I love you but now you must die.

I really, really like bugs. I enjoy looking under rocks to see what kind of bugs I might find. In most cases, if I find a spider in the house, I am more likely to catch it and release it outdoors than to squash it (exceptions: if it's night and the spider is in my bedroom, or if it is in the shower with me). As a kid, I dug up worms and twirled them around the axles of my upside-down plastic shopping cart to play "worm circus". I once caught a praying mantis and kept it in a cage. I don't freak out when a bee is flying near me in the yard.

There are only a couple of bugs that I actively dislike. Silverfish, because they are just gross, and earwigs because they are both gross and scary. To me, the worst horror movie ever would involve an invasion of giant earwigs. In our old house last year, we had a big earwig problem and I was thoroughly creeped out.

Now, because I am a geeky scientist and also a bug lover, I happen to be really

fascinated by social insects, and ants are some of my favorites. A lone ant can do some pretty cool stuff, but as a group, an ant colony is capable of amazing things. Leaf cutter ants are probably my personal favorite--they forage for leaves, which they bring back to their nests not to eat, but to use as a medium for growing fungus, which they do eat. This means that leaf-cutter ants have developed agriculture--they actively grow their own food. Pretty neat.

Now, appreciating ants in the wild is one thing, but nobody likes it when they invade your home. Last year in the old house, on top of the earwigs, we also dealt with a minor ant problem after my brother-in-law and his friends watched the house and left chex mix crumbs all over the living room. They were those small black ants, and a few of those little poison baits took care of them.

Currently, in our new house, we are facing a new vermin problem: carpenter ants: They are a problem for me for a different reason than they would probably be bothersome to other people...I really don't like killing them but I don't like having them crawl around in my dishwasher or in my cupboards. In case you didn't realize, these ants are pretty big. So to me, squishing one of them is almost like squishing a toad. They really are more like little animals to me than they are bugs. Maybe it's the way they sit and groom themselves like cats, or they cute way they carry big food crumbs or their dead friends around, but I really feel bad when I have to hear their little bodies go "pop" beneath my thumb and a paper towel.

I've put the poison baits out, but they haven't seemed to have had much of an effect. So I keep on squishing and cringing to myself. I did discover that squirting them with Simple Green or my Lysol kitchen cleaner also kills them, but they do flail around a little before they die. Today I got so frustrated when one crawled around while I was heating up my soup that I took the pot off the stove and shook the ant onto the burner. It seemed to do the trick pretty quickly, but I felt kind of sadistic about it.

The good news is that I just read something that suggested they are more of a nuisance than anything (an exterminator's ad made it sound like they would eat your house) so we certainly won't have to resort to fogging the house or doing anything so nasty. I *have* always wanted an ant farm, after all...

I am not making this up, I swear.

Last night I caught him masturbating on the La-Z-Boy...AGAIN! I will have to check the blanket for stains. I felt bad interrupting him--I mean, you should have seen the look of dopey pleasure on his face.

At first I wasn't sure what he was doing, I thought maybe something was wrong with him. But the second time I caught him, I decided to check more closely and, sure enough, his arousal was physically evident.

I googled the problem, and they say this can be an obsessive-compulsive kind of thing and that sometimes medication helps. But I figure, as long as it's not hurting anybody (and not leaving stains on the crocheted blanket we received as a wedding gift--he really seems to like that blanket A LOT), then what's the harm?

Could you deny this sweet face a few moments of carnal pleasure?

Part of me really does enjoy being domestic. I don't really mind making J's lunch in the morning--if nothing else, it ensures that I get up in time to have a few moments to myself after he leaves and before I start work.

But sometimes you just have to make sure he really appreciates that sandwich you got up early to make...and that everyone at his office knows what's up too.

time for a photo update!

[Click on any photo to see a larger version]

With so many trees outside our windows, you might guess that we get lots of birds around here. We get bluejays, woodpeckers, tufted titmice, and chickadees. But so far, I'm most excited about our resident pair of cardinals. I see at least the male pretty much every day, and I'm convinced that they're nesting beneath my forsythia bush. Here's a shot of the male. Isn't he handsome?? (His lady friend is pretty cute too!)

Speaking of birds, when I first saw these tracks, I thought we had landed in Jurassic park (the round ones are dog prints):

But, it was only a rafter (yes, that's the actual term!) of wild turkeys:

Betcha didn't know that turkeys can fly, did ya? Here they are, up in the trees at dusk (that's about all the flying they do, as far as I know...getting up into their roosts for the night). They seem to like the tall trees just behind the house. See that one in the middle near the bottom? That one's on his way up.


Of course, there are the deer:

We finally had some warm weather yesterday, so I took a walk down to the stream:

One of my favorite things about the property is that there's MOSS EVERYWHERE. Moss is one of my favorite things in the world.

Anybody know much about plants? I found a few of these popping up near the stream, and am very excited to find out what they are:

Finally, here's a birthday shout-out to Miss Loki, who turned 12 this week. Here she is in our den/kitchen (see our new kitchen table in the back? notice the lack of cat hair on the sofa? I am compelled to take pictures whenever I clean now, because things never stay that way for long).

Sorry for the lack of posts, but I spent all of last week out of town on business. A few notes from the road:

-I have become WAY too accustomed to my telecommuter habit of wearing sweats and slippers to work. One full day in a suit and heels and I was literally hobbling back to my room at the end of the night.

-I love that almost all public restrooms now have those paper toilet covers. Nothing worse than sitting in someone else's splatter (of course it's always the squatters who are too afraid to let their ass cheeks touch a potentially dirty toilet seat that end up leaving the seats covered in piss drops).

-At one hotel, every time I called room service or the front desk or whatever from my room, they addressed me by name. I thought this was a really nice touch, until I let my alcoholic friend crash in the room with me after a night out and she puked in the bed. At that point I was really longing for anonymity.

-On a related note, flying with a hangover sucks.

upon returning from another business trip

he: "I'm sad when you're gone."

she: "You're probably just sad because I'm not there to make your lunch and your coffee and wash out your thermos for you in the morning and so you have to rush around like crazy before work and it throws off your whole day."

he: "Well, no, when you're not here I do all that before I go to bed."

change of address

For the last 2 years, I have been updating our collective address book by scratching out old addresses and adding new ones to our original wedding guest list, fully intending all along to get them all uploaded into one computer...because I have 3 different computers with different address books, and the only place all of those addresses ever resided together was on theknot.com. I have downloaded our invite list from theknot.com at least 3 different times since the wedding.

This past holiday season, we sent out an insane amount of cards...working of course off of one of my ridiculous crossed-out-scrawled-on address list printouts. After the holidays were said and done, I updated the list with new addresses received on cards, and made a note of who sent cards to us. Since I did all the cards myself, I resolved squarely to do far less next year. I only got about halfway through entering my mess of a list into my laptop when it was time to pack up the house for the move...

So you can see where this is going, right? I finally got around to designing some lovely change of address postcards...they're nice and glossy and have a picture of the house, and they came in the mail a few days ago. So last night I fought my way through the usual straightjacket of procrastination and went to start addressing the cards.

Only...I can't find my hideous scrawled-upon-beat-up address list! I remember purposely putting it someplace where I knew it would be easy to find after the move. Apparently that's a sure-fire way to lose things, because for the life of me I have no idea where this thing is. It's even in a bright red folder, this much I know.

I can find the centerpiece from our wedding head table (the one that almost burned the reception hall down). I know exactly where I've stored the collection of Cabbage Patch Dolls I had as a kid, and if you asked me to show you the bag full of baby things that J's aunt has already bought for us (even though we have no kids and I'm not pregnant)? Right this way.

I know that list will turn up eventually. It's probably right next to something else really important, like J's autographed poster of Ronnie James Dio. Or his baggie of wisdom teeth.

the things you learn...

Today I had occasion to speak with our insurance agent about our homeowner's policy. While I had him on the phone, I thought it'd be a good time to ask about coverage for some of our more valuable possessions--namely, the computers and cameras. Here's what I learned:

We could get comprehensive coverage for the cameras that would cover loss or damage, except that caused by:

1) Nuclear holocaust (his exact words)
2) Chewing or gnawing by vermin

Damn, there goes my plan to capture a mushroom cloud on film while a rat dangles from my zoom lens.

a room with a view

As promised, here are some pictures of the new house...

Now this is what I call "fine dining"!


This is a bit of the tiny chunk of our property that could reasonably be called a "yard".


The cats agree: we sure get a lot of snow up here. Good thing for these wide windowsills to watch all the action.


At least one of us has a car that can get us in and out of this place! Shortly after J left, I called a plow to come make me an escape route. We later found out from our (very nice) neighbors that the retiree who used to live here always shoveled the driveway himself. All 400 sloping feet of it. Hmmph. Some of us have jobs, you know.


See that brown blob up there on the hill? That's our house, as seen from the woods. Bet we won't be able to see it from there once some leaves start popping!


And about where I was standing in that photo--that's where I saw, from my office window, not 1 or 2, but about 12(!) deer (I'm calling it our "herd") stroll by yesterday afternoon. I love this place!

you know you've moved to the country when:

-The first thing you receive in your mailbox is a card from the postal service that contains the heading "Rural Delivery".

-You're heading out to your first dinner out "in town" (trying to make it there before they close at 9 PM!), when you pass by a building with a parking lot full of cars and wonder, wow? what's going on *there* on a Wednesday night? And then you realize, it's a church.

-When passing by said church, you and your spouse speculate on what these good townspeople would think of you should the postman ever reveal to them the contents of your mail. (I read it for the articles, really!)

-At your big dinner out "in town", country songs are in regular rotation in the background music.

-After a big snow (like the one we had last night) you feel absolutely trapped in your own home until you are able to locate someone who is willing to come plow your 400 ft sloping driveway, because your compact car will never make it back up the hill should you leave the house with the driveway unplowed.

-You call to order a pizza from only pizza place in town, and the phone number is 555-8181. 10 minutes later, you have no heat or hot water and need to call the local repairman. His number is 555-8282.

-The local paper (delivered free to all residents on Fridays) contains full pages listing activities for senior citizens, numerous articles on church-related activities in the various towns (e.g. "Chicken Supper at Methodist Church"), an ad for a Christian summer camp, and...get ready for it...I am NOT making this up...a Jazzercise ad.

we did it!

Greetings from our new house in the woods! We're still living out of boxes, but we have cable, internet access, a couch to sit on, and the number for the only pizza joint in town. What more could you need? It's definitely going to be a while before we're all unpacked...

So, I'm hoping it's not just because I've been off work for almost a week, but living in this house feels like being on vacation. There's just something about this place that has made us feel really relaxed. I guess the view of the woods makes up for the interior maze of boxes.

The recent snow has allowed us to take note of some of the other inhabitants of our property--we've seen rabbit tracks, bird tracks, and some cat-like tracks that could be a raccoon or a fox (whatever it was, it left paw prints on J's windshield the other night!). We have a male cardinal in residence who has a lovely singing voice.

Last night my brother-in-law came up to see the house for the first time, and we took him on a mini night hike down to our stream. It was the first time we'd walked down into the woods since moving in. During the hike, we came across the first concrete evidence of deer on the property...hoof tracks leading down to and across the stream and criss-crossed over some other trails. Apparently we weren't the only ones trying to track the deer--there were some dog-like paw prints following the same path as the deer tracks. Coyote? Very possibly. Needless to say, as exhilarating as the discovery of the tracks was, I did get a little spooked when I heard rustling in the woods, even though it was probably just the wind.

I still can't believe this place is OURS!

Not a snowflake in sight all winter, and now all hell is set to break loose over Connecticut...just as it's time for me and J to haul an insane amount of crap over to our new digs! Wish us luck...

I'll be out of sight for a few days as we will be in transition, but I'm sure I'll have lots to share when I get back. Thanks for laughing with me through the major stress of the last few days!

what happens when your in-laws get to paw through your things

When I'm facing a big task, I tend to get into making lists. In preparation for the move, I had written out a list of "manageable" tasks, listed by room, on a legal-sized piece of paper. Somewhere along the line, this list got tacked up in the kitchen. Today, I noticed several of our moving helpers taking a glance at the list, and started to worry about whether I'd written anything I wouldn't want family looking at. So when I saw that my brother-in-law seemed to be reading the entire list line by line, I got up to tear it off the wall.

"I have to make sure I didn't write anything embarrassing on that," I said, totally giving myself away.

He pointed at an item listed under "Bedroom". "You mean like 'Pack goodies'?"

Um, yeah. Like that.

moving sucks, part II

OK, calm down. Just breathe. It's gonna be alright. They're going to locate your new address and snake their sneaky little wires in there and you are going to continue to be able to download celebrity gossip news and dirty craigslist postings at the sweet, sweet lightning speeds you have grown so deliciously accustomed to.

"I'm showing that we do service that area, but I'm not so sure about that house." This is what the 3rd Comcast customer service agent I had the pleasure of interacting with today told me. Surprisingly, this was the most reassuring thing I'd heard from them so far. I mean, it's better than "you're going to have to find another provider up there", which is what the first agent told me. The potential repercussions are beyond me. First, I would have to change not one, but TWO, email addresses. Second, I have seen what Cablevision has to offer and I fart in their general direction. No "On Demand" exercise programs? No...well I don't know what else they're missing but I am sure I would not like their service. Comcast is like Jordache in the 80's; Cablevision is like Jordache today. I am a cable snob.

I won't even begin to speculate on why our particular house would be showing up as unserviceable. I like to be serviced; my new house should be equally obliging. Maybe a Comcast tech once got spooked by a ghost on the property? Or...oooh! Maybe a chupacabra! Bigfoot! The Loch Ness monster! We do have a lot of room for hiding up there.

Comcast, if you're reading this, picture me on my knees before you. I am begging you, please! Let me keep my PowerBoost and my digital cable with exercise programs and late-night HBO specials On Demand. Just because I want to go live in the woods doesn't mean I want to stop sucking at the teat of corporate television or reduce myself to ordering...gasp!...DSL service. Call me back, Comcast. You don't have to play games with me--I won't think you're desperate if you don't wait a few days. I know you have others, but I think you feel the same way about me as I do about you. We need each other. I don't think I can live without you. Just stay with me, Comcast. I'll even let you do, you know, that *thing* we talked about that one time after all that wine? Please, Comcast, I know I can make you happy forever.

Love,
Kat E

moving sucks, part I

You know how people are always saying "I'm NEVER moving again"? That's because moving sucks. My living room is an obstacle course of full boxes, half-full boxes, empty boxes, trash bags and darting cats. My coffee table is littered with (more) crap (than usual). And amongst all this, there's no way any actual routine cleaning is getting done.

On the positive side, J is sorting through his many, MANY boxes of possessions, trying his best to find things he can actually bear to part with. So this weekend, we shared many laughs (in between the even more numerous moments in which one of us nearly assassinated the other) over old diaries, photos, and other mementos. A few highlights:

--I found my diary from freshman year of high school, in which I spend pages discussing my huge crush on a boy whose hair is "long in the back, but not too long, because that would be ugly". I have a feeling I'll be sharing a few of these entries with you all eventually.

--J dug out his old prom photos, in which he sports hair that is, um, pretty darn long in the back, and a white tux (also short in the front, long in the back, like the hair) with a peach cummerbund to match his date's huge peach lace-and-frill covered dress. He's so lucky to have found me instead ;)

--At one point, J barged into the bathroom, where I was washing my hands, and announced "dry your hands, I have something cool to show you but be sure your hands are dry first." So I dried my hands, and at his instruction (which I'll probably seldom follow in the future), closed my eyes and opened my hands. When I opened my eyes I saw that I was holding a handful of teeth. NOT cute, innocent baby teeth. No, these were his Big, Ugly, Adult, WISDOM TEETH. Not exactly what I was expecting. However, I will admit that this was much less traumatic then the time he showed me the rubber-banded remains of that long-in-the-back part of his former hairstyle, which he had for some UNGODLY reason kept in a box since he cut it off. I'm pretty sure I insisted that we could reminisce over his long lost mullet just fine by looking at pictures of it; and so it found its way to the dump, where it probably got covered in toxic waste and is now roaming the Northeast attaching itself to unsuspecting victims.

With regard to something else I discovered during this hellish moving process: I would just like to say that I love the fact that J and I have at least 2 giant Rubbermaid bins labeled "Costumes".

Swiss shards

Super-brief photo summary of 4 days spent in Switzerland, most of which time was spent indoors, working:

Flew into Zurich. After clearing customs (Swiss customs was surprisingly...barely noticeable?), my next order of business was to board the next available train to Geneva. I was able to snap some photos during my 10-minute wait:

When I got to my hotel in Geneva, my room wasn't ready yet. I stepped outside to capture the snowscape. Apparently, I'd gotten there just in time, as Switzerland (like most of the US), hadn't seen much snow at all this season. It was snowing when I landed, and for a day everything looked like this:

This was the view from my room:

Also seen from my room, this apartment building seems to have a lovely garden terrace on the roof--notice the trees growing through the space in the roof?

Before I got too motion sick, I was able to take a few snaps from the train, en route from Geneva back to Zurich after my meeting:

As my flight home didn't leave until the next day, I was able to spend a couple of hours in downtown Zurich:

I wasn't overly thrilled with Zurich, but I did get a good fondue dinner there at this restaurant (apparently it's the place to go for fondue...which you'd think would be around every Swiss corner, but I can assure you it is decidedly not):

And, the view along the river after dark was just lovely:

Many thanks to J for the fabulous new point-and-shoot, which makes taking great travel photos a snap.

tidbits

A few things:

-Switzerland went well. I remember more French than I thought, which was completely useless in Zurich, where everyone spoke German. J promised that we can learn German together. He's got some tapes. But I actually spent most of the trip in Geneva, where French is the norm. I ate truffles for the first time, and also some cheese that completely reinforced the origins of the question "who cut the cheese?!" I brought back Toblerone, and Swiss Army Knives made of chocolate. And a windchime (it had a nice sound; I prefer unusual souvenirs).

-I am a pushover. Got a call from a recruiter today and he probably could have gotten me to tell him my weight if he'd asked. Nevermind that I am not at all interested in looking for another job right now. He was dangling offers of a position with more responsibility; I was frank and said that was something I wasn't necessarily looking for more of at the moment.

-Our mortgage was approved. So was the mortgage of the folks who are buying our house. 2 weeks to wooded bliss! Free pizza and beer if you help us unload the trucks :)

it's a go!

I'm happy to announce that we are on track to move to the woods next month! The sale of our current house is all lined up, and our offer has been accepted on the new house. We are trying to finalize the closing date--we are hoping to get 4 weeks but we may have to be out of here as early as 2 weeks from now. Here are some pictures of the new place.

The front:

The back:

Living/Dining room:

Room adjacent to kitchen, overlooking our 13 acres of woods:

Obviously, that's not our stuff in the house (it's actually vacant now but those pics were from the listing). I can't wait to be there in spring when all the flowering trees bloom, and of course in fall, when we will have an awesome view of our very own New England foliage.

chocolate and cheese and giant knives with lots of blades and things

One of the perks of my job is that I sometimes get to travel to neat cities and stay in very nice hotels. For the first time in the 3 years that I've been in this profession, I am finally being sent overseas for a work trip! Destination: Switzerland.

Although I love to travel, I'm a little nervous because I have to fly into one city, and then take the train to another city and then a cab to my hotel...all by myself. Here's the problem--how do you know what language any given person in Switzerland speaks? German and French are 2 of the official languages, Italian is another. English is not. Luckily, at one point in my life, I was nearly fluent in French. Here's why I hesitate to rely on my French: when faced with the fact that I will have to navigate the Swiss train system on my own, I tried to think of the French word for "train". For the life of me, I could not remember it. I looked it up online. It is "train".

I know I should not be nervous...in fact, I already know I will have 100 times more confidence than that day almost exactly 12 years ago, when I arrived in Paris--alone--to spend a semester living there. It was a crisp early morning in January, and I was still recovering from New Year's Eve. I had 6 months worth of clothes (mostly black and grey so I could fit in with the Parisians). I got into a cab and tried to pronounce the address of my apartment...knowing I would butcher it I simultaneously handed the cabbie a scrap of paper where I had written it down. I was tired, and nervous, and so excited. I'd never lived in an apartment before, and here I was, about to do it, in PARIS! We finally pulled up at the building. It was so "French". I was delighted. Then I met the concierge, who gave me the nastiest look as I tried desperately to explain to her who I was. Of course she spoke absolutely no English (or maybe she was just pretending)...I remember distinctly trying to carefully pronounce "Je suis une etudiante Americaine..." (as if she would not immediately realize I was an American...the French can *smell* us, I am convinced). After much deliberation, she finally handed me a key and showed me to the apartment--through 2 courtyards and up 5 or 6 flights of stairs. Did I mention I had 6 months worth of things with me? I spent that first day wandering the neighborhood. I think I even went into a store that sold phones because I couldn't figure out how to use the payphone to call home with my calling card. My roommate (and now best girlfriend) SV showed up the next day, so we tackled the rest of the basic necessities together, but I will never forget the nervous, exhausted, exhilaration I felt that first day alone in Paris.

Well, that was an unexpected stream of conciousness. I honestly didn't sit down intending to write about that. But you know what, I feel much better about showing up alone in Switzerland now! J, I wish you could be there with me. I swear I will get your ass to Europe before I turn too much more of your hair gray.

So anyway, have any of you been to Switzerland? In what language do I need to ask for my 4-foot Toblerone and Giant Swiss Army Knife? Should I ask people, in French, if they speak English? I hate to be the ignoramous who just starts rambling in English in a foreign country as if everyone is supposed to understand it. And on a serious note, if you have any recommendations for Must-See things in Zurich or Geneva (keeping in mind I'll only have 1 day in each city), I'm all ears!

an update

for those who may be wondering:

We are hoping to really start buttoning things up with the house deal sometime this weekend. Basically, if you haven't done it before, the sale of a house involves several steps--and until the "closing" is complete, your house isn't really sold. We made it through the first step, which was the home inspection. The buyers looked over the report and decided not to ask us to fix anything (which is good, because we pretty much told them, "look, we're giving you a great price, but you're getting the place as-is". The next step is the appraisal. In our case, our buyers are getting a government loan, so there are some contingencies in place that you may not have to deal with in the case of a conventional loan. Because the government is granting the loan, they want to make sure there are no major problems with the property before they approve the loan. We had to sign a statement agreeing that our buyers had the right to walk away from the deal if the house does not appraise for at or above the sale price. In addition, the government may require certain repairs to be made before they'll approve the loan. So right now, we are simply waiting to hear the results of the appraisal that was done last weekend. We were hoping to have heard earlier this week, but the process is taking longer than we expected.

Once we get the news on the appraisal (assuming all is good), we will move forward at blazing speed in terms of getting a contract together on the house we want to buy. (Lever, it's not in Maine! It's still here in CT, about 45 minutes from where we live now).

So keep your fingers crossed for us (or, if you're Catholic, pray to that wacky St. Joseph guy). Here's hoping I have another--more exciting--update within a few days...

just needs the old John Hancocks...

Looks like we're finally selling our house :) By February I could be hiking in my own 13 acres of woods...

RIP: James Brown

Dear Godfather of Soul, even though you had some "issues" with domestic violence, your contribution to the American music landscape will be remembered always.

James Brown has now been added to my husband's running tally of musicians I have seen in concert that died shortly after I attended their concerts. Other names on this list include:

-Stevie Ray Vaughan (I was at his last concert; that night he died when his helicopter crashed into the ski hill at Alpine Valley)
-Jerry Garcia (I was at the last Grateful Dead show)
-Lou Rawls (died within a few months of us seeing him perform at Mohegan Sun Casino)

We saw James Brown maybe 3 years ago, so I'm thinking I'm not connected to his death. You may also note that Bob Dylan, Jon Bon Jovi, Crosby/Stills/Nash/Young, Ronnie James Dio, Vince Neil, and Eric Clapton are all still alive, despite my having seen them in concert, some of these as many as 15 years ago!

However, if it is true that I can kill artists merely by attending their concerts, I will need tickets to the following shows immediately: Clay Aiken, Nelly Furtado, Aaron Neville (who I already saw once but apparently my death mojo wasn't working that night), Paris Hilton, Toby Keith, Celine Dion...

Have great sex, help change the world

This year, I've vowed to mark the Winter Solstice with some sort of ritual. So, there I was, looking for ideas online, when I came across the GlobalOrgasm website. That's right, these folks want people across the globe to participate in a massive "synchronized global orgasm", at the time of the upcoming Winter Solstice (Dec 22). During and after orgasm, participants are asked to concentrate their thoughts on world peace. The idea is to create a huge surge of positive human energy in an effort to combat the high levels of aggression and violence present around the world today. I'll be the first to admit that the science behind the GlobalOrgasm project is certainly less than solid, but I'm happy to be a guinea pig in this experiment. See their blog for more.

PMS Book Review

I just finished this wonderful book:

And now, because I have PMS, I am totally choked up and sad and happy all at once. Actually, the book was so good that I probably would have cried regardless of the PMS...but that's enough talk about PMS.

"The Time Traveler's Wife", by Audrey Niffenegger, is a beautiful, crushing, uplifting, artistic, heart-rending tale of true love, with a highly original science-fiction twist. I can barely write any more about it as I am starting to get that "about-to-cry" headache again. All I can say is, read this book. You won't regret it (unless you also have PMS when you get to the end, in which case you may end up sobbing into a box of double-stuff oreos while wondering who would play Henry when the book is made into a movie and whether you would get to see him naked or not, and whether or not you would even want to, depending on how the filmmakers decide to handle the ending).

Merry Christmahannukwaanzaka to you!

With the house situation still in limbo, I've distracted myself with holiday decorating. I wasn't particularly eager to do it this year, having been enjoying the relative sparseness of a staged-for-sale home.

I should mention here that if it were possible to make a living in the clutter production trade, J would be CEO of the world's largest clutter-producing corporation. We can go from "showing-perfect" to "just-ransacked" in a matter of seconds. I keep trying to come up with creative organizational strategies that will help J reduce his clutter output, but haven't been completely successful. In an effort to eliminate his sea of post-its and torn scraps of paper (covered with phone numbers, website addresses, concert dates, movies to watch, CDs to buy, random calculations, etc), I bought him a PDA. The inside cover of the PDA is now covered with post-its. You see what I'm up against.

To get back on track, it's beginning to look pretty festive at our house. Which brings me to my next point. According to this article:

Americans are ready to put "Merry Christmas" back into holiday shopping, a new poll shows.

The majority of Americans surveyed - 95% - said they were not offended by a "Merry Christmas" greeting in stores, according to a poll by Zogby International.

However, 32% of respondents said they took offense at "Happy Holidays," the religiously neutral alternative promoted over the last few years as inclusive and inoffensive.

I actually take the Zogby polls, and I happened to take this one. I was among the 95% of Americans who is not offended by having a store clerk (or anyone for that matter) wish me a "Merry Christmas." Interestingly, the poll results confirmed a general sense I was getting, which was that my saying "Happy Holidays" is actually considered offensive by quite a few people. Yes, I celebrate Christmas, in the sense that I gather with family for food and the exchanging of gifts on Christmas day. But I am not actually celebrating Christmas as in celebrating the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

In fact, for me the Winter Solstice will probably be the most spiritual day of the holiday season. Humans were celebrating during the yuletide season long before Christ was born, and it's not like I have to remind any of you where the vast majority of so-called Christmas decorations originated.

But back to the point. If you are a Christian and want to wish others a "Merry Christmas," by all means, go right ahead. By the same token, allow those of us who don't quite agree that "Jesus is the reason for the season", to wish you "Happy Holidays", without taking it as some sort of slam on Christianity. When I wish someone "Happy Holidays", it is because I sincerely hope that they will be able to spend happy times with friends and loved ones during the coming weeks, sharing in whatever traditions they choose to celebrate with each other. I fear that too many people, when they say "Merry Christmas", are really saying "Screw you, liberal heathens"...which I'm fairly sure was the real emotion behind the "tell the ACLU 'Merry Christmas'" scheme. (The ACLU has never filed any kind of anti-'Merry Christmas' lawsuit, by the way.)

So, how do I express myself this holiday season without offending? "Happy Holidays" is obviously risky, and "Happy Winter Solstice"--if the recipient even understands what that means--is just too new-agey and pagan for my taste. I think I'm going to follow J's lead and go with a good old "Happy Festivus".

another house update: thanks Ned Flanders?

So, we got an offer on the house this weekend. It was pretty low. We're in the midst of negotiations. We want everything to work out but we also don't want to give away our house for a steal.

Thank god I'm not buying a house by myself--I would be a total pushover. J tends more heavily toward stubborness, so I think we balance each other out well.

Hopefully all this will be a done deal soon!

buy our motherf***ing house

So here's the latest: we have a contract signed on our dream house, contingent upon the sale of our current home. We have even had the "new" house inspected, to the tune of about $700. So now there's more than potential disappointment on the line--we're talking cash here!

We had somebody come look at our house last week. Apparently they've now narrowed their search down to 2 or 3 homes, of which ours is one. They are coming back to see it again this weekend. A very good sign. Someone new is also supposed to be coming to take a look at the place tomorrow. So we are poised for things to move forward. I just knew that burying that Ned Flanders figurine in the houseplant would be the solution! I never did say anything special when I buried it, so let me make a public attempt here and now:

Hi-diddly-ho there, prospective home buyers! This charming cape has much to offer. Newly refinished wood flooring, a cheerful color scheme, lots of natural lighting, and the back closet barely smells like dead mouse anymore. Just about every room in the house has been blessed via Bacchanalian ritual, and you'll enjoy sorting through all the crap that we plan on leaving in the basement. And just so you know, we've never had any problems from the neighbors or from the previous owner, who died in the driveway. You won't mind if we dig up a few of the plants before we leave, will you? Okely-dokely then, do we have a deal?

the midwestern indoctrination continues

This year J was lucky enough to get the week of Thanksgiving off from work, so we road-tripped it from the east coast all the way back to Illinois to spend the week with my family. J is a brave man. Now, I've taken him back to my homeland before, so he knows all about the flatness, and the corn, and did I mention the flatness? This time he was lucky enough to be able to spend some time in downtown Chicago, but there was still something missing from his midwestern experience: he had never eaten at Steak & Shake.

What better meal to have the night before Thanksgiving than a big old Steak & Shake Frisco melt (the platter, of course) and a giant sippable sundae shake? That's what we thought, too.

After ravenously devouring everything on our table, we sat back to reflect on the experience. J turned to me and said, patting his belly, "Ugh, I feel like an engorged tick!"

My mother's jaw dropped open, and she fixed her eyes on us. "WHAT did he just say?!"

"Tick, mom, with a 'T'! He said he feels like an engorged TICK."

(P.S. You may have noticed the new look of the blog, and the new title. This is because I switched over to Blogger beta where I can actually understand what I'm doing when I edit the blog. Hope you don't mind the changes, but I bore easily. It's a wonder I kept it the same for so long!)

tidbits

ONE
It's on its way...my new Macbook Pro, that is! If pigs in shit are really as happy as we're made to think, then call me Porky and roll me in a cow pattie. I've used Macs in the past, but never for personal use, so I am beyond excited.

TWO
We have made an offer on a house (contigent upon the sale of our house, though luckily the sellers are being nice enough to give us plenty of time; that wouldn't stop them, however, from taking another offer if it came along). But anyway, we are signing the official contract on Thursday. It's a rockin' house, a 1978 contemporary on 13.5 wooded acres. We're very excited about it, but I'm maintaining a realistic perspective. The market for selling our house is terrible, and a major employer just announced it was leaving our town. So things aren't poised to improve anytime soon. In lieu of burying a statue of St. Joseph upside down in the yard, I plan to devise a similar ritual involving a small, plastic Ned Flanders figurine...

THREE
To Jennifer: You commented recently asking what we went to Belize for, and I tried to reply to your comment but Blogger was being screwy and it didn't take and I was too lazy to get around to it again. But what I wanted to say was that more stories and pictures from this Belize trip are forthcoming, pending the arrival of the Macbook, but that in the meantime, I thought you might be most interested in something we did there last year. We visited a cave called Actun Tunichil Muknal (Cave of the Crystal Sepulchre). To enter the cave, you must swim about 100 ft, and you remain in water ranging from ankle- to chest-deep for about 80% of the tour. There are no guardrails, no installed lighting. When you get to the part with the artifacts (after climbing a large, near-vertical ladder and squiggling your way through some pretty small tunnel-like areas), you walk in your socks and are careful not to step on pottery fragments. Or areas of crystallized bone. Visitors won't be able to experience the cave like this for long. It was an amazing experience!

my first time (you betta Belize it!)

When we visited Belize for the first time last year, I was aware of its stature as one of the world's top sites for scuba diving. But with all the time and expense involved with planning a wedding, I wasn't able to get dive certified in time for the trip (J has been certified for years). Turned out not to matter too much--we stayed on an island where good snorkeling could be had right off the beach, and J had a cold and wouldn't have been able to dive anyhow.

But when we decided to return to Belize earlier this year, I was determined to be able to dive there and see what all the fuss was about. I completed the first half of a PADI Open Water Diver course (classroom and pool sessions) in one weekend here in CT. While the rest of the suckers in my class would complete the open water portion of the certification in a Pennsylvania quarry, I headed down to the warm waters of Belize, referral in hand.

To complete my Open Water Diver certification, I would have to do 4 dives in 2 days. When we arrived on Caye Caulker, we stopped by the Belize Diving Service office to shore up our plans for the next day's dives. The weather had been overcast and rainy since we'd been in Belize, but we were told that they'd probably still be going out the next day, and to show up around 9 am.

The next morning, I was nervous. Diving sounded like a lot of fun, and I was excited to explore life under the sea, but it's an activity not without its very real dangers. On top of that, my anxiety was increased because of the fact that I had lied about one small item on my medical form, and had been advised not to dive by my neurologist but decided to take my chances (I'll save the details for another post, but in the meantime don't be alarmed...it's a migraine-related problem).

So anyway, having demonstrated that I knew how to assemble my gear, we (me, some other referral students, as well as a group of certified divers) got on the boat and headed off to the Hol Chan Marine Reserve, about a 40 minute boat ride. The sky was still darkish, and there was intermittent rain. The water was choppy, and most everyone on the boat was keeping an eye on the horizon in an effort to ward off seasickness. Until recently, I have been immune to any kind of motion sickness. Maybe it's related to the onset of the migraine problem, but I've noticed that I'm a bit more sensitive to it these days. So needless to say, I was trying really hard to hold it together on the boat. I'd been assured that any seasickness would disappear once I got under the water, so I geared up and fell backwards over the side of the boat, ready for my first dive experience.

We descended slowly, but the abundance of the sea life was immediately apparent. Fish were everywhere, we didn't have to go very deep to see beautiful coral formations, and we even saw a group of nurse sharks. The problem was, I still felt pretty damned queasy. I had not been instructed on the finer points of retching underwater while trying to breathe from a tank, and I really didn't want to find out how well that would work. I breathed as calmly and steadily as possible, and tried to enjoy my first dive.

After about 35 minutes, we made our way to the surface, and within seconds of my head hitting air, the contents of my stomach were being gobbled up by a group of fish who had quickly found their way to my special floating buffet. J came up below me, so he got a nice view of this scene. A few more hurls in the rough water, and I got back into the boat. We had to wait an hour before diving again, an hour which I spent sitting silently, trying to calm my stomach. After one more fish-feeding session over the side of the boat, it was time to dive again. I felt better during the second dive than during the first, but once again, upon hitting the surface, the heaving began. This time, there wasn't much left...nothing the fish were particularly interested in, anyway.

We returned to the island around 3:30, and I didn't feel normal again until about 8 that night. Determined to finish my certification, I loaded up on Dramamine and showed up at the dive shop again the next morning. The other students were impressed at my tenacity and resilience, but no way was I going home with the damn thing half-finished (no quarry dives for me!).

The second day of diving was a completely different experience. We had better weather (and thus no choppy boat ride), and I think Dramamine is a miracle drug (I'd never tried it before). Unlike the end of the first day, by the end of the second I was already thinking about when I'd get to dive again.

Just call me Jacqueline Cousteau:


*Note: The whole crew at Belize Diving Service, including my instructor Ines, were awesome, and I would highly recommend them if you're ever on Caye Caulker and want to dive.

you betta Belize it!

Returned late last night from a too-short return trip to Belize. I'll have stories and a few pictures to share over the next day or so, but first I wanted to share my excitement over a few pieces of news that broke just as we returned to the States:

1. Democrats take back the House, and may still yet gain control of the Senate, depending on the outcome in Virginia. We were glued to CNN at the Miami aiport last night, and again at home from about 2 to 4 am, and again upon waking this morning. I kind of missed being around for the full coverage, but I'm not sorry I missed the final week of campaign ads. (We'd already voted absentee weeks ago, no worries!) I hope the rest of the world can really see now that the American people are as fed up with this administration as they are. I just hope the election results amount to something, and that we can really see some big changes being made. Yes, we've got to change course in Iraq, but it's equally important that we fix healthcare and education here at home, and, yeah, raising the minimum wage would be nice too.

2. Britney files for divorce from K-Fed!! Here's where you can see that I'm a well-rounded person with a wide array of interests. I'm the first to admit that I enjoy some celeb gossip now and then, and I have to say I really had given up hope on Britney (not that I ever held her in especially high regard). But ever since she married that idiot, I just figured she was more comfortable reverting to her "country" (as she puts it) ways, popping out babies, eating Cheetos and putting up with all kinds of shit from a loser husband who was just milking her for everything he could get. But now she's actually leaving him, and now I can take solace in the fact that even the most seemingly hopeless cases can grow a spine and walk away from that kind of crap, maybe even with a little bit of dignity.

3. Back to the important stuff. Rumsfeld FINALLY resigned today, and it's about friggin' time. Seems to me they were waiting for the election results to make the final decision, because you know the Dems are going to launch some big bad investigations now, and Rummy doesn't want to be around to take the heat directly. If only we could get rid of Cheney and impeach Bush...but I'll take what I can get for now.

are your crossed fingers cramping up yet?

Mine are. Long story short, we've heard diddly squat on the house (to my one international reader: that means "nothing"!) I'm not even going to speculate on what happened. From talking to others who have gone through the home selling/buying nightmare, these things are to be expected. I suppose I should be thankful that we didn't get as far as having things in writing and *then* have the deal fall through. It's probably best that the lady disappeared this early on.

In an attempt to be optimistic, I will say that at least it seems we may have hit a price point that is generating more interest.

Also, I will say to anyone reading this who may be looking to buy a house: don't fuck with people. It's not nice, especially in this market. And if you decide you're not interested after making some tentative moves toward an offer, at least have the courtesy to let someone know. Maybe this is karmic payback for that time I went on a date with a guy I thought was really fun, but then on the date I realized I wasn't attracted to him--it was like a brother kind of thing--so instead of having the balls to tell him straight up I wasn't interested, I simply ignored all his calls until he stopped calling. I felt bad about that for a really long time, pretty much until the guy married a really great girl, which assuaged my guilt.

But anyway, I am *this* close to burying a statue of St. Joseph upside down in my yard...

waiting...

Yesterday we got the call: someone was making an offer on our house. We shared a few moments of excitement, which quickly lapsed into J admitting "I feel like I'm going to puke." I suppose excitement manifests itself differently for everyone!

They had offered us $10K less than our asking price, which we had just dropped by $10K about a week ago. So, J was reluctant to take it. (OK, I'll just say it, my husband is *stubborn*, no 2 ways about it). I can certainly understand his position, but considering our house has been on the market 4 months and this was our first offer, and adding in the fact that it is now a *total* buyer's market, especially in our area...well let's just say if it had been totally up to me I would have just taken the offer and been done with it.

We have countered with a number $5K more than they offered. You would think that if these are reasonable people, and if they really like the house, $5K should not be a big deal. But for now we just have to sit here and wait for the phone to ring...

another episode of "why I love science"!

"The whole of science consists of data that, at one time or another, were inexplicable." - B. O'Regan

Anyone who knows me knows I am a skeptic. If you forward me a stupid e-mail, I'm the one who'll look in up on snopes.com and send a rebuttal to the whole list. I don't believe in the paranormal, which means that certain people in my life don't enjoy watching "Ghosthunters" with me. I turn my nose up at "spirit balls" or other weird smudges in graveyard photographs, and thoroughly enjoyed a recent exhibit on "spirit photography" (which explained how all the tricks were done). What non-skeptics consider paranormal, I consider "things that science will eventually explain".

Having a background in neuroscience, I was especially intrigued and delighted to read this article in the NY Times, which chronicles recent discoveries that begin to explain (scientifically, that is) out-of-body experiences and other strange sensations once considered (not by me, of course) to fall within the realm of the paranormal:

They are eerie sensations, more common than one might think: A man describes feeling a shadowy figure standing behind him, then turning around to find no one there. A woman feels herself leaving her body and floating in space, looking down on her corporeal self.

Such experiences are often attributed by those who have them to paranormal forces.

But according to recent work by neuroscientists, they can be induced by delivering mild electric current to specific spots in the brain. In one woman, for example, a zap to a brain region called the angular gyrus resulted in a sensation that she was hanging from the ceiling, looking down at her body. In another woman, electrical current delivered to the angular gyrus produced an uncanny feeling that someone was behind her, intent on interfering with her actions.

To read the rest of the article, click here.

It was bad enough having to get up at 4:45 AM to make it to the airport for a 6:45 AM flight. On top of that, I knew the plane was going to be one of those small ones, because the airline recently (for some ungodly reason) switched over all of their flights between Chicago and Hartford from normal, safer-feeling planes to the tiny, wobbly ones where you can barely hear yourself think over the engine noise. I'd also forgotten to medicate myself, it being so early and all.

I had a driver to take me to the airport, and noticing his foreign accent, I started to chit-chat with him, asking where he was from and the like (he was Bulgarian). Halfway to the airport, he suddenly--and OUT OF NOWHERE, I might add--asks me, "Do you believe in God?" Now, aside from the fact that this is a highly inappropriate question for a service provider to ask his customer (who is TRAPPED in his car with no escape), my immediate reaction to this question was an overwhelming feeling of being in a bad made-for-TV movie, this scene being the one that foreshadows my forthcoming doom in the rickety plane I am on my way to board.

I made the mistake of telling him I was an agnostic (which I then had to define for him). He went on to preach to me for the entire remainder of the car ride, basically telling me that if a person *really* wants to find God, he will (no shit). To add insult to injury he alluded to his being a veterinarian by training and thinking that evolution was ridiculous (WRONG way to approach the religion topic with me, sunshine). As we pulled up to the terminal, he said he was sorry we didn't have more time, and that perhaps we would meet again, maybe he would even pick my husband and I up from the airport at Thanksgiving (we are definitely now going to drive, not fly!)

Lesson learned: next time a stranger asks me if I believe in God, I will steal a line from Frank Lloyd Wright and answer, "Yes, I believe in god. I spell it N-A-T-U-R-E."

Housekeeping

Before I moved in with J, I had one simple rule: I don't do garbage. I mean, I knew I'd get stuck with the majority of the household tasks, so I just wanted to lay it down right then and there. I never wanted to take the garbage out again. This is probably because in my last apartment I lived on the third floor, so taking the garbage out meant going all the way downstairs--not forgetting the keys since the doors locked automatically--and then going into the darkest corner of the parking lot to the dumpster, where sometimes a homeless man would be hanging out to collect the recyclables, touching the nasty dumpster lid, and then taking the 3 flights back up to my apartment.

Well, my friends, I believe that I have just discovered a household task that makes taking the garbage out seem like a day watching monkeys fondle themselves at the zoo (which, in case there's any doubt, is something I would consider FUN):

The worst household task EVER is having to fix an inside-out plunger after having frantically plunged a crap-clogged toilet. It's bad enough when the thing goes inside-out mid-plunge as the water rises in the clogged bowl, because then you don't know if it'll still work or if you'll end up with shit water all over your cream-colored bathroom rug. But then you have to deal with the fear of that thing splashing shit-water at your face as you try to put it right (and you can't just put it back on the floor inside-out because, well let's just say one should never have to see what's on the inside of the plunger after a frantic plunging).

Remembering

I was on the treadmill at the University of Illinois gym when it happened. The Today show was on the overhead TV, but I was listening to music on my headphones when I saw the first footage of the WTC on fire. At first, I thought they were showing movie footage. The thought that this could be REAL, and happening right NOW, was almost impossible to grasp. I had switched over to the TV audio in time to see the second plane hit on live television, and was completely and utterly stunned.

I got home and stayed glued to the television. I also called my mother to find out where my father was. He is an American Airlines pilot. Turns out he had been flying, but had landed safely just before the tragedy happened. After watching the towers fall on television, I didn't know what else to do so I went to work. Many of the other people in my lab are not Americans, so I don't know if that's why a CD and not the news was playing on the stereo, but I was dumbfounded that no one else seemed to appreciate the magnitude of what was happening. Was I the only one afraid that the attacks weren't over? Yes, it was true that we were a thousand miles from New York, but the absurdity of what had happened already that morning meant that nothing would be impossible now. I somewhat angrily dialed up the news on the radio, and struggled to get through the day. At some point that day, or maybe the next, at home in my apartment, I thought about the number of people who had lost someone in the attacks--a mother or father, a daughter or son, a sister or brother, a friend--and I cried.

Hey everybody! To document my new-found obsession with bonsai, I've started up a new blog dedicated to the subject. Follow along with my successes and (hopefully not too many!) failures over here.

(from dooce.com):

I just never got around to it because other things kept getting in the way. Like air.

There really is no excuse for this, only that I used to approach all my school work in exactly the same way. I’d write papers three hours before they were due, study for tests as I walked to the room where they were being given, finish my homework as the teacher was collecting it. I performed best under that kind of pressure, and my teachers often told me that they wished all their students would work as hard as I did. If I could patent my technique I would call it Laziness™.

I couldn't have said it better myself. I think it is this feature of my personality that has lead me to experience near-Catholic levels of guilt for the greater part of my life.

Who am I kidding, I am getting fat and it's not even winter! I just put on some jeans (that I bought about 15 pounds ago) and while they still zip, they definitely accentuate the beginnings of a muffin-top. I will NOT be that girl. Now, I could just resort to wearing nothing but big flowy hippie skirts and just let those hips and thighs swell up like Meg Ryan's lips, but perhaps some exercise is a better course of action.

Things I am currently obsessed with:
-Organic foods and nutritional supplements
-Bonsai

Things I have become obsessed with--or at least pretty gung-ho about--in the past (and then kind of lost interest in after a few days or weeks):
-Digital scrapbooking
-the "Grocery Game"
-Knitting
-the Atkins diet
-the South Beach diet
-"Sqaure Foot" gardening
-Guinea pigs (I still have them and like them, but am not reading about them every day)
-Taking vitamins (this one comes and goes)
-Exercising (ditto)
-Trading tapes of live Phish shows
-Drawing (I wasn't very good anyway)
-Meditation (would like to do it but don't reliably make the time)
-Yoga (ditto)
-Pilates (hurts my butt too much, though I like it in theory)
-Karate (I may return to this)
-Myspace (still use it, but the novelty wore off pretty quickly)

I think I have inherited this problem from my father. He has become obsessed and then subsequently lost interest in many things over the years, including food dehydration, home juicing, playing the piano and guitar, home picture matting and framing, photography, and stock trading.

I draw the line at buying ridiculous infomercial products. I can take solace in at least that much.

I just made my first ever Craigslist post (in the rants/raves section, which seemed to be the best fit), and it happens to be a story I feel like sharing here as well:

You pulled up next to me in the post office parking lot, right into the one handicapped spot. I glared at you, and then, as you were getting out of your car, I muttered loudly "that's a *handicapped* spot!" You responded, "check the plates." Like a coward, I kept my back to you as I offered a halfhearted apology. You followed me into the post office and said "you really should know someone's history before you start asking questions." You were right.

Let me explain myself. That week, I'd seen several people--who were clearly not handicapped--using handicapped spots (yes, I checked the plates). Normally, I'm not one to say anything. But you, you did not look handicapped at all! No wheelchair, no limp, and you walked just fine on your own into the post office. I considered that perhaps the plate was for someone else in your family and that you were just cheating, but then why would you have been so confrontational with me? It wasn't until I got back outside that I saw your plates, and now only were they marked with the handicapped symbol, they also said "veteran". Now I really felt like shit. But more than that, I wondered what could actually be wrong with you, seeing there was nothing visibly handicapped about you. Was it a war injury? Do they give handicapped plates for PTSD? Maybe you have epilepsy? No, then you'd have had your driver's license revoked. It remains a mystery. Let me just say once and for all, if you really are handicapped, I'm sorry that I said anything. You happened to be the object of my accumulated frustration over people misusing the handicapped spots. I will think twice before reprimanding strangers in the future.

One more thing that you might be glad to know: karma has already punished me for my harsh words toward you. Last night, I used the handicapped stall in a public restroom (come on now, who doesn't!). When I emerged, there was a woman in a wheelchair waiting outside the stall. I've never experienced such a clear example of karmic payback.

As a lover of science, it pains me deeply to know how backward the United States is when it comes to the evolution-creation/"intelligent" design "debate". It's embarrassing, really, a big, fat stupid "L" on the forehead of American science. Once and for all:

-Evolution IS a theory. A theory like gravity. And I sure as hell don't see anybody throwing themselves off buildings to disprove that one.

-If you use an arguments such as "you'll never see a monkey give birth to a human baby now, will ya?!" or "if we came from monkeys, then how come there are still monkeys?" in an attempt to "disprove" evolution, you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the entire process. Go read some Dawkins.

So, in light of my horror over the inadequacy of the American educational system and its probable relationship with US religiosity, I am especially pleased to report that Dr. Dino himself, prominent creationist Kent Hovind, is a big fat crook.

Saturday night we were wild and crazy kids, staying up til 4 AM. What were we doing, you may ask? Cleaning the house, that's what. We had an open house planned for Sunday, and it was my chance to use every ounce of my OCD for the powers of good. Of course, one never knows what to expect with these things. At about 2:30 am, J said to me "please don't cry if no one shows up". I assured him I would try not to.

On Sunday the house looked so good, it almost made me not want to sell it. And, thankfully, people did show up, so I was able to save my tears for sappy Today show segments that I should not watch while I have PMS. Only 2 couples looked at the house, but apparently one couple expressed a lot of interest (and their son wanted to know if the guinea pigs were part of the deal). So keep your fingers crossed for us!

In honor of the fact that we have not yet killed each other (and hopefully this will remain the case at the time of our 1-year anniversary), J and I have decided to go back to Belize this fall. As of this morning, the tickets have been purchased!! :)

This time, we're going to stay on Caye Caulker, a laid-back, bohemian strip of sand right off the barrier reef. Six days of chilling and scuba diving, sounds about right to me. (OK, we might visit this place, too...just to switch it up).

Sorry, J hadn't had enough coffee yet this morning to be giddy about this with me, so I'm sharing my overflow of excitement with you, Internet.

My doorbell rang at 9:30 this morning, and I wasn't expecting anyone. I was still in my nightgown. I grabbed my robe (which, for summer, is short and satiny) and frantically ran about the house, trying to decide what to do. But then the bell rang again and, against my better judgement, I answered the door. Right away, I knew it was THEM: the Jehovah's Witnesses here to try to save my poor heathen soul.

In an effort to get rid of them, I tried to explain that I was working and that I'd be happy to take their literature, and, GOODBYE, NOW! They asked if it would be alright if they came back another time to see how I'd enjoyed my complimentary copies of the Watchtower and Awake!. I said, well, OK, but not during my business hours, which I explained were between 9 and 6. (Sorry, J, I know I should have said no but this is what happens when you are not here to help me with these things).

Now that my panic has died down and I can look at what transpired in retrospect, I wonder what those 2 nice ladies must have thought about a woman in a short silky robe with disheveled hair (and not much interest in the Lord) trying to explain that she works out of her home and that these are her business hours and that she really needed to get back to work...

tequila, inducer of apocalyptic dreams

Last night after 2 margaritas, I had a very vivid and detailed dream.

First there was a very short pre-dream, in which my friends Chrissy and Dave had gone to a movie and text-messaged me the ending: "The punks did it!"

Then, the big dream began. It started out with a cryptic premonitory note from my mother, warning us to fill up the car with gas and prepare to evacuate. While it was not exactly spelled out, I interpreted this to have something to do with upcoming potentially apocalyptic world events that would require mass fleeing and chaos. Next thing I knew, I was in the driveway of Heather and Jon Armstrong (of dooce and blurbomat, respectively), where Heather was completely freaking out, muttering about sea monsters and other things. In the meantime, there *was* mass chaos in the streets, and school buses lined the neighborhood, and everyone was being told to put their children on the buses. I had a strange feeling that something was not quite right, that maybe this was just a covert alien plot to abduct all of earth's children. But Heather was convinced that the earth was under attack of some kind and that putting the children on the buses was the right thing to do.

Fast forward to a sort of post-war scene, devoid of most people (at this point Heather was hiding in her attic in an almost catatonic state and Jon was creeping around the yard trying to avoid being seen), and full of overturned cars and other debris. Suddenly, a mass of youths came spilling out into the streets, cheering and causing a ruckus. I realized, "the punks did it!" It had been their plot all along to rid the world of mainstreamers by taking away their children, and they had succeeded by convincing everyone that the earth was under some kind of horrible attack.

(A side note: while I identified the youths as "punks" in the dream, and they did *act* like punks, they were clearly attired as goths.)

I need to stop drinking tequila before bedtime.

house-hunting heartbreak

So, as of today, our house is *officially* up for sale. We spent the weekend refinishing our deck (turns out the wood hadn't actually turned grey, it was just covered in a thick coat of mildew!), but still have a ton of organizing to do before I will actually feel comfortable having a showing. Tonight we tackle the nightmare of laundry and crap that is our bedroom.

Yesterday our realtor took us out to look at 2 houses we'd seen listed online. We absolutely fell in love with one of them, a huge colonial on over 2 acres with a big pond in the backyard. And it was a steal, price-wise. We spent the afternoon saying things like "we could put in a patio" and "I could build us a little dock there on the pond for our kayaks". Our realtor was supposed to call the agent and get "the scoop" on the house last night. We haven't heard from him yet. Last night I went online to look at the listing again, and lo and behold the house was listed as "Pending" sale. J says not to get too upset, that anything could happen, but I'm pretty sure we won't be getting that house. :( To cope with the not-quite-loss (can't really lose what wasn't yours to begin with!) I simply went back online and looked for more listings. Screw you, Buttermilk Lane, we can do better!

dream report

The other night I dreamt about falling. Two consecutive/connected dreams in which I fell from great heights, to be exact.

In the first part of the dream, I fell from or off of a very very tall building. Actually, it was the Sears Tower, but because the imagery as I fell in the dream was so vivid, I can tell you for sure that despite the great height of the Sears Tower, it was more like falling from an airplane. It was a LONG fall, and I wasn't terribly frightened. As the ground features became more visible, I started to look for a soft landing pad (as if I could somehow steer myself towards a dumpster or a truck full of feathers?), but suddenly a gust of wind blew me towards a body of water. I landed in the water and because it turned out to be something like a pond in the middle of an urban park, I walked right out of it unharmed.

Then, a while later, I was in the Sears Tower elevator with SV when something went terribly awry. There was a rumble or something, and then suddenly we knew that the building was falling straight over. Gravity shifted abruptly so that I was sort of stuck to the ceiling (formerly the side of the elevator). SV was wearing a hat and I grabbed for it while trying to brace myself in some sort of crash position. The next thing that happened was that the dream shifted into movie mode...my voice was narrating, saying things about how I had died. So that was strange, because in some way I did die in the fall yet not really because there was my voice narrating as if it were fiction. And then the dreaming continued with me in it somehow.

Isn't there an urban legend or something that says if you fall and die in your dream you've died in real life? Well, this isn't the first time I've fallen and died in a dream, and I'm still here to tell you about it, aren't I? Unless of course my brain is somewhere in a vat and none of this is real...think about that one, why don't ya?

so far today,

I have:

1) Locked myself out of the house. J had already left for work. I called him from the neighbors' (the only neighbors we really have any sort of relationship with are the retired couple next door. She has ulcerative colitis--I know because she's spent a LOT of time telling me about it--and for some reason was wearing a piece of scotch tape across her forehead and going all the way around her head. Maybe it was meant to match the housecoat? I digress...) and luckily he was able to call his dad, who works nearby and has a key to the house, to come and let me in. I did have to wait almost 40 minutes, during which time I walked the dog up and down the block--taking her for a walk was the reason I went outside in the first place--picked up one poop, and sprinted away from another one as I had no more baggies. She kept trying to squat but I made her run home, cruel, I know. I hear you can get hemmorrhoids from holding it in, but hopefully that doesn't apply to dogs.

2) Finished the big powerpoint presentation I've been working on for days, went to send it out to the client, copying some of the higher-ups on my e-mail, only to send it out with no attachment. I am chalking the flakiness up to pre-4-day-weekend-brain fog.

3) Found out that "bringing the gifts to the altar"--the task I've been assigned at a Catholic wedding ceremony tomorrow (J is a groomsman)--means I will be carrying the bread and wine (before it gets transmogrified into Jesus meat and Jesus juice, of course) up to the priest. If the church doesn't burn down we will have had a successful day. I also think I should probably not wear the animal-print, cleavage-baring dress I bought for the occasion until the reception.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

easily amused

Stupid laugh of the day: Hitler Cats

The latest event to remind me that I'm becoming an out-of-touch old fogey:

I step up to the window at Scoopy Doo's to order my ice cream. It is Friday night, and the place is staffed by teenagers. It is almost closing time, and they are a bit rambunctious, playing hip-hop and jumping around. I give my order, and they swarm to the window, yelling: "Drop it like it's hot, and you'll get your ice cream for free! DROP IT LIKE IT'S HOT!! COME ON, DROP IT LIKE IT'S HOT!".

I look at the girl. "Um, I'm too old to know what that even means. I have no idea what it is you want me to do." As they looked at me, I could feel the hairs on my head losing their pigment and my breasts inching more quickly toward the ground. They gave up and asked for my order again. They tried the same thing on J, who saved the day by reciting his order AND dropping it like it's hot *simultaneously*, even adding a provocative thrust at the end. He is my hero.

one of the joys of telecommuting

Maybe it's because we were away most of the weekend...but it's probably just because he's such a slut. This is where Monty has parked himself this morning, and I swear he got into this position all by himself:

all you need is LOVE

The Girl and The Boy got hitched yesterday! It was sweet and also kind of muddy ceremony followed by a rockin' reception, both held on a very lovely property. A good time was had by all, to be sure. I was honored to be included in the big day. Congratulations to the happy couple!! :)

church camp

Just got back from a long-awaited communion with nature. 5 nights camping in Acadia National Park (that's in Maine, on the Atlantic Ocean, in case you didn't know).

Beautiful pine forests, with floors of granite interspersed with soft spongy beds of pine needles and moss. Ferns springing forth from every surface. From rocky summits, grand views of treed islands and hidden lakes. Muscles flexing to scramble up just one more hill of rocks to see what lies beyond. Waves crashing against rocky shores. At night, stars and silence; cool forest mists. At every turn, life plentiful and spectacular. Warm rain falling against our skin as we stumble over rocks along the wooded lakeshore, thunder and pines our only chaperones.

"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike." -John Muir

The Quirky Teleworky, Vol 2

How many days of telework* does it take before you have a day where you just don't quite get around to showering?

A-one.....A-twooo.....A-THREE!

To be fair, it was on the fourth day that no shower was to be had. The first three days, the potential presence of the IT guy or the AT&T technician prompted me to groom appropriately. With no such pressure on the fourth day, I went makeup-free and, by late afternoon, was sporting a Pebbles Flintstone hairdo.

You may also be surprised to learn that I've been fairly productive working at home. I think the main driver may be the company's somewhat draconian time-tracking system. As far as I know, there are no job codes for "reading celebrity gossip online" or "toilet cleaning", and if there were, they certainly wouldn't be billable.

"Telework" sounds so Orwellian

Having spent the weekend assembling Ikea office furniture, I was ready for my first day of telecommuting. I spent the first 2 hours of my day waiting for the IT guy to show up, only to find out that he'd been given the wrong date. Without access to the company network, I spent the majority of the day attempting to read background articles, though I was frequently interrupted by the dog's demands to be alternately let in and out of the house. I did spend the day at my desk, resisting the urge to read on the couch (mainly because I was sure I would have fallen asleep).

The day was capped off by an account status call during which my coworkers were soundly put in their place by some really bitchy clients. They talked to us as if we were in the principal's office with our parents after being caught behind the school with the burnouts--that cool, calm tone with a not-so-subtle undercurrent of disgust and disappointment. I am going to love working on this account, I can just tell...

Day 2 is starting out just like day 1--waiting for servicepeople to arrive. The IT guy is supposed to be here at 9; the phone guy anytime before noon. The majority of my afternoon was going to be spent on a phone call, but it was cancelled so I'll have to find something else to do. I have a project but am frankly not quite sure what exactly it is I'm supposed to do with it. Perhaps I should find out...

Guys, TMI warning...

So, my whole adult life I've made it a point to schedule my yearly "lady doctor" visit with a female practitioner. This isn't because I have the notion that male gynecologists are somehow perverts or that they're going to get really excited about poking my private parts with cold metal objects and gloved fingers, but just because it always seemed more comfortable to go to a woman. Women can sympathize with how idiotic you feel with your feet in the stirrups, all your womanly glory on full display in a decidely non-erotic and fairly uncomfortable way.

The ob/gyn I've been seeing the last couple years, Dr. S, is ridiculously hard to book. Appointments have to be made months in advance. For a number of reasons I had to call today to change my upcoming appointment, and was trying to book it for a specific day. "Dr. S is on vacation that day, but Dr. O is available," I was told. Grateful that an appointment was available at all on the day I'd requested, I took it. As soon as I hung up the phone, I realized my problem: I had no idea if Dr. O was a man or a woman.

Turns out, he's a man, and I am going to have to deal with it. So, ladies, if you care to comment: do you have a preference whether to go to a man or a woman ob/gyn? If you've been to both, was there a difference? Did you worry more or less about how well-groomed you were? Do you feel more or less comfortable with an older male doctor? Discuss.

I resigned from my job this week, which turned out to be a lot more complicated than I'd anticipated. Offers, counteroffers, counter-counteroffers...well, it *is* nice to be wanted, I suppose. Truth be told, I'm not particularly passionate about my career. However, it's something I can do fairly well and the money's pretty decent. I suppose the same could be said for some of the Craigslist "Gigs" my friend V was telling me about yesterday. A man in the northwest suburbs of Chicago is willing to pay $500 a pop (plus travel) for a weekly foot-job or handjob, performed topless. I mean, come on, $500 for a handjob! Maybe she was right to be tempted. I did warn her that, for that sum, chances are that there's a camera hidden in the closet and she'd soon end up on handjobsluts dot com, masturbatory fodder for nasty men worldwide. Somewhere else in the burbs, a couple was seeking a topless woman to film them having sex. The job pays $100. If anything, Craigslist--like the ads in the back of alternative weeklies--is a fascinating glimpse into human nature.

But I digress (and have probably just added a whole slew of dangerous search results to my blog). My new job is in the same industry I'm currently in, but the big change is that I'll be working out of my home for a Chicago-based company. I'm very much looking forward to no more commuting, but am a little worried about being cooped up in the house all day. I may have to rig up the TV with a mini electric fence and put on a shock collar each morning so that I won't be tempted to take Springer breaks. My other worry is that I'll be distracted with house cleaning. I suggested to J that we hire the Merry Maids to come in every other week, but I don't think I've sold him on it yet. Anway, I'm sure I'll have a lot to chronicle as I transition to the telecommuting life. If nothing else, I'll keep you posted on V's career search...

So, TomKat had a girl. Brooke Shields did too (on the same day, no less). And, Brangelina are supposedly in Namibia, where she is due to pop any moment.

Just thought I'd keep you all enlightened on these subjects of international importance.