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...