good, the bad and the ugly of parenting, there have been times when I felt like the kid standing outside the candy shop, nose pressed against the window, wondering where my invitation to the party was. And now there is an actual club they all get to be a part of that I can’t join. I’m so happy for them, and I think the whole Club Mom concept is a pretty cool one. And yet…it sucks to be left behind.

And underneath all of that, of course, is the thought that even if I did have a kid (and I will. I really will someday) that no one would want me to write for their website. That even though I write copy for a living – and pretty successfully too, although there’s a lot more to my job than that – I’ve only mastered writing for other people and will never have a distinctive or interesting voice of my own. That people will never feel the same connection to me and my writing that they feel to other, more successful bloggers.

I’ve been trying to remind myself of my goals when I started blogging, almost two years ago. First and foremost, I thought it would be a good way for my friends and I to feel more connected to each other, since we are scattered around the country. Instead of writing emails, I would post, and they would read and exchange comments and crack jokes and we’d be more in touch from day to day. Well, none of that happened. Half of my friends don’t read on a regular basis, they rarely comment, and a couple of them just plain think doing this is weird. I’m much more likely to get a phone call saying, “So I was reading your blog, and I just had to call.” Which is fine, really. At least we’re in touch, if not quite the way I envisioned. Plus, I’ve met so many new and fun and interesting people through blogging that it has turned into a way to make new friends. And I’m all for that.

My other goal was to do a different type of writing from the writing I do in my job, and to hopefully become a better writer through forcing myself to write on a regular, if not daily basis. And I think I am a stronger writer than I was two years ago.

So you see it’s not that I’m seeking fortune and fame through blogging (although I’d be happy to take fortune). I just want to be good at this. Well, that and to have a baby.

The makers of Sudafed Sinus Headache claim that it is a non-drowsy formula. The makers of Sudafed Sinus Headache, while they do provide us with an excellent product to help with sinus headaches, cannot be trusted to tell the truth about the drowsiness issue. Furthermore, I'd like to declare that...Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.

I sure hope that there isn’t anything seriously wrong with me, because I can’t get an appointment with the endocrinologist until May. I guess that means this isn’t all that big of a deal, because if it were, wouldn’t they be rushing to get me an appointment? Until then, I’ve got Diabetes for Dummies (I’m not kidding) and I guess I’ll just follow the recommendations in there. Supposedly I should be able to keep my glucose levels under control with diet and exercise. So I’ll do that.

And, of course, try to lose as much weight as possible in the next six weeks. And beyond, but it would be nice to show the doctor I’m putting some serious effort into making changes in my lifestyle. I’ve done some investigating, and apparently I need to lose 43 to 73 pounds to be in an optimal BMI range. The perfectionist says “go for 73!” but the pragmatist realizes that 53 or 63 might be more achievable. Doing the bare minimum and only losing 43 pounds doesn’t seem like enough. I’ll think I’ll aim for 63 and see how I feel along the way. I’ve also decided to convert the amount of weight I need to lose to kilograms, as that feels less intimidating. That means I have to lose 24.09 to 33.18 kg. Doesn’t that sound friendlier? Well, as long as you’re an American like me and almost never use metric measurements. Yes, that’s right. I’m ignorant and proud.

This has been kind of a crappy week for me, health-wise. I made my big commitment to exercise and healthy eating, and I’ve been doing fine with that. But first, on Monday, I got the news that I have high cholesterol, which I found pretty upsetting. My inner perfectionist is NOT happy. Letting myself get so overweight that my cholesterol gets out of control is definitely against her rules. As I obsessively googled the phrase “high triglycerides”, I discovered that one of the things that can drive up your triglycerides is having high blood sugar, and as we all know, my blood sugar has been acting up. So I called my RE’s office to see if they had gotten the results from my fasting blood sugar retest. Which they got today, and now we’ve gone from “I don’t think you’ve got diabetes” to “you need to go get evaluated for diabetes.”

And that’s the straw that completely freaked me out. Bad enough to have high cholesterol, but diabetes? Isn’t that reserved for the truly obese? Has gaining five pounds (admittedly on top of the extra weight I was already carrying) put me into the realm of being obese? Now, my dad and my grandma both have/had diabetes, so I suppose there could be a genetic factor at work, but this is all so wrong. This is not the way my life is supposed to be.

It also just so happens that I have particularly emotional PMS right now, which is unusual for me and certainly isn’t helping. I would describe my state on Monday as “trainwreck” yesterday, more like “bitchy” and today, I guess, “wobbly.” There is a clerk at Borders who is damn lucky that I have some self control. I had this birthday coupon, see, that expires tomorrow. But when I got up to the register and handed it over, the guy behind the counter said “this isn’t good until tomorrow” all superior-like. And when I protested, ever so mildly, by pointing at the expiration date and saying “no, it’s valid through 3/23, not starting 3/23,” he had the nerve to say “there’s no need to be rude.” I actually said “that wasn’t rude.” I thought “correcting your idiotic mistake isn’t rude” but I didn’t say it. That would have been rude.

So in between not annihilating self-important (and just plain wrong) Borders clerks and trying to focus and get some work done, I’ve been a complete mess. The notion of having a serious medical condition never occurred to me. Now, after two and three quarters years of being focused on getting pregnant, I think I’m going to have to reprioritize. To figure out what is going on with my body, and work to get it in better shape. It’s quite a mental shift. In the end, I’m working hard to convince myself that really, I’ve just got more motivation to do what I was going to do already anyway. And trying to remember to breathe.

Yep, still sick. Today went something like this:

7:10 a.m. Glare at alarm clock. Assess state of health: Just north of death warmed over. Decide to take sick day.

7:42 a.m. Wake up due to repeated ear shaking by one Seamus P. Hound. Congratulate dancing beagle. Blow nose. Take dog out.

8:10 a.m. Drag Seamus back to house before my nose starts running down my face.

8:12 a.m. Call boss, leave message about how I’m taking a sick day.

8:15 a.m. Decide to try to hold off on taking more cold medicine and try to sleep it off instead.

8:27 a.m. Ditch plan to delay next dose of cold medicine. Go downstairs, take pills. Go back to sleep.

11:00 a.m. Get up.

11:30 a.m. Check work email. Answer emails.

11:45 a.m. Decide to go to the grocery store for more juice.

12:10 p.m. Home again. Drink some juice. Juicy.

12:15 p.m. Go out in back yard to enjoy nice weather.

12:30 p.m. Time for more cold medicine.

1:10 p.m. Hungry. Consider making matzoh ball soup, but decide against it because I’m too damn tired. Heat up a can of soup instead.

1:20 p.m. Discover Battlestar Galactica on the SciFi channel. The old one, not the lame new version.

1:25-4:00 Prop myself up on the couch to watch three episodes in a row of Battlestar Galactica, periodically blowing my nose, coughing, and getting more juice or water. No one can accuse me of not trying to stay hydrated!

4:00 Ripley’s Believe It or Not comes on. No thank you. Find The Mummy Returns on some other channel. Watch that. Winona Judd and some guy in a cowboy hat keep popping up with little promos and making hard to read the many subtitles this movie has. I particularly hate the one where they are dancing. They’ve guaranteed I’ll never watch their stupid show. Not that there was much chance of that before, but still.

5:30 Extreme coughing fit hits exactly when I’m due for my next dose of cold medicine. Stagger off couch, take medicine.

5:47 Eat a few pretzels. Decide what I really want is popcorn. Make popcorn. Eat popcorn, with interference from popcorn stealing husband.

7:00 p.m. Wow, where did the day go?

7:15 p.m. Decide I have enough energy to make dinner. Penne with fake ground beef, tomatoes, garlic & onions. Yummy.

8:15 p.m. Walk dog. Start to feel very tired.

9:00 p.m. Settle in to watch previously recorded new episode of the Sopranos.

9:02 p.m. I know she’s just a fictional character, but it really pisses me off that fucking Janice has a baby and I’m infertile. I’m just saying.

10:00 p.m. For a little bit there, I thought the Sopranos was going to let me down. But they pulled it out in the end.

10:07 p.m. Take NyQuil.

10:15 p.m. Start composing wildly uncreative timeline post for blog. Blame it on the cold medicine.

10:30 p.m. Good night from Castle von Sickenstein.

I am siiiick. I’ve caught the plague that hit about half of my office over the last couple of weeks. I thought I had escaped it, but apparently my immune system was just being coy. Infection? No, no, I couldn’t. Dinner and dancing? Shots of tequila? Bright shiny things? Cmon on in, boys! Stupid slutty immune system.

So now I’ve got this horrible racking cough. When I lie on my back, my lungs make this slightly alarming, wholly annoying rattle/wheeze. When I laugh, I sound like an 80 year old with a two-pack-of-unfiltered-Pall-Malls-a-day habit. For a little while, I had the sexy whiskey voice, but now I just sound sick. To the point where complete strangers are telling me I sound awful.

Naturally, I have a weekend that is packed full of stuff to do. And even worse, it is stuff I want to do. On top of that, Spring has arrived in DC. It is gorgeous out. Seamus and I were accompanied by a riot of birds singing on our walk this morning, and we saw three robins. Trees are starting to bud, sprouts are poking out of the ground, and it is supposed to be in the high 60’s today. I just want to run around outside and enjoy the weather, but I barely have enough energy to make it down the street, even when towed behind an extremely enthusiastic beagle. I think I can manage some time sitting in the sun in the back yard, baring my frighteningly pale limbs to the sun. My coughing will probably scare off the birds, but that's a chance I'm willing to take.

I just leaned down to put something in the trash can under the kitchen sink and whacked my forehead on the counter. Sometimes I get really tired of being my clumsy self.

I'm hoping this is just a case of a)me being me and b)me being sleepy and not an omen for my week.

What, did you think I was going to say "a case of the Mondays?" :)

I actually had a pretty decent day today…but I have just a couple of complaints I’d like to register anyway.

1. I spent a good chunk of my day trying to write a piece of copy that should be simple and straightforward, but which I just can’t get to turn out right. It’s very annoying and I hope I get it sorted out tomorrow.
2. I drive a little Honda Civic. I love my car. It is cute, it is reliable and it gets excellent gas mileage. However it is frequently dwarfed in parking lots by all of the SUVs, ginormous pickup trucks and minivans that everyone drives these days, which means that I have to back out of parking spaces blindly a lot of the time. And stupid fucking people are always walking or driving behind my car when I can’t see them. They can see the back of my car with my reverse lights on and should be able to tell that it is in motion, but apparently they can’t make the connection that I can’t see them until I get out from between the SUVs flanking me. I am seriously terrified that I am going to hit one of these idiots, like the woman who walked right behind me with her shopping cart tonight. I about had a heart attack when I saw her in the rearview mirror.
3. The Doxycycline is upsetting my tummy. Everything I eat sits in my stomach like lead. And not eating makes me feel worse than eating. Yuck.

Oooh, I’m Leadbelly! And I’ve got the lame and boring copy/little car parking lot/antibiotics messing up my digestive system blues. But only for a couple more days. Except for the parking lot thing.

I’m always a little bit cautious about New Year’s Eve, due to a string of truly disastrous New Year’s Eves in the early ‘90’s. Seriously, unless you’ve had a New Year’s Eve that involved death or loss of limb, I’m fairly confident that one of the experiences I had between 1990-1995 can beat just about any crappy New Year’s story you’ve got. So I’m usually pretty content to just stay home and hope that nothing blows up (which is one problem I haven’t encountered…yet.) Anyway, John and I did in fact stay home last night and had a delightful evening. I made a bunch of appetizer-y dishes from the cookbooks I got for Christmas – tomatoes stuffed with risotto and baked, mashed potato croquettes, garlic crouton with carmelized onions and Camembert (the tastiest one) and French onion soup. It was all quite delicious and I had a lot of fun trying out so many new recipes. John built a fire in the fireplace for the first time, and we just hung out and enjoyed it.

Little did I know the New Year’s curse was just lulling me into a false sense of security, biding its time and waiting to strike. This is going to sound awful, but I’ve had a lot of family time over the last ten days, and I’ve about had it. We all need to go away and not talk to each other for a couple of weeks. (Except for you, Tim. You are a delight, of course. Even though you should be nicer to mom. But that’s a conversation for another day.) On our way down to see various family members today, John got pulled over for speeding and got a $280 ticket. $280!!! Sure, he was speeding. But $280? Happy fucking New Year. And then we got to John’s mom’s house, and while my niece and nephew are sweet and wonderful and I love them, today the baby was fussy and my nephew was very busy being almost three. He doesn’t want to sit in the chair. He doesn’t want to play with that toy. He doesn’t want a cookie. Oh, wait, yes he does. But he’s going to whine while he eats it. And shout and play the piano and push his aunt and swing his toy fishing pole around and whack poor Seamus in the head. I'm sure there are going to be days when my children act exactly like that, but today it was trying to be around.

And then we had to go have dinner with my dad. A dinner which he insisted on having before my brother goes back to school tomorrow. Now, we’d had my dad over for dinner on Christmas Eve, but he didn’t bring presents then. I knew this was a ploy to ensure that we’d hang out with him again while Tim was here. He doesn’t have to do shit like that, by the way, he just thinks he does. But anyway, John and I got to the restaurant at about 6:25, so maybe five minutes early. My brother showed up at 6:40. And at 6:45, we called my dad who was just leaving. I don’t know what it is with my family, but I’ve said it before to them, and I’m sure I’ll say it again: YOU DON’T LEAVE FOR A PLACE 15 MINUTES AFTER YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE THERE!! God, that makes me crazy.

But not for real crazy. That designation is saved for my dad in this family, and unfortunately, it was crazy dad who showed up tonight. It just makes me so sad, because my dad so obviously wants to have a deeper connection to my brother and me and John too, but has no idea how to do it. And the problem is the crazy. He has all of these ideas he wants to share, but they don’t make sense and he can’t explain them. Because they are crazy or so steeped in symbolism that they only make sense to him. I love my dad and I want him to be happy, and of course I want to feel connected to him, but when he gets like this, he just makes me miserable. And then I imagine what it is like to be him, sitting there at the restaurant looking across the able at three sets of confused and slightly hostile eyes, and I feel guilty. But the stuff he’s talking about doesn’t make any sense. And I don’t think it ever will.

What a lousy first day of the New Year, particularly after such a promising beginning last night. Hopefully we’ve gotten all of the bad stuff out of the way right at the start of the year. Yes, that is how I’m going to look at it. The only other alternative is to take to my bed, and that would be letting the New Year win.

I woke up feeling out of sorts this morning, which was not how I wanted to spend any of my vacation time, so I tried a little experiment. I started a post where I wrote down everything that was bothering me, and then wrote down the best counter I could for each one. I’m pleased to say it was a great success. Before I got through even half of the list, I was feeling better so you’ll all be spared the whining – for now anyway. And then John got up, so I had someone to play with, which helped too. Part of the problem was just that I was bored, I think. Of course, one of the many reasons I love him is that just hanging out with him doing nothing is fun, so he cheered me up just by being himself.

And then I went to the Aveda spa and got a massage and pedicure. I defy anyone to stay in a bad mood after an hour long massage and then a pedicure. I love it at the spa. Everyone is nice to you, and they bring you water and soft robes and are focused on making you feel good. I felt pampered and relaxed and oh so lovely after. In fact, I still feel good! I definitely need to find a way to work a semi-regular spa visit into the budget. They gave me a coupon for a discount on a hot stone massage, which I’ve always wanted to try. Maybe for my birthday or something. Anyway, while I was there, I ran into my boss, who was getting her manicure fixed or patched or something. We talked a little bit about work stuff, but mostly in a “we’re busy without you” way, so my vacation is still intact.

And now I think I’ll take my relaxed self off to bed. Hopefully tomorrow will be grump free.

I think the universe is trying to teach me a lesson about patience. Perhaps I was a really impatient person in another life.

There’s the whole fertility thing, of course, which everyone knows about already.

On Sunday, after four long weeks of eating healthy, working out and being a very good girl, I had my big weigh-in in the bathroom…only to discover that I have not lost a single pound. Not one fucking pound. John has been doing the exact same thing that I have, and he’s lost ten pounds already. I suspect he may have lost even more than that, but he won’t tell me out of a fear that my head will explode and I’ll attack my own ass with a cheese grater or something. I’m fairly pissed off, but I think I’m just going to have to work out harder. On Sunday, though, after I got a raging headache in my mom’s overheated house, we threw dieting caution to the wind and got ourselves a pizza and fries for dinner. It was delicious.

So that was a crappy start to the week. And then it got even crappier when a guy rear-ended me on the highway on my way into work on Monday morning. I’m fine, but he beat the hell out of my car. Up by my house, the highway is only two lanes on either side, and at rush hour the traffic frequently goes from 50 mph+ to a dead stop when you get near an on/off ramp. Which is what happened yesterday and then wham! The guy ran right into me. My poor car is going to be in the shop for a week. Unfortunately, I had to spend half the day on the phone with insurance companies, car rental places, and body shops, because there was no way I was driving my busted-ass car 30 miles home from work. Yes, for some reason I kept on driving to work after the accident. When the insurance guy called me at work at 7 and was surprised that I was still there, I thought I showed remarkable restraint by just saying “well, I got in late because of the accident” and not snapping “well, I had to stay late after your lame ass company was wildly unhelpful all damn day.”

And then today I lost half the day today to a dentist’s appointment (although miracle of miracles, I don’t have any new cavities. I do have special $17 dollar prescription toothpaste though. Aren’t you jealous?) and taking my car into the body shop. Naturally, we have a huge marketing launch tomorrow and we’re way behind on everything. And two big meetings I have to lead and/or present at in the next two days. If I can get through the next two days I have Friday off. If I can get through the next two days.

Lately, I have been a big, fat uncreative slug.

At first, I had no time and no energy because I was extremely busy with work stuff.

Then, I had no time and no energy because I was busy with Thanksgiving related family stuff. And I have to say, in general, Thanksgiving went better than I expected it to go. Although, watch out world, because apparently my father has purchased a taser. This is not good news for anyone. At least he’s a doctor, so if he tasers someone into heart failure, he can always revive them.

By Saturday, I had the time, but not the energy, as Seamus ran a short, and yet exceedingly successful campaign to completely stress me out and exhaust me.

Friday night I went to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire with my brother and his girlfriend. The only show we could get tickets for was at 10:35 pm so I didn’t get home until 1:30 am or so. Which meant that when Seamus had his seizure at 3 am, I had barely gotten to sleep. When he has his seizures, we take him outside. It seems to help him recover faster. Plus he tends to throw up after seizures, and it is much easier to deal with that outside. So John walked him around, and then I walked him around, and did I mention it was something like 15 degrees out? And eventually he got better, and we went back to bed.

The next morning, as I was walking him around all bleary-eyed and stupid from lack of sleep (I had to get up, because guess who had his annual vet appointment that morning) his leash detached itself from his collar. By the time my befuddled mind realized what had happened, Seamus had flashed me a look of pure glee and taken off into the woods. And I couldn’t find him. After much fruitless search and calling, I trudged back home to wake John up and share the joy with him. Oh and to call the vet and tell them that we weren’t going to make it to our appointment on time.

So John got up, also cranky from lack of sleep and worry about the hound. Did I mention that the woods back up to the highway? It’s a pretty decent sized stretch of woods, but Seamus can cover a lot of ground, and we were both worried he’d run over by the highway and get hit by a car or something. But anyway, he poked his head up when he heard John calling him, and then took off into the underbrush again – what a fun game! Naturally, the woods are filled with pricker bushes, so John and I are covered in scratches. Eventually we split up and John recaptured our naughty little boy. And then I took Mr. Seamus to the vet, who had very nicely agreed to fit him in after we missed our appointment. Really, my vet is so nice. They were worried about him being in the woods too.

The good news is, Seamus is in excellent health, although they said that his eyes are getting cloudy and his night vision may be worsening. But guess how much blood work to check the seizure medication levels for a doggie costs? $200! And then I spent a bunch of money on a new leash and collar, because there will be no more escaping. Also, Seamus totally peed on a display in Petsmart while I was looking at the leashes. So embarrassing!

So Saturday was shot in terms of blogging. I could barely string two coherent sentences together verbally, let alone in written form. I did make a yummy lasagna though.

And Sunday, I was just tired. Again. Still? It’s hard to say. I think I’m so tired because I’ve been working very hard on getting in shape (one of my goals for my fertility treatment break) and I haven’t hit that point where the exercise starts making more energetic. Plus, healthy=no soda=no caffeine, since I despise coffee and drink decaf tea.

I hope that energy thing hits soon though. Today at work I was so lethargic as to be on the verge of slipping into a coma, and that’s not cool.

Why must the weekend go by so quickly? I had an insanely busy week last week, and I’m not feeling rested and ready to go back yet! Sadly, that doesn’t get me out of having to go to work tomorrow. And I have a huge deadline on Wednesday. But that project is all coming together, thank goodness.

As busy as last week was, it wasn’t bad. Just…full. And there was some good news, too. First, my company announced that we’re switching health plans next year. It sounds like the new health plan will cover at least some of the cost of fertility drugs, which is welcome news, since right now I get to pay for it all myself. My current doctor doesn’t take my new insurance, but I wasn’t completely happy with her anyway, so that’s not the end of the world. It actually saves me from having to worry about whether or not I should go see someone else. There is a very well regarded fertility clinic right by my office that does take my new insurance, so I think I’ll give them a shot in January. That’s about as long a break as I was planning to take from fertility treatments anyway.

And after a long wait, I’m finally going to fill the open position on my team! Whoohoo! Soon my days will be a bit less insane. And I will be less tired too. Or at least, I that's what I hope will happen.

I come from a long line of extremely anxious people. I have family members who are so anxiety-ridden that it is a miracle they can even leave the house. I try very hard not to be like them – all “whatever” and “that’s cool” – and most of the time I can pull it off. But in reality, I am not as laid back as I think I am. I’m just a champion represser. And it all comes back to haunt me sometimes when I try to sleep. Last night I spent a good two or three hours lying in bed obsessing about all of the things that could go wrong in my life.

It’s not anything new. I’ve had trouble sleeping off and on my whole life. I just can’t get my brain to shut off sometimes. In sorting through stuff after the move I came across my high school diary, which reminded me of just how long this has been going on.

In between long, rambling discussions about sex or not having sex, who to go to the prom with my junior year (as it turned out, no one, which was a bitter disappointment at the time, until I went to the prom my senior year and realized how lame it was. I did, however, have an awesome time at the after prom party my junior year. My friend Kim Davis and I got loaded at some fancy house in Georgetown and sang American Pie together, to the delight of the neighbors, I’m sure. I wonder whatever happened to her) adventures with my friends (Nancy Ellington suddenly decided she hated me, although we eventually made up – I even attended her coming out ball…Laurie Goldfarb, who would later introduce me to John, first introduced me to the old 9:30 Club and many a fine band…Mary Pat got a Mustang convertible for her 16th birthday…Laura Howard’s parents got divorced and told her right before the SATs…two of my girl friends got drunk and made out…Laila and I got fake IDs and discovered the joys of clubbing…and so on) and many a complaint about my parents is entry after entry that starts or ends with “I hope I can sleep tonight” or “couldn’t sleep last night.”

The more things change, the more they stay the same. I sure hope I can sleep tonight.

Last week I got a speeding ticket. I'm not whining -- I was speeding and I got nailed. Am I a little bitter about the way the radar detector lit up like a Christmas tree exactly when they zapped me instead of just before they zapped me so I could, oh I don't know, slow down or something? Well, yes, seeing as how that is the whole reason the radar detector even exists. But I also know that the state troopers lurk in that area (right after the road goes from two lanes to three, and the speed limit drops from 65 mph to 55 mph, and at the bottom of a hill) so I should have been going slower. So for that I am a dumbass.

However, I would like to the put the speeding ticket karma gods on notice. I am trying to slow down. I really am. I'm just not very good at it. It is hard! And on days like today, when all the federal employees were at home and not clogging up the roads, can I really be expected to drive the speed limit? I think not.

Last week, my company was only open four days, and yet somehow, I worked more than 40 hours. Today I put in another 10 ¾ hours…and it won’t be getting better anytime soon. One of my team members is leaving at the end of the week, and my boss is getting ready to be out the office for two weeks to get married and go on her honeymoon.

But once I get someone new hired and my boss is back? It is time for a change. I love my work. It is still challenging and interesting and sometimes even a lot of fun. But putting in an 11 hour day combined with a 40 minute commute each way (ok, 25-30 minutes when I leave the office at 8:30 at night) means I have no time to hang out and relax with my husband and my dog…no time to talk on the phone to my friends…no time to do things I really want to do, like posting coherently in my own blog or getting around to read the blogs I enjoy…working on other projects, like writing and knitting and stuff around the house…and no time to cook the way I like to do. Instead I find myself shoveling in takeout Indian food at 9:30 at night and then wondering why I have weird dreams. And I definitely don’t have time to exercise. On Sunday, John and I were going to go for a hike in the park, but instead, I took a nap. I was still worn out from the week I’d had.

Yep, it is definitely time for a change. Now I just have to figure out how to pull it off.

If stress had a DefCon level, mine would be DefCon 5. Or is it DefCon 1? Sorry, I haven’t seen War Games in a long time and I can’t remember whether 5 or 1 is the normal level. Whichever one is the bad one – that’s me right now.

The themes for my day:
1. Crap, it’s only Thursday. I thought it was Friday.
2. Wait, if we’re closed on Monday, but we’re sending out [extremely complicated marketing project] on Monday, that means I have to have my part finished tomorrow. That particular light bulb actually lit up over my head at about 5 p.m. today. Good times.
And the always fun:
3. Do I have to do every damn thing myself? Apparently, yes. Although this one is more personal life related than work related. My team at work is awesome and does not make me do everything myself. That is left to doctor’s offices, labs, insurance companies and my asshole father. Who, come to think of it, is a doctor, so he fits right in with everybody else who is giving me trouble right now.

And in the midst of all of the many, many hassles – personal, medical and professional – that I have swirling around me right now, I’ve been watching the situation in New Orleans get worse and worse, wondering when the United States, one of the most advanced nations in the world, became some sort of Third World country unable to provide even the most basic type of assistance to its citizens. Why hasn’t the government done anything to help? Everyone knew Katrina was coming, so they had plenty of time to make plans for the aftermath. The storm passed days ago. Why hasn’t anything meaningful been accomplished in the last four days? I’m disgusted with this country and the people in charge. I am doing what I can – donating a little money here and there, but saving people from this disaster is our government's responsibility, and it is failing miserably.

Yesterday John noticed that one of the tires on our car was looking a little low, and mentioned that I might want to put some air in it before I went to work. Well, I got up this morning and the tire was beyond low, and verging on flat. So I went to the Wawa down the street and filled it up with air. Well, first I sat there wondering why the air pump wasn’t doing anything, and then I realized that not only do you have to push the start button, you also have to hold this little lever thing in to make the air come out of the hose. Anyway the tire filled right back up, and looked like it was staying inflated, so I headed off to work.

The tire looked fine when I got to work too, but I was a little worried I would come out to find it flat at the end of the day, and sure enough, I did. Now, my boss had walked out to the garage with me because she was even less optimistic about what the state of the tire would be (and rightly so as it turned out) so at least I wasn’t alone. And then my pal Doreen showed up as I was trying to wrench the stupid jack out of the trunk. And then Amy flagged down one of the guys who works for my company, Mike (a VP no less!), and yet another co-worker, Heath stopped to help too. I work with some very nice people. Not so nice? The two guys who were walking by right as Amy and I got out to the car who immediately pretended they couldn’t see us or the flat tire and practically ran away from us in case we were thinking of asking them for help. But they don’t work for my company.

Now, left to my own devices, I would have eventually gotten the tire changed. I’ve never done it on the car I have now, but one of the many problems my piece of crap Jetta had was frequent flat tires. But then I flashed back to the last time I changed a tire, which went something like this: The stupid jack wouldn’t open up. After I finally got the jack to perform the one task that was its whole reason for existing, the car fell off the jack. I blame the complicated VW instructions (all very German “for maximum efficiency, you must do x!”) about where you could and could not put the jack safely, which just confused the hell out of me. I tried again and was eventually successful. I had to jump up and down on the tire iron to get the lug nuts to move. Then the tire wouldn’t come off, and I was convinced the car was going to fall and crush me and I was going to die one of those stupid deaths you hear about. It ended up taking me an hour and a half and involved lots of swearing and getting very dirty. So…this time I let the Mike change the tire for me, while Amy, Heath and I stood around cracking jokes and trying to make helpful comments. The whole process went very smoothly for him, and only took about 15-20 minutes. Obviously I owe him some sort of thank-you gift, although I’m not sure what he would like.

The only problem is, I feel like a big girly cliché.

Leave work at the height of rush hour after having a stressful day. Decide to take the country road home instead of the highway, as the country road will be all pretty and pastoral and whatnot.

Discover that the country road is a little more crowded at rush hour than on the weekend. But then it clears out, and you start to cruise, enjoying the horsies on the side of the road, until…massive piece of farm equipment going 10 miles per hour! Curse the country road for being so damn authentic. Wonder if you’ll have to stop for cows to cross the road next.

Finally get to pass the tractor/thresher thingy. And then bam! They are repaving the road, so it is all ridged and noisy and bumpy. After a couple of miles, start to wonder how much longer this is going to continue. Answer: Seven miles. Seven long miles of bumpy, noisy road where they’ve taken out all of the passing zones and you are stuck behind a nervous driver in a blue Chevy. Eventually cross the Frederick County line and the pavement goes back to blissful smoothness.

Pass more farm equipment. Get chance to pass the annoying Chevy driver at last! Return to happy cruising, smiling at the sign that says “baleage” which is probably very proper farm-speak, but always makes you think of stoners or skaters baling up the hay for sale. And then encounter the last obstacle of the day – getting stuck behind old crone in Cadillac, going under the speed limit (naturally) for the last few miles. Triumphantly zip around her at a stoplight, turn left and head for home.

So while I am writing away on my new laptop, it is still not connected to the Internet. Sigh. I was all excited on Sunday because I thought I figured out what the problem was. Well, I did. But as soon as I fixed that, problem #2 arose. And I’d like to say to Mr. Adelphia high speed internet customer service guy – you can tell me you don’t know what your IP address is, but I still think you are a big fat liar.

Anyway there’s been much work over last two days, and I just don’t have the energy to tackle it again tonight. But tomorrow I should get home a decent hour, and I will try again then.

Let’s see, what I have I been up to? Well, I got sick on Friday, and felt lousy pretty much all weekend. Now there’s a good time!

Last night Seamus and I encountered a skunk out on our walk, but luckily, I managed to convince Mr. Seamus that he really, really didn’t want to go meet that funny looking cat. He was so excited he was beside himself, leaping and pulling. Skunks are apparently almost as cool as foxes (his all-time favorite animal to see).

Tonight I figured out how to use the broiler on the oven here at the house. It’s electric, and I wasn’t sure how it worked. But it roasted my red peppers just fine.

And this morning I started my next round of appointments for the fertility treatments. The next week and a half will be a stressful time for me, but I promise, I’ll try not to be too whiny. It’s just that between going to the doctor for monitoring, sitting around waiting to get my blood drawn at the lab, getting up early to try to get to my doctor’s appointments before work, and then staying late to make up the time that I miss from work because my doctor and the lab are always backed up, I know I’m going to be stressed out. Well, and let’s not forget the added fun of all the extra hormones, of giving myself shots, and my anxiety over whether or not it is going to work this time around.

And hopefully along the way I’ll get the damn Internet access sorted out too!

Am. So. Frustrated.

I wrote a post I quite liked yesterday, but you haven't seen it yet, because I wrote it on my new laptop.

Which I love (and thanks to Amy for the Toshiba recommendation) but which has so far resisted all of my attempts to connect it to the Internet. It can't find the wireless router I installed. It can't find the cable modem even when I connect it directly to the laptop.

So, I'm afraid you're all just going to have to wait to hear about the 9,000 degree weather and my bewildering trip to Toys R Us. Because if I spend one more minute tonight trying to convince this stupid laptop to find the Internet, I'm likely to do something I'll later regret, like throw it off the deck. I don't think the warranty covers that. The worst part is, I'm sure it is something simple... really, I blame Bill Gates and his crappy operating system.

Have you ever had one of those days where you hate everyone and everything? I am having one right now.

• I hate the woman I met a party yesterday who made it clear she didn’t think I was worth talking to after I said I didn’t have kids. Thanks, bitch. Two years of infertility hasn’t left me feeling crappy enough. And by the way, if the only way you can make conversation with another woman is if she has kids, I’d say you’re the one who is lacking, not me.

• I hate the stupid “Report Suspicious Activities” messages they put on the highway message boards. It makes me feel like I’m living in 1984.

• I hate that I live 25 miles from the closest grocery store that sells organic fruits and vegetables and food that isn’t all completely processed.

• I hate that there are people who I think I’m weird because buying organic and natural foods is important to me. I’d like to point out that I’ve been saying trans-fats and high fructose corn syrup are bad for you for at least 10 years now. Not looking so crazy anymore am I?

• I hate that gas prices are so insanely high.

• I hate that the newspaper is filled with depressing stories about how pretty much everything, everywhere, sucks for everyone. And there’s nothing I can do about it.

• I hate my stupid tooth socket which is still hurting, and worse, triggering my TMJ, making my jaw ache like you wouldn’t believe.

• And most of all, I hate insurance companies. I hate USAA for raising my rates 128% because I had one minor fender bender at 2 mph and scraped up a guy’s bumper. Not even dented – just scraped! My car was fine. I hate MetLife dental for sending me something that appears to say they aren’t going to cover the tooth extraction. But I called them before the surgery and they said it was covered, so they will pay. And I hate UnitedHealth for not covering fertility drugs.

Ok, I think that is enough hating and feeling sorry for myself for one day. Thanks for listening.

Or Vicodin, if you want to be all precise about it. Darth Tooth is no more (and now you can all breathe a sigh of relief that you won’t have to listen to me go on and on about it anymore!)

The oral surgeon’s office called me on Friday afternoon and said they’d had a cancellation for first thing Monday morning, would I like to take that appointment? So I checked with my boss, made sure John could drive me – “what the hell else would I be doing?” he asked – and said yes. And then went to the bathroom and got violently ill. I may have been just a little more anxious about the procedure than I wanted to admit.

I spent the weekend escaping with Harry Potter – I love, love the new book – I think it is my favorite since Prisoner of Azkaban! And then yesterday, bright and early, had my surgery, which went fine, at least from my point of view. They put the IV in, I went to sleep and when I woke up, the correct tooth had been extracted. It hurts, and I’m all puffy and swollen, but on the plus side, I get to eat all the pudding I want. And they sent me flowers from work, which was really nice.

The bad part is the Vicodin. I don’t know how anyone can get addicted to this stuff. It helps with the pain, but it also makes me sick to my stomach, dizzy, fuzzy-headed and itchy. Yesterday I realized I was having trouble keeping up with the plot of the silly trashy novel I bought specifically for post surgery reading. And today I tried to work from home, which didn’t go all that well. I got maybe five hours of work done and I had to take a nap in the middle of the day.

But I think the worst part is behind me. And I did get to spend two extra days at home with John and Seamus which is always nice. Maybe not so nice for them, since I’ve mostly been silly, sleeping or holding a ice pack to my face, but nice for me.

Today was supposed to be the day that I got my bad tooth pulled, so it could never bother me again. And yet, it is still sitting there in my mouth, being all hurt-y and evil. Why? Because nothing with my teeth is ever simple.

I went in for my appointment with the oral surgeon, who was running late, of course. So I got to sit in the waiting room for 40 minutes or so getting more and more anxious. That’s always fun. There was a little more waiting once I got back into the room. And then the doctor came in, looked at my x-ray, and said it was infected, and fractured, and they couldn’t take it out today. He spent another ten minutes or so terrifying me, explaining that the tooth is going to break when they take it out, so they are going to have to dig pieces of it out of my bone, and that I really need to have anesthesia for that. It will be worse than having impacted wisdom teeth removed, he said. And that was all I needed to hear, because my wisdom teeth were impacted (naturally) and getting them removed was horrible.

So I agreed we’d do it with the anesthesia on Tuesday, went and got lunch and headed back to work. Kind of anti-climactic after getting myself all worked up, although I’ll have the whole weekend now to whip myself up into a frenzy of worry.

Oh, and getting the titanium tooth implant involves more surgery and costs $1,800 – just for the part the oral surgeon does! That doesn’t even cover the fake tooth they put in later. I wonder how much it would cost to get a gold tooth? I could pretend I was a pirate.

From my new, extended daily commute:

• I wish someone would invent a “evap-o-ray” so that I could zap people who insist on sitting in the left lane going 60 mph in a 65 mph zone. I don’t want to kill them or anything. I just want the ability to forcefully get them the fuck out of my way.

• Why is it that so many of the drivers who are jerks seem to be driving Acura MDX’s? I find this highly amusing as someone I used to know who turned out to be a total jerk drives one.

On the celebrity blogger front:

• I recently discovered that one of my favorite writers, Laurie R. King has a blog. I’ll never be as good a writer as she is, but please notice that at least I can pick the same template as she can!

• Moby also has an online journal that I enjoy. Of course, by being a famous musician, he automatically has more interesting things to write about than I do. I can almost guarantee that I’ll never be posting about spending an evening in a bar in a Russian hotel partying with the guys from Jackass. Not that I would turn them down if they called me – they look like they know how to have a good time. They just won’t be calling!

News from infertility-world:

• I’m considerably poorer after spending a fortune on Clomid, Follistim and hcg. I’m covered in bruises from all the bloodwork I’ve had done and the joy of learning how to give myself shots (really, not as bad as I thought it would be) and just waiting to see if any of this worked. If it did, great, it was worth every penny and every bruise. I’m not feeling very positive though. I don’t have anything to base my negativity on, but that’s how I’m feeling.

And finally, a wee survey:

• I’m thinking of buying myself a laptop. And I was considering getting a Mac. Does anyone have an opinion on iBook vs. Powerbook? The Powerbooks seem awfully expensive – do I really need one, or can I get by with the iBook? Or should I not get a Mac at all? HP has some pretty decent prices, and our desktop, which I like, is an HP. Please feel free to leave a comment or drop me an email with your opinion.

For being clumsy, that is. Not incoherent rambling, although you may have wondered what I was smoking when I wrote that last post. But no, I was neither drunk nor stoned. I was just really, really tired. Complete and utter exhaustion – the cheapest high of them all.

What was I talking about again? Oh yes, my clumsiness. I believe I have mentioned from time to time that I am not particularly coordinated. That despite years and years of ballet, I am not particularly graceful in every day life. How when my bridesmaids and best friends were telling their favorite Hillary stories just before my wedding, it turned into “my favorite time Hillary fell down.” And how I fall down the three stairs in my condo on such a regular basis that it isn’t even remarkable anymore.

Well, I found a way to take it to a new level. On Saturday afternoon, I fell up the stairs. Yep. Up the stairs. You may not have known that was even possible, but let me tell you, it is. I was carrying an armful of magazines and papers to put in a box in the bedroom and something went horribly wrong. It happened so fast that I didn’t even have time to drop the magazines and put out my hands, so I bruised my chest, bit my tongue and really hurt my foot. I was so stunned I just lay there crying for a minute, while Seamus looked at me anxiously.

Eventually I got up. I was really hungry and I had just made lunch, so I sat on the couch eating macaroni and cheese and crying. I must have looked so pathetic. Luckily, John was off taking our 16 trillionth load of trash to the dump, so I was here by myself.

By the time he got back though, my foot had really started hurting. About two hours after I fell, I couldn’t walk. By the third hour, I was pretty sure I had broken my something. However, we just didn’t have six hours to spend at the emergency room, so I decided to wait until I could track down my mom (a former nurse.) She said to put ice on it and elevate it and see how I was on Sunday. And it turns out it is just a bad bruise or sprain. Today I was even able to cram my foot in a shoe and take Seamus for a very slow and careful walk. Hopefully I’ll make it through the rest of the move without losing any limbs. Seriously, who the hell falls up the stairs?

That’s what I’ve got. I think my immune system just threw up its hands and said “You are one stressed out cookie. I give up!” and then the cold germs blitzkrieged their way in and took over my body. The last few days have been a blur of DayQuil, massive amounts of nose blowing, visits to see my mother-in-law in the hospital (who is getting better) and sitting on the couch feeling like crap.

Yesterday I also managed to squeeze in lunch and spa time with Laila, who is struggling with her own strain of the cold of death. We went to lunch here, where we enjoyed crepes and their amazing pommes frites. We did not enjoy the service all that much – we think the waiter was trying to be snooty and French, but he actually just came across as not terribly efficient. And then we went here for massages and pedicures. Oh how I wish I could afford to have spa day on a regular basis (this spa day was a gift from Laila’s mom)! Particularly spa day with a Laila. It’s so much more fun when you have someone with whom you can debate whether or not you should wear your bra under your robe, to giggle in the hallway as you wait for a guy to clear out of the changing room, or to make fun of the ridiculous carousel dress in the Vanity Fair ad. And someone to discuss the spa people with. Like Laila’s gay male massage therapist who claimed he was “just like a woman” (nice try, but not really) and my excellent yet aggressively indifferent pedicurist, who seemed to want to pretend I wasn’t attached to the feet she was working on. Evil cold of death aside, it was a lovely day with one of my best friends and favorite people, which is in itself rejuvenating, even without the spa treatments.

Then this morning I had the bright idea that I wouldn’t take any cold medicine today. I would just let everything drain and I would feel so much better. Apparently the overwhelming flood of snot has finally started to affect my brain, because this is the hypothesis of an idiot. An idiot, I tell you! The only time I felt human all morning was when I was actually in the shower breathing in steam. The rest of the time? Complete and utter misery. So I chucked that plan and went back to my true love, DayQuil. I’m sorry DayQuil. I’ll never turn on you again.

(or Happy Fucking Birthday to me, the bitter version)

10. Yesterday it was 70 degrees out. Today, it’s snowing.
9. I have no lunch.
8. I have no car to use to go buy myself lunch.
7. I’ve crossed the line from early thirties to mid thirties.
6. My mom managed to work in a guilt trip and complaints about my father when she called to wish me happy birthday.
5. Everyone at work forgot my birthday. (edited to add: except for TZ, cause she’s awesome like that)
4. Everyone at work forgot my birthday because of huge organizational changes which I hate and which make me want to cry.
3. I have a headache and I’m exhausted.
2. While John’s mom’s surgery was a success, the recovery isn’t going so well. She will get better, but right now it is very stressful.
1. Did I mention it is snowing?

I am so tired tonight. Just completely exhausted, because I woke up at 3:47 am and was up for at least an hour, wishing I could sleep. For your enjoyment, here are just a few of the questions I pondered as lay in my bed, bemoaning my sleepless fate.

Why is my right big toe so incredibly, ridiculously itchy?
Can you develop a raging case of athlete’s toe?
Or is my itchy toe a physical manifestation of my longing for spring? Could my toe be rebelling against shoes and socks and getting itchy to tell me it wants to be in sandals and slides again?
What the hell are the lyrics to that song “just checked in to see what condition my condition was in” about anyway?
Why does my left knee hurt? Is my body completely falling apart as I approach my 34th birthday?
Is that noise the lady downstairs snoring? Or is it the dog snoring?
Am I ever going to get back to sleep? How will I get back to sleep when all I can hear is that noise?
I wonder if lotion would help the toe?
Can I find the lotion without actually getting out of the bed or turning on a light? Ooh, I can.

From here my thoughts got more and more random, so I’ll spare you. Eventually I drifted back off to sleep, thank goodness. Hopefully the whole sleep process will go better tonight.

Are they ever going to give Scorsese an Oscar? Seriously, I have plenty of respect for Clint Eastwood. But Clint already won for Unforgiven. I have to admit I haven't seen Million Dollar Baby, mainly because that Hilary Swank just irritates me. Speaking of which, I can't believe she won another Oscar. I wanted Kate Winslet to win. But I am happy that Jamie Foxx won for Best Actor. Oh, and I didn't like the way they made the non-actor people accept their awards from their seats or all stand up on stage in a herd.

Taxi Driver...Raging Bull...Goodfellas...Casino...and many more. Why doesn't this man have an Oscar?

I was reading this article online today about how there is a defect with some Wisconsin quarters that makes them worth up to $1,500. I immediately started getting all excited, because I had knew I had three – three! – Wisconsin quarters in my wallet. Yes, I am the dork who looks at her change and says “Oh look, Wisconsin quarters. I haven’t seen that quarter before” to the sales clerk. Who naturally could care less and just wants me to stop going on about the coins and get out of the way.

But I digress. My point is that I was about to come into some easy money. At $1,500 per quarter, I could turn $.75 into $4,500! That’s like a 500,000% return. Awesome! And the timing would be perfect what with us trying to buy a house and all.

The one problem with this beautiful windfall? It turns out I have perfectly ordinary, only worth $.25 quarters. Sigh.

My weekend was insanely busy. So busy that between the two yoga classes, the surprise party (Happy Birthday Valerie!) the dinner with John’s mom, the brunch with my mom and the Tupperware party way out in Centerville (or, as I call any place I have to take Route 66 to get to, Hell), I had no time to cook anything, much less put together any sort of lunch.

I made my way to Whole Foods at lunchtime today, thinking that I wanted these Asian style noodles they make. I also wanted cake, but I pretty much always want cake. Who doesn’t? Sadly, when I got to Whole Foods, they didn’t have any of the noodles. After having a small internal tantrum, I decided that I will not be denied, so I went in search of the ingredients to make my own, peanuttier version tonight. This led to me wasting a bunch of time in the Asian food section, trying to decide if I wanted to Soba or Udon. In the end I just bought linguine. That’s probably some sort of gourmet crime (inauthentic noodles!), but whatever.

By this point I was starving, so I wandered back over to the prepared foods aisle. Where the 5 layer Mexican dip caught my eye. I love that dip. It is so tasty. However, that stupid voice in my head that tries to get me to make wise nutritional decisions just wouldn’t let me buy dip for lunch. Not even the small container. So we compromised and I got a bean and cheese burrito. Big mistake! It was awful. I don’t know if they switched to a new burrito maker or what, but the burrito was so spicy I couldn’t eat it. It was full of these very tiny pieces of some sort of very spicy green pepper. I spent about half an hour trying to pick the little pepper bits out, and then gave up and threw it away. I knew I should have gotten the dip. Or cake.

I've been trying to get my new blog up and running. The problem is, I have no time. Plus, I've got the added bonus of having no idea what I am doing. And I generally don't even get to start working on it until 10 p.m. You know, when I'm at my sharpest and best at figuring out new stuff.

Sometimes the experimenting is fun, although I thought I'd be done by now. There's been a lot of trial and error, and I don't have much to show for my efforts yet. And then there are nights like tonight. I just spent an hour trying to figure out how to export the entries from my first blog to the new one. The MT directions made it sound like it would be so simple. Maybe it is, but not for me. I did something wrong and it didn't work.

And wait until you see the site. It isn't even complicated! I'm feeling extra slow right now.

I had a really nice weekend. It snowed again, and I used that as an excuse to not leave the house for most of Saturday and Sunday. I did lots of laundry, organized my files, cleaned the bathroom, baked a cake and made a delicious vegetarian shepherd’s pie. Plus, I got to spend some quality time with my husband and my dog. And only four people showed up for my yoga class on Sunday night, so it was almost like having a private lesson. All in all, a very satisfactory weekend.

Then this morning it was 14 degrees out. I got to work and half of the people on my hall were out sick. Of the people who actually made it into the office, half were getting sick or getting over being sick. The majority of my projects were stalled because the people I needed weren’t there. I was freezing and exhausted for most of the day, which didn’t help my productivity much either.

I would have been much better off staying in bed today.

We got a whopping two inches of snow on the ground here today. Two whole inches, and everyone here is all freaked out. I had to run some errands after work, and there weren’t any people on the roads or in the stores. They are actually opening the schools two hours late tomorrow.

Holy crap, a guy just got hit by a car on Lost! I didn’t see that coming.

Where was I? Oh, right, snow. It amazes me how badly people in the DC area deal with snow. I mean, I am not a winter person, but I manage to carry on when there’s only two inches of snow. I even like looking at the snow. And, actually, I love being outside at night when it is snowing. That has a magical feeling to it. I just hate the inconvenience that comes after a snowfall. Well, the inconvenience and the cold. It has been insanely cold here this week.

But not everyone hates the snow. Seamus is thrilled. Except that the snowmelt they put down on the sidewalks hurts his paws. He’ll just stop and hold one paw up, looking miserable as he waits for me to brush it off. Which led to confusion when he stopped to point at something tonight. He also likes to stick his nose in the snow and blow out, which is awfully cute. I'm glad someone is getting some enjoyment of it.

Warning: sometimes bitter, completely self-indulgent post ahead. I’m overtired, cranky and feeling sorry for myself. And I’ve got a few things to say.

• How can someone as tired as I am be so completely incapable of falling asleep at night?

• Today was one of those days where my job made me want to drink. Seriously. Three-quarters of the people I talked to today seemed to be going out of their way to alienate, irritate or misunderstand me. And if something could do wrong it did. Grrr.

• To the guy behind me in line at the self checkout at Whole Foods. Yes, I dared to pay for my lunch with one dollar bills. I realize cash is passé, but I didn’t think it was necessary to charge my $5 lunch to a credit card. No need for you to heave a big dramatic sigh. Or to practically shove me out of the way to scan your own food when I was done. Jerk.

• After being rushed by Impatient McPushy in the checkout line, I got trapped behind a pack of cars going 40 mph in a 55 mph zone. 15 miles under the speed limit is enough to make my head explode.

• To my sister-in-law (a multi-part whine):
1. Do not take your insecurities about being a mother out on me. As it happens, I actually think you’re a pretty good mom. But don’t tell me that once I have children, I’ll come around to your way of thinking. I’m not going to spank my children, and I think I can raise them healthily as vegetarians. And I don’t think that will make me a bad mother. I realize you see independent thought as a threat and perhaps some sort of criticism, but it’s not.

2. Oh, and by the way…my dog is not a plague carrier. Don’t treat him like one. And no, I won’t change my mind and think that he can’t sniff my baby once I have one.

3. As a matter of fact, there is a separation of church and state clause in the Constitution. It is in the Bill of Rights and goes like this: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. You’re a lawyer. You should know that. And another thing. The people who founded this country were not of your religion. They called the Pope the Whore of Rome, and burned him in effigy. If they had tied their religion to the state, you wouldn’t be very happy right now, would you? We have a separation of church and state so that all citizens have freedom of religion, not just you.

Now, hopefully tonight I can get some damn sleep and tomorrow will be a better day.

Some people might prefer posts with birds chirping and happy little elves…this is not the post for you. Feel free to read on, but you’ve been warned. (with apologies to the Lemony Snicket movie, the only bright spot I’ve had in the last couple of days.)

So, Christmas went ok. I got gifts I like, and people seemed to like the gifts I bought them. All in all, I was feeling pretty chipper. Sunday came, and we had a decent dinner with my Dad with only light to moderate weirdness.

On Monday morning, I was preparing to start my vacation. My time to relax, do stuff around the house, hang out with my husband and my dog, get the new blog all set up. And then I got the phone call. My dad had collapsed and they had taken him to the emergency room. They didn’t know what the problem was, but he was in and out of consciousness and couldn’t tell them what was going on – it could be a stroke or a heart attack.

**Before I go any farther, just so you know, my Dad is now fine. He went home from the hospital this evening**

Naturally, John had just left with the car five minutes before I got the call. And just as naturally, when I called my mom for a ride, she had to be difficult, and decided to send my brother to come get me instead. But before he could get here, John came home and we headed to the hospital.

Where I learned several things:

1. my father, the doctor, has diabetes, which he suspected, but didn’t bother to get checked out. On Monday it was so out of control, his blood sugar was 553 (for reference it should be between 60 and 90)
2. when your blood sugar gets that high, you can have a stroke or go into a coma
3. my dad had chest pain on Saturday night, but decided it was nothing and took a Percocet he had left over from going to the dentist (as an aside, we have the same dentist, and that man has never given me so much as a Tylenol. Where’s my fucking Percocet?)
4. My dad has a girlfriend. Named Margaret. She seems very nice.

The extremely efficient people in the ER established that he had not had a heart attack or a stroke, and started giving him insulin. And as his blood sugar came down, my dad became coherent and conscious again, which was nice to see.

He claims this was the wakeup call that he needed and he will change his diet, and exercise and take his Glucotrol. He did those things for a while after he had his bypass surgery when I was in college, so, maybe he will.

But the past two days have been a rollercoaster for me. Worry, of course. Guilt – when the nurse was asking me questions about my dad, I didn’t know the answers. Does he drink? Well, he never drank much, but for all I know, he downs a bottle of whiskey every night now. I mean, I didn’t see him for six months this year. Resentment. Resenting my mom for being unhelpful and bitchy throughout this whole episode. Resenting my dad for not taking care of himself. And then there’s the depressing realization that my parents are getting older, and this is probably just the first of many times I’m going to end up racing to the hospital because one or the other of them is sick.

In the past week, I:

• watched the movie the Commitments, which left me with the urge to describe things as “brilliant” and people as “right fuckin’ eejits.” But I’ve restrained myself.

• worked very late. A lot. It feels like I’ve done nothing but run from the second I got to work each day until I crawled out the office door late at night. The upside of this is that after tomorrow, I will be off of work for 10, yes 10, glorious days!

• bought a lot of gifts. I’m not a great shopper, but I do enjoy buying people presents.

• listened to my wonderful Yahtzee! CD from BMH. Along with the bonus Christmas CD she sent me. :)

• baked cookies for my co-workers.

• wrapped presents using strips of packing tape because we ran out of scotch tape. And by ran out of, I mean were the victims of a mysterious tape dispenser disappearance.

• visited three nurseries to help my mom find the right (read: least insanely overpriced) Christmas tree, helped her put up said Christmas tree, and helped her put up lights on her front steps.

• saw the movie Closer. Mini-review:
John: That sucked.
Me: Oh, it wasn’t that bad. You could tell it was originally a play though.
John: No, it sucked.
Me: Well, I didn’t really feel the characters were very sympathetic…
John: Complete suckitude.

• knitted frantically, trying to finish this stupid scarf for my father in law. It looks nice, but it is taking forever. Whoever said you can make a scarf in two days was either making a very small scarf or a liar.

• felt guilty because I have gotten many nice Christmas cards, but didn’t send any. Maybe I’ll send Happy New Year cards.

• attended a work-related Christmas party that I didn’t think I would enjoy, but that turned out to be fun. And they served three cheese croquettes and fennel tartlets. Yum!

• got hosed on shipping costs by UPS. That’s what you get when you don’t make it to the shipping store to mail your packages until December 22nd. Sigh. At least they were friendly, efficient, and had boxes for my two light but oddly sized packages.

At least I’m almost done! Once I get through Christmas, I just might sleep for a couple of my days off. How are your holiday preparations going?

I will thank him for all of the excellent music he has brought to the world.

I will congratulate him for being a vegetarian and all of the good works he has done over the years.

And then I will ever-so-gently punch him in the nose for the song “Simply Having A Wonderful Christmas Time.”

Not only is it annoying to hear, but it is so damn sticky! It has been playing in my head, over and over, for two days now.

In Huis Clos, Hell is being stuck in a room with no door with a bunch of strangers. You can’t leave, you can’t sleep, you can’t even close your eyes, because you have no eyelids. It always sounded pretty awful

But that is not the Hell that waits for me. No, I caught a glimpse of it today, and now I know how I will be punished for my sins.

I will have to sit in the dentist’s office, so cold that I am shivering, reading a two month old People magazine, suffering from one of those screwdriver-in-the-eye, on-the-verge-of-throwing-up headaches. Half of my face will be numb, and I will have to listen to a truly hideous version of some kid singing “All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth.”

And instead of feeling like it is lasting forever, it actually will last forever.

No, been working.

You have to imagine saying the title and first line in a Monty Pythonesque British accent. That's how it sounds in my head.

So this week I've had a ridiculous amount of work to do, Christmas parties to attend, gifts to buy and errands to run. And then when I finally got home each night, I had to decide between posting here, obsessing about the new blog, working on the scarf that is my father-in-law's Christmas present and talking to my husband. Obsessing, knitting and hubby-time won out every time. Oh, and watching Lost. I made sure to walk in the door at 7:59 on Wednesday night. Do I have my priorities straight or what?

But now John is off with the car taking final exams all weekend, so I'll be home, dealing with the mound of laundry that has piled up, and blogging away.

And judging by their behavior, they hate me right back.

I would like to begin this post with a disclaimer. I am not some disgusting person who does not take proper care of her teeth. I brush and floss religiously. I just have bad teeth. If I ever wind up on a deserted island, I’ll be knocking a tooth out with an ice skate, just like Tom Hanks in Castaway.

So today, I went to the dentist to get my teeth cleaned. And learned that I have SEVEN cavities. Seven. That doesn’t seem fair to me.

Two of these cavities are in spots where the glue from my braces did damage. Everyone knew they would get cavities someday. Three of the cavities are old fillings that need to be replaced. One cavity is a brand-new one that caused the dentist to say “You haven’t had any pain from this tooth at all? Really?” They think it will take TWO HOURS to fix. Guess how I’m spending my Friday afternoon? And to make it even better, the dentist told me she might decide they need to do a root canal and a crown once they get in there.

And then we come to cavity number seven. This fucker is the Darth Vader of teeth – pure evil. It was filled seven years ago, in one of the worst dental experiences of my life. Three years ago it got abscessed and I had to have a root canal. And then a crown lengthening and a crown, which was extremely painful and expensive. Do you know what a crown lengthening is? Let me tell you what it is not. It is not where you go to the periodontist and they build something on to your tooth to make it easier to attach the crown. That’s what I thought they were going to do when I went in to have that procedure done. Sadly, I was wrong.

Anyway, Darth Vader is acting up again, or so they tell me. According to my x-rays, at’s like a volcano preparing to erupt. I could get another root canal, crown lengthening and crown, but there's no guarantee that will do the trick (the dentist referred to this as taking “heroic measures to save the tooth." I find it amusing to hear that phrase used in reference to a tooth. In mind, it conjures up images of people cracking my chest open to jump start my heart while pushing me through a hallway at top speed on a gurney or something.) I could just ignore the problem, but the tooth will keep deteriorating. No matter what I do, eventually I will have to have the tooth pulled,at which time I can get a titanium tooth implant. Apparently I am very lucky that they have this whole titanium tooth technology now. Yeah, you just told me I have seven cavities and probably need two root canals. And then you will screw a titanium tooth in to my jaw. Lucky is exactly what I am feeling.

So, on Thursday, I declared my Thanksgiving to be "better than I thought it would be." That was a little optimistic, considering I still had two Thanksgivings to go. On Friday we had a disastrous lunch with my mother-in-law, my sister-in-law, my nephew and my sister-in-law's husband (who shall henceforth be known as President and CEO of The Jerk Store, Inc.) They were 25 minutes late and it all went downhill from there, ending in a fight about some random topic and with my pregnant sister in law in tears.

On to dinner with my dad. He was late, too, and the dinner was just awkward. If I hadn't tried to make conversation, I think the four of us would have just sat there in silence the whole time. Oh, except for the creepy part where my dad talked about how he knows where my mom lives even though he isn't supposed to and tried to get me and my brother to confirm her address. Fun. And then John and I took my brother home and went in to hang out with my mom, who had pretty much insisted that we come by, even though we saw her for hours on Thursday. And John didn't want to be there, and he embarrassed me by showing my mom that he didn't want to be there, so we had a huge screaming fight on the way home. When we arrived at home, I classily called John an asshole at the top of my lungs for all the neighborhood to hear and tried to storm off all dramatic-like to walk the dog. Except that I was still wearing the shoes I had worn to dinner (not suited to dog walking) and Seamus was unnerved by the yelling and pulled really hard, so I fell flat on my face in the street instead. I scraped my knee and my palm, twisted my ankle and bruised my hip. It was a sucky cap to a crappy day. John and I rarely fight, so when we do, it makes us both miserable. Finally at about 2 am we made up and all was right with the world again.

I spent Saturday afternoon in Georgetown shopping with my friend Laila. It is so awesome to have her back in DC and to get to see her on a weekly basis. And Sunday was laze around the house and do laundry day, so I did get some "recover from the family" time in. Even so, I was exhausted today and couldn't focus or get anything done at work today. Thank goodness Christmas is a month away.

When I was young and impressionable, I read this Stephen King short story where a guy drinks a beer that had gone bad and turns into a dead-cat-eating monster. It totally freaked me out and only exacerbated (damn, that's a hard word to spell) my existing picky girl tendency to worry about whether or not food had spoiled. Milk? I absolutely cannot keep it past the expiration date. Leftovers? They can stay in the fridge for three or four days max.

And now, I just realized my Sprite has an expiration date of 10/25/04. I already drank half of it! Am I doomed to get some horrible expired Sprite sickness?

EatSmart Veggie Chips are only a healthier snack alternative if you restrain yourself from eating half the bag over the course of your day.

Sigh. I am not to be trusted with the Veggie Chips

I had a decent time of it in high school. I wasn’t one of the in crowd, but I had an awesome group of friends and was very busy dressing in black, being a punk rock rebel and not wanting to be a cheerleader or whatever, so I didn’t really care about not being popular. That’s not to say I didn’t have problems, because yeesh, who doesn’t have problems in high school? The teenage years are not easy. Plus, I was punk rock, so, you know, I was sooo misunderstood.

Middle school was my time of trauma. I went to a very small school from kindergarten through 8th grade. Kids came and went, but it was mostly the same group in my class the whole time. When we started sixth grade, I got a nasty shock. People who had been my friends for years thought I wasn’t cool anymore. And I can admit it…I was a mess. I had braces. I wore glasses. I got boobs and zits before everyone else. I had no idea what to do with my hair – my mom made me shower at night, and curly hair really, really needs to be washed after you sleep on it. Really. And worst of all, I was smart. It had never been a problem before. We used to have contests to see who could get through the SRA reading kits the fastest. But all of the sudden people were looking down on me for doing my homework and getting good grades. My archenemy Minda told people I didn’t know the names of the members of Duran Duran, even though I did. I was crushed that anyone would believe I was that uncool. Crushed! I wasn’t completely friendless, but I did spend a lot of time feeling like a loser.

And I guess you never completely shake off the shame of the loser label. It certainly doesn’t take much to send my right back to those days. Today, while I was talking in a meeting, two people were whispering, laughing and writing notes. Now, they probably weren’t talking about me. I didn’t say anything stupid, and I wasn’t really talking about anything mockable, but still... And then I noticed I got de-blogrolled off a blog I like (translation: I thought your blog was cool, but now I’ve decided you’re lame and boring) and I was right back to feeling like that pimply, four-eyed, messy-haired, brace-face little girl wondering where her friends went.

Being punk rock and not caring was better. So, meeting people? Nameless blogger? I am totally sneering in your general direction. Now I’m going to go stomp around like I’m wearing combat boots. I’m sure I’ll be feeling better in no time.

Listen, I know you're excited about having a show besides Monday Night Football that is actually gettting ratings. And I'll admit that I've enjoyed the first two episodes of Lost. The premise is interesting and the acting doesn't suck. Plus, you've got a former hobbit.

But stop packing it with so many damn commercials! You will lose my interest if you keep going to commercial every seven minutes. You've actually got some viewers now. Act like you want to keep them.

I spent a lovely couple of hours reading the new book by David Sedaris this morning in the jury lounge. And then I got picked for a jury.

Serving on a jury comes very close to being the last thing I ever wanted to do. I don't trust "the system" to be fair in many cases. And yet, I wouldn't want a guilty person to go free. This is not a comfortable place for me to be. We're not supposed to talk about the case until it is over, so no details yet.

And now I get to spend the next few days as juror #11 by day, and Marketing Penguin by night, trying to do some of my job from home. Whoopee.

Oh, and the fleas seem to be back. Seamus got another bath. I've vaccuumed. I've done laundry. I'm not sure what else to do, but I will not be defeated by fleas. Double ugh.

I realized last night as I was trying (and failing) to fall asleep that not only do I have a huge project list at work, I have a lot to do at home. Which is why I lie in bed making lists in my head instead of sleeping. So I’m trying a little experiment here. If I actually put the list down in writing, will I stop obsessing and get some damn sleep?

I have to:

• Finish the baby blanket I am knitting for my friend Christine’s little girl Avery. She’s already four weeks old. I’m only halfway done. Never again will I buy the fine yarn. Never again.

• Get the oil changed on the car.

• Get the brakes fixed on the car.

• Start and complete the memory book about my friend Leo in the next two weeks. I had the idea to put together an album of stories and photos of Leo for his little boy Malcolm’s dedication back in the spring. October seemed so far away then. I’ve written one story. One.

• Make travel arrangements to go to New Hampshire for Malcolm’s dedication. I thought this was some hippie-crunchy thing my friend Jules was doing, but apparently it is a Baptist thing. But hopefully still hippie-crunchy too.

• Get started on knitting the baby blanket for my friend Julie’s baby, who is due on October 5th. This blanket will be made with chunky yarn. Chunky yarn is my friend.

• Seriously de-clutter my house. All sorts of crap has piled up here over the last seven years, and it is time for a purge.

• Order a copy of my credit report to be sure all of my credit cards are listed as paid in full and cancelled at my request.

• Make travel arrangements to go to Colorado to see John’s sister.

• buy new bras. My two favorite bras both died this week.

• replace the light switch for my bedroom closet, which only works now if you hold it in one particular position. Which means I can't reach the back of the closet and have light.

And then, of course, there's all the of the usual stuff. Work (and lots of it.) Errands. Cleaning. Laundry. Seeing my friends. Seeing my family. Yoga class. And I get to go sit around the county courthouse all day on Monday to see if I get picked for jury duty.

I'll let you know if the experiment works.

John and I were very handy this weekend. We fixed our broken dryer switch. Actually, John fixed it and I handed him screws and tools and held the flashlight.

But I was the one who went to the store with the one screw that hadn't vibrated out of the machine to try to buy screws that matched. There don't seem to be any hardware stores around here anymore, so I had to go to Home Depot. I hate Home Depot. It is always really crowded and noisy and has very long lines at the checkout counters. And of course, they had 5 bajillion screws, none of which were the same as my screw. Not even close.

Now, when I go to a hardware store, I want a redneck-y good ol' boy to reassure me that even if I can't find the exact screw that I need, I can buy this other screw and it will work just fine. Not some guy who knows even less about hardware than I do. , which is what I got at Home Depot.

So, I left and drove to Lowe's, where I spent another 40 minutes examining screws. They had even more screws than Home Depot. Plus, a very helpful -- although not even slightly redneck-y -- guy who assured me I could buy the pointy screws even though my screw was flat. And you know what? He was right.

But I still miss the little hardware stores.