Wheat Street

I'm 31-derful!

2005-06-04T18:01:00.000-04:00

As Erika so rightly pointed out, today is my birthday. My 31st. Just think, ten years ago today, I had my very first sip of alcohol!! (Are you laughing as hard reading that as I was typing it?)

My best friend Cori sent me a very nice bracelet from Red Envelope, and the card said, "I sure hope 31 is a hell of a lot easier to swallow than 30 was." And, yeah, I suppose that it is -- though the surprise party she arranged for me for my 30th birthday -- the one where she miraculously managed to coordinate my entire family and some of my best friends to all travel up to the Carolinas at the same time, without my catching wind of it -- sure helped soften the blow! I'm celebrating 31 in a much more low-key fashion.

Kevin's baked me a cake. He's making Indian food for dinner (one of my favorites!). And we'll probably watch one of my new DVDs! He got me two classics: Sixteen Candles and Urban Cowboy! He also got me two CDs -- the best of Journey and the best of Heart! Just think how cool this combination of movies and music would have been back in the 80s!! (He's also getting me a digital video recorder, but he wanted me to be able to help pick it out -- I can hardly wait to start making feature-length films!)

At any rate, I am having a great birthday! And I don't think Kevin's ever going to get annoyed with my announcing, every time I walk into a room, "I'm 31-derful!" That kind of thing never gets old.

Movies for Guys Who Like Movies

2005-05-04T22:14:00.000-04:00

Yeah, so I'm headed to New Orleans this weekend to spend some quality Mother's Day time with my mom (and with the rest of my family). I can tell Kevin is going to miss me so much because he's Netflixed all of the classic miss-my-sweetie, wish-I-had-my-baby-by-my-side classics:

Shaolin Soccer
Spiderman 2
Blade: Trinity

Better break out the Kleenex! Poor guy's gonna be pining away for me all weekend long! (Uh, yeah... that's the ticket...)

Creatures of the Night

2005-05-02T22:40:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure if this makes us incredibly cool or incredibly lame, but lately when it gets to be around dusk, we grab a couple of cold beers and go sit on our front steps or on the chairs on our side porch and watch bats. We don't get a lot of them, but most nights you can spot two or three in the sky circling above our house, helping to control the ever-increasing insect population.

Tonight, we saw one circling just 12 feet or so from ground in our front yard -- which both excited and scared the crap out of me. Damn this fear of rabies of mine. Guess that's what I get for reading the CDC Web site.

Gardening 101

2005-05-02T21:55:00.000-04:00

Saturday, as we labored over the details of our much anticipated container garden, Kevin and I were separating the pepper plants that produce larger peppers from the ones that produce smaller peppers, when we realized that neither of us was really sure what a pimento pepper even looks like. In fact, we're not sure we've ever seen one outside of an olive or pimento cheese sandwich.

It's all part of our latest foray into gardening, an adventure that started innocently enough -- with us wondering if we might start a little herb garden -- and quickly exploded to monstrous proportions, as we are incapable of doing anything in moderation. 216 herb seedlings, 12 tomato plants and 19 pepper plants later, we're well on our way to never having to buy store-bought salsa again.

Our much demented inside joke is to refer to our plants as our "babies," much in the same way that many couples refer to their kitties or doggies as if they were offspring. "How are the babies?" one of us will say, in a tone that's more sarcastic than saccharine, if one the other has gone out to the back porch to check on the newly sprouted seeds. We think it would be really funny if we were overheard talking about "our babies," and someone were to ask if we were referring to our cats. "What?" we would answer. "You think we'd refer to our cats as our babies? Don't you think that's a little creepy? We're talking about our plants, you weirdo!"

Who Knew Casual Dining Could Be So, Um, Casual?

2005-04-18T22:26:00.000-04:00

Ah, springtime in Carolina! Bright blue skies, warm rays of sun, the azaleas and dogwoods in full bloom. We were anxious to make the most of it -- to get outside and enjoy this little sliver of spring before the oppressive heat of summer sets in. So, on Saturday, we drove up to Brookgreen Gardens, just outside of Myrtle Beach, and meandered around the flora and fauna, taking artsy photos of all of the sculptures, and taking really blurry shots of the animals in the wildlife preserve. It made for a really nice day.

After meandering a few good miles, having not had much to eat all day save for the pizza-flavored Combos and Diet Coke we had in the car on the drive up, we'd pretty much begun digesting our internal organs by the time we got out of there. Kevin suggested that, since we were so close to Murrells Inlet, "the Seafood Capital of South Carolina," we might treat ourselves to a fine meal in one of the local eateries. We kind of had our hopes set on the one with the pirate ship!, but ended up randomly picking a place along the water. At any rate, seeing as we were in shorts and sneakers, we weren't looking for anything fancy.

Which is a good thing, because fancy was certainly not on the menu at the dive where we ended up. But we took it in stride, laughing at the fact that the hostess sat us at a table that none of the waitstaff seemed to be responsible for. After 15 minutes or so without anyone coming around to even take our drink order, some of the waiters and waitresses even began looking at each other, almost shrugging, with that, "Hey, it ain't my table" kind of look on their faces.

But someone eventually took our orders -- and we were hardly complaining. We were too busy making inside jokes about the large party of teenagers sitting behind us and how hard they were all trying to be "cool." Or the annoying, loud woman at the table in front of us who was trying to pull off the teenager look, but ironically came off as looking much older than she probably was for having donned the babydoll tee. Or the woman near the window with the bad dye job and overalls. The people watching was fantastic -- it more than made up for the lackluster service and crappy food. We were having a good time.

And then the elderly gentleman at the table behind us started farting.

LOUDLY. So loudly in fact that the first time I heard it, I instinctively turned my head to see what it was, and I saw him lift a cheek off of his seat. But, you know, I told myself, he's an old guy, he might have some kind of health issues, he probably can't help it. I'll just be polite and pretend I didn't hear it -- mind my manners and all. Even though I was RIGHT IN THE LINE OF FIRE. Then it happened again. And again. And again.

Finally, I looked at Kevin, exasperated, and said, "Okay, that old man has farted about EIGHT times now." Kevin, who also had been trying to do the mannerly "I'll just pretend I didn't hear that" thing, started laughing, braced his forehead with his hand, and said, "I know!"

At that point, we pretty much agreed it was time to go.

I-R-Yes!!

2005-04-17T23:21:00.000-04:00

I started out my weekend just like tens of thousands of other procrastinators across this fine land did -- by finally filing my tax return. Actually, I'm pretty sure that it's not officially filed just yet, but it's postmarked. And that's the important part.

When I dropped off my return at the local post office (mind you, none of the post offices here in Columbia stayed open even a smidge past their usual hours ON TAX DAY -- what is this world coming to?), it occurred to me that I'm one of the only people I know who still does my taxes the old-fashioned way -- by spreading out an array of complicated forms and instructions on a desk, punching numbers into a calculator and filling out the dang things myself.

It's not that I'm a glutton for punishment or anything. It's just that, not owning a home or having any rugrats or being able to come up with any other convincing deductions, my taxes are pretty easy: I owe. It's kind of hard for me to rationalize paying someone else to fill out he form -- or even ponying up the money for Turbotax -- when it's mostly a matter of entering the information from my W-2, checking the tax tables, and deciding whether it's going to be the left or right arm and leg that I mail in this year.

My favorite part about doing my taxes is the "Assembling Your Return" part -- that point when you've finally done all the figuring, signed your name on the line, perhaps made your occupation sound a little more exotic than it really is (my official title is "Communications Specialist I," but that sounds so lame -- so I simply put "writer" on my Form 1040 -- it is what I do at my job), and you think you're finally done. Perhaps by then, your brain is but a pile of mush, and you're drooling out of one side of your mouth, but you're almost there -- you can see the finish line. You just have to stuff it all in the envelope and be done with it, right?

Well, no, not exactly. You see, the IRS gives very specific instructions for piecing together your return. Now, I'm just paraphrasing, but if I remember correctly, the instructions read sort of like this:

"Attach copies of any W2 and 1099 forms to the front of your tax return, and staple as shown. If you are filing Schedules B, C or D, attach them with a paperclip behind Form 1040, but before Forms 2398 or 7648, or any form or schedule including the letter G. Any Forms beginning with the number 8, or containing the letter R should be taped to the back of page 2 of your form 690, but only after you've foled them in half twice -- lengthwise first. If you must file Schedule C, but not Schedules D, E or F, you should fold Schedule C into an origami crane and suspend it from the bottom of your return with a 2-foot length of fishing line..."

Or something like that... Gosh, only 363 days until I get to do it all again! Woohoo!

"What Is This? Some Kind of Ridiculous Fun Party?"

2005-04-04T13:17:00.000-04:00

The night before we left New Orleans, my two nephews and one of my nieces got early Easter surprises from Grandma. (Said buckets of Easter candy and other novelties were originally going to come from the Easter Bunny, but a certain five-year-old peaked into Grandma's bedroom when he wasn't supposed to and caught her in the act. Oh, sure, he denied it when asked by his mother, but he later pulled me aside and whispered, "Hey, Aunt Dan, I have to tell you a secret. I think Grandma is planning an Easter Surprise for us! I sneaked into her room and saw her doing it...")

So, what do you get when you take three children -- ages 2, 3 and 5 -- and add a whole lot of sugar? Plus pillow-fighting? Suffice it to say that when the aforementioned snooping five-year-old, who sometimes tends to be a bit on the serious side, asked, "What is this? Some kind of ridiculous fun party?", he pretty much nailed it. It was ridiculous. It was fun. And had there been kegstands and an Igloo cooler full of some mysterious highly-alcoholic "jungle juice" concoction, it would have ranked right up there with some of the wilder parties I attended back in my college days.

Which was awesome because the week that followed sucked.

In the midst of Deathwatch 2005 -- first for Terri Schiavo and then for the Pope -- things unexpectedly got personal. My brother-in-law's dad, my sister's beloved father-in-law, grandfather to both of my darling nephews suffered a massive stroke and died. He'd had bypass surgery a full week before and was, in fact, due to be released from the hospital and sent home. He was only 62. He should be home right now recuperating from his surgery -- which we all thought was going to be like a new lease on life for him. But he's not.

Now, I didn't know Bob as well as a lot of other people did, but I knew him well enough to feel like something was suddenly missing from the world. And I am very close with a lot of people who were very close to him. My heart breaks for his wife, his two kids, his three grandkids. I can't imagine their grief -- I don't want to.

On the drive back to South Carolina, I'd started contemplating that I might send my nephew some supplies for April Fool's Day (which we'd been discussing shortly before my departure) -- maybe a whoopie cushion, some fake vomit, maybe some Laffy Taffy since there are jokes on the wrappers. I couldn't have imagined he'd be spending that day at his granddad's funeral.

In a way I'm glad I never got around to sending that stuff -- it could have been a bit awkward, to say the least. But, you know, now I'm thinking maybe I still will. Life is too precious to not have as much Ridiculous Fun as possible.

An Aunt By Any Other Name

2005-03-27T22:56:00.000-05:00

This weekend, while we were in New Orleans visiting my family for a long Easter weekend (which incidentally did not include much of Easter itself, as we spent the day driving back to South Carolina so we could both make it to work bright and early tomorrow morning -- lucky us!), I was showing my five-year-old nephew how to spell my name.

"You see, it's A-N-N-E," I said, drawing the letters on one of those Magnadoodle thingies.

"That says 'Aunt Anne'?" he asked.

"Well, no," I said. "It just says 'Anne,' but I can make it say 'Aunt Anne," which I showed him by drawing in the letters A-U-N-T above the A-N-N-E.

"What about the D?" he asked. "I thought there was a D."

It was at that moment when it occurred to me that maybe he thinks my name is "Aunt Dan."

Kind of Sounds Like a Scary Convenience Store in a Seedy Part of Town, Doesn't It?

2005-03-22T23:09:00.000-05:00

For Kevin's birthday, nearly a month ago (ironic, isn't it, how I follow up a post about how I hate to let too much time lapse between posting by waiting more than a month to post another entry?), I went with the usual trifecta -- books, CDs and DVDs -- pretty much the gold standard of gift-giving in our house. I was particularly proud of the CDs I'd picked out for him -- Willie Nelson's Songs, the new alt-country CD by Elvis Costello and the Imposters, and, What's This? I thought, thumbing through the CDs on the rack, A new Steve Earle CD? Wow, he's going to love this! I was so excited!

Only, when he opened it, it turned out to not be Steve Earle at all. But some band we'd never heard of called Earlimart.

Neat how I didn't notice at any point in picking up the CD from the rack, turning it over and carefully checking the copyright date to ensure that it was indeed a new CD, taking it home and then wrapping it, that the words "Steve Earle" don't actually appear anywhere on the CD packaging, huh?

"What the heck is Earlimart?" Kevin said, kind of confused.

Naturally, we jumped right on the Internet to find out -- the Internet being my main source of learning something new every day. As it turns out, Earlimart is a band out of California -- and not, as I first imagined, some place where stoners might go at three in the morning to buy rolling papers and Cheetos. I'm very curious about them -- the band, that is, not the stoners. One site described their sound as "experimental post-punk and folky undertones." That could be cool, right?

Not that I have any real clue about what's considered "cool" these days, mind you. My MP3 player is a treasure trove of cheesy sounds of the 70s -- I've got more Gordon Lightfoot, ELO, Grandfunk Railroad and Bread than should be allowable by law. In fact, come to think of it, you could reasonably argue that since I downloaded it all for free back in the glory days of "sharing" music online that it isn't really legal. (What can I say? I was young! I was curious! I was just experimenting! And I stopped the minute they started prosecuting people for it!)

But, boys and girls, I learned a tough lesson. It turns out that, while I was downloading the likes of "Sister Golden Hair," "I Wanna Kiss You All Over" and "Another Auld Lang Syne," I was also downloading the beginnings of a menacing web of spyware and computer viruses that would inevitably escalate and render our laptop nearly useless. Which is my official excuse for having been incommuni-blog-o for the last month or so. But I'm back up and running now.

In the meantime, while you might think that something called Earlimart would be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the Treble and Tremble CD remains closed -- sealed in its original plastic, so as not to revoke Kevin's option to exchange it for a CD from a band he's actually heard of. But I've got a feeling that, in the end, we'll prove to lazy to get around to bringing it back before the return policy expires. In fact, we're headed down to New Orleans tomorrow, and I just might have to sneak it along for the drive...

How Long Was I Out?

2005-02-17T21:30:00.002-05:00

Do you ever do that thing where you keep meaning to update your blog, but then you don't get around to it, although you've been keeping a mental list of things you want to touch on if you ever do get around to posting again, and all the things on that list pile up in your mind, until the task of updating your blog becomes even more intimidating because now, instead of just random, daily musings, you're feeling pressured to recap all of the stuff that has happened in between that time when you went out to get the paper and busted your ass on the steps for all of your neighbors to see and now, so you procrastinate some more, and the list gets even longer, and then that annoying music from that Billy Joel song "Pressure" gets stuck in your head ("And here you are, with your faith, and your Peter Pan advice; You have no scars on your face, and you cannot handle PRESSURE!!"), and next thing you know, you're doing a Google search for Billy Joel lyrics, and you get to thinking about how unfortunate it is that the daughter he had with supermodel Christie Brinkley ended up looking so much like her dad rather than her mom, which prompts you think about people who look a lot like other people, which reminds you of that hilarious Web site about men who look like Kenny Rogers, which you naturally feel compelled to go look up immediately, and conseqently get hooked into perusing for hours because it's just THAT DAMN FUNNY, and your blog goes untouched for yet another day?

No? Just me?

Believe it or not, I actually have had other distractions as of late besides old men with white hair and beards who look as if they might, at any second, break into lively renditions of "The Gambler." Take Superbowl Sunday, for instance. We, like millions of other people across this great nation, poured a bag of chips into a bowl, cracked open a jar of salsa, heated up some taquitos and parked our butts in front of the television, stuffing our pieholes with junk food, while we criticized professional athletes.

After the game was over, Kevin remarked that he must have eaten way too much, as he wasn't feeling so great. Within an hour he was puking his guts up -- a phenomenon that persisted for two straight days, combined with all of the other pleasant stomach virus symptoms. I made like I had an exaggerated case of obsessive-compulsive disorder and took to washing my hands some eighty thousand times a day, and wiping down every square inch of our home with disinfectant, paranoid of getting sick myself. I felt bad about treating Kevin as if he were a leper, but believe me, it was for his own good. I can be an amazing pain in the ass when I'm sick. It may well be a worse experience for poor Kevin than being sick himself. No one should have to suffer like that after just getting through the horrors if gastroenteritis.

As you might imagine, the combination of Kevin's two-day retch-a-thon, and my donning a full hazmat suit and attacking every available surface with Clorox disinfecting wipes made for a rather lame Mardi Gras, especially considering that they don't celebrate Mardi Gras in these parts, and I therefore was expected to actually show up at work that day. You know, there was a time when I and other friends of mine who had left New Orleans would go to great lengths to keep Mardi Gras from going by unnoticed, as just another day at the office. Cori and I used to have a pact that no matter where we were, we were going to take the off work and sit outside drinking beer all day long on Mardi Gras Day, the way God intended.

This year, I'm sad to report, not only did I spend the entire day sober in my cubicle, but I only drank a beer and a half when I got home. It was even lamer than that time when Erika and I simultaneously came down with the flu midway through Mardi Gras Day, thus learning the hard way that, try as you may, you can't really outdrink influenza -- you only end up feeling worse, and the ferry ride back to the West Bank is highly unfun when you're half-drunk, feverish and every muscle in your body is aching in a symphony of unmatched misery. But I digress...

Valentine's Day was better. Tons better. I came home from work to find a dozen roses in a vase on the dining room table, a heart-shaped box of candy, a new CD and DVD. Oh, and there was wine and cheese, and music playing throughout the house, and Kevin was making a romantic dinner for us. I gave Kevin a couple of CDs and some candy. Plus tickets to go see Old Crow Medicine Show at the Orange Peel in Asheville, NC the first Friday in March. My original plan was to give Kevin the tickets for his birthday (Feb. 25), but that wouldn't have given us much time to plan for the trip (Asheville's a few hours from here). This way we get to plan for a whole long weekend up in the mountains. How awesome will that be?

Oh, and one more thing before I go back I get sucked back into the Men Who Look Like Kenny Rogers Web site: I think I may have to update the description in my masthead in honor of Kevin's cousin Brian, whose pregnant wife announced at a recent family gathering that they had get going because "Brian has to go coon-huntin'." Seriously. I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.

Winter Weather Advisory

2005-01-30T20:57:00.000-05:00

This just in: Ice is slippery.

To demonstrate this concept to all of my neighbors who may have been outside or to anyone who may have been driving down the street at the time, I damn near killed myself on our front steps going to get the paper yesterday morning. I was wearing just the shorts and T-shirt I'd slept in, too lazy to change my clothes just to run out and get the paper, despite the fact that it was clearly below freezing out, and a pair of flip-flops because they are way easier to put on than real shoes. Oh, yeah, and I was holding the fatter of our two cats -- he likes to come out to get the paper with me in the morning (you're thinking "crazy cat lady," aren't you?). In what felt like slow motion, my foot slipped out from beneath me, my ass hit the ground, and as the middle of my back collided painfully with the edge of one of the concrete steps, I held the cat up in the air, so as not to let him go.

Definitely one of my classier moments.

In Case You're Wondering About That Box of Franzia Chillable Red in Our Refrigerator...

2005-01-24T22:57:00.000-05:00

It's because my parents were here last weekend. They came to deliver the grill that Santa brought us for Christmas, but that we were unable to squeeze into the Honda Civic, along with our luggage, Kevin's golf clubs, assorted presents and holiday finery, our coats, the cat box, and, oh yeah, two cats for the 10-hour drive from New Orleans back to South Carolina after Christmas. Not that we tried too hard to fit it. It made for a grand excuse for my mom and dad to come visit, which I'd been wanting them to do for some time anyway.

They drove up the Friday before MLK Day weekend -- the same day actually that I had to go into work, dressed for a job interview, though trying to play it off as if I was not dressed for a job interview, even though everyone knew that I was interviewing for another job that morning. The day that I sat in an office on another floor, trying to impress the manager of another division with my wit and professional demeanor, while strings of incomprehensible words fell out of mouth, and a little voice inside my head kept saying, "Shut up, you idiot! What the hell are you talking about? You. Are. Blowing this!" But I kept on talking anyway because I was nervous, and also because the guy kept asking me questions.

Anyway, my folks got in pretty late -- past 11. But we made them stay up a couple more hours and have some beverages with us. We'd stocked the fridge with Heineken(Dear Old Dad's signature brand) and had a box of my mom's favorite Franzia chilling on the top shelf -- though we splurged an uncorked an actual glass bottle the night they arrived. You could say that we got that party started right. That we got that party started quickly. Right?

I must say, it ended up being a pretty fantastic weekend. We spent a day down in Charleston. We showed off the sites and sounds of Columbia -- Five Points, the Vista, the office park five miles out of town where I work, the Piggy Wiggly, and, most notably, the giant fire hydrant sculpture that Kevin and I couldn't seem to agree on the location of. We went to the zoo. We sampled a handful of restaurants and libation stations around town. We even fired up our new grill and cooked up some steaks.

I think by Monday night we were all a little exhausted -- though I caught myself fighting the urge to fall asleep because I honestly did not want their visit to be over yet. They got back on the road shortly after Kevin and I left for work that next morning -- and they didn't even loot our VCR, DVD player or TV in the short time we left them in our home alone. I tell you, these parents of mine are golden! I was kind of sad to see them go -- it's not going to be easy drinking the rest of this box by myself!

Swamp Thing

2005-01-24T21:59:00.000-05:00

Since leaving Louisiana, I've found that, by and large, people are quite versed on things like Mardi Gras, Jazzfest, beignets and cafe au lait, jambalya, crawfish pie-a, file gumbo, and the like. It seems word's gotten out about some of things that make my home state such a unique place.

But I tend to stump them all when I mention nutria. Not many people have heard of such a thing. And when I go on to explain that it's a big red swamp rat with orange teeth, I sometimes get looks that might imply I'm making the whole thing up. Oh, but I'm not...

And South Carolina is about to learn that the hard way:

"Large, rat-like rodents are marching toward South Carolina in what biologists say is an inevitable -- and disturbing -- invasion..."

By the Numbers

2005-01-23T19:00:00.000-05:00

Amount of money I won in Fantasy Football this season, including my prize money for coming in third place, plus two weekly bonuses: $120

Amount of money Kevin won this season in Fantasy Football: $10

Amount of money we were able to spend in a last-minute over-the-counter-drug buying spree in an effort to use up my "use it, or lose it" flexible spending account (FSA) money before the year was up: $245

Number of stores we had to go to because Target would only let us buy a single product with the ingredient "pseudoephedrine" at a time, for fear that we might be cooking up crystal methamphetamine, rather than trying to ease the symptoms of a common cold: 2

Number of products containing pseudoephedrine that we were able to buy at Walgreen's in a single shopping trip: unlimited

Number of glazed doughnuts I think I could probably shove it my mouth all at once on a bet: 2*

*Does not apply if said doughnuts are Krispy Kremes

It's Enough to Drive You Crazy If You Let It

2005-01-23T18:11:00.000-05:00

It ain't easy being the sophisticated, girl-about-town career woman that I am. Getting ahead in the corporate world involves a whole lot more than just wearing the recommended number of pieces of flair. You have to eat, sleep and breathe your profession -- absorb it into every fiber of your being until you JUST. CAN'T. SHAKE. IT.

I go to bed at night thinking about my job. I dream about my job. And then wake up -- thinking about my job. In fact, on more mornings than I care to admit, by the time I get out of the shower, I've got Dolly Parton's "Nine to Five" stuck in my head.

Tumble outta bed and stumble to the kitchen,
Pour myself a cup of ambition
And yawn and stretch and try to come to life...

Apparently it's working. Because it wasn't long into the New Year when I was approached, confidentially, and strongly nudged toward applying for a supervisor's job in another division of the company. That's right -- supervisor. I would get to be somebody's boss. TWO people, in fact. So, I tossed my hat into the ring, drunk on the mere thought of all that power and prestige.

Of course, it wasn't as easy as just forwarding my resume to the person who was hiring for this position. Oh, no. Our corporate policy dictates that, in order to apply for an internal job posting, you must have your current supervisor sign the application before you submit it to Human Resources. You can't just look into another opportunity on the sly. Your current boss KNOWS you are applying, taking the necessary tests and interviewing for another position. And typically begins to either kiss your ass trying to get you to stick around, or begins to treat you as if you are now dead to her. Lucky for me, my boss chose the former. Still, it's been awkward.

Before I could even interview for the job, I had to prove that I'm suited to managing people by passing something called the "Asset Test" (not be confused with the "Asshat Test," which they use to screen candidates for senior management -- oh, crap, did I just type that OUT LOUD?).

Anyway, in the Asset Test, you are presented with scenarios that a supervisor might encounter, and you have to decide the most effective way to deal with the situation. Of course, long before I sat down to take the test, I'd already been displaying proof positive that I was an ideal candidate to lead and motivate others by inappropriately and somewhat offensively referring to it as the "What Would Jesus Do?" test -- and joking with my fellow office smartasses that if I got stumped on any answer, I would simply ask myself WWJD? Even though breaking bread and giving it to my disciples seems like an incredibly ineffective way to deal with an employee who routinely shows up late for work. Bottom line is, I passed.

And then I got to interview. And have spent the 9 days since wondering if I even want the stupid job. Hmmm...

Greetings from 2005!!

2005-01-02T23:50:00.000-05:00

If you haven't yet made it to the New Year, let me tell you, you are going to love it. Not only did we manage to shave off that extra Leap Day we were carrying around in 2004, but 2005 also still has that fresh, new year scent!

Oh, and the coffee here is just fabulous! I managed to find Cafe Du Monde coffee right here at my local Piggly Wiggly (which we endearingly refer to simply as "The Pig" around these parts). Yeah, I paid $7.99 for a 15-oz. can and then found out near immediately that I could have bought the same can from www.cafedumonde.com for just $4.60. Well, not really the same can. But, you know, one like it. Of course, I could have just picked some up in New Orleans while I was there just a week ago, but that would have just made too much sense... My point is that the coffee in 2005, so far, rocks. I know I've been drinking a lot of it.

And the weather? Get this: it's been sunny and warm. In January! Well, at least in South Carolina.

Anyway, if you're stuck in a wormhole or something, or perhaps an old Delorean that some wacky scientist in your neighborhood fashioned into a time machine, or something like that, I suggest you do whatever it is you need to do to hightail it on over to 2005. I have a feeling it's gonna be a good one!

And I Thought I Was Only Dreaming of a White Christmas...

2004-12-27T23:19:00.000-05:00

December's been a busy month. I've had more pain-in-the-ass things going on at work than I would care to reflect on. But luckily it's all been countered by all the shopping and running around that I truly do love about Christmas.

And Kevin and I did take advantage of all that the season had to offer. We put up a beautiful Christmas tree. We hung stockings by our chimney with care. We drove around after dark and tried to hunt down the tackiest holiday lighting displays we could find. We drank eggnog and watched almost all of our Christmas DVDs, save for It's a Wonderful Life and Diehard (um... yes, it is a Christmas movie -- if you recall, the terrorists hold a Christmas party hostage). We ate cookies, though passed on figgy pudding. And that last full weekend before the big day -- on that Saturday when many last-minute shoppers are just beginning their mall outings, we loaded up the presents, our luggage and both cats, and we took the ten-hour drive down to New Orleans to spend the whole week with my family.

It was fabulous. I wish I wasn't too lazy to outline every detail. Suffice it to say, we ate some fabulous New Orleans food (shout out to Gina and Bryan for taking us to Galatoire's!), drank beer at some of my favorite bars, took time to see the French Quarter and Uptown, got to see everyone in my family at some point during the week -- though the weather permitted us all from getting together on Christmas Day, because, gosh-darn-it, for the first time since 1954, IT FREAKING SNOWED IN NEW ORLEANS ON CHRISTMAS DAY!!

Sure, only an inch or so accumulated, but for an area that nearly never sees snow, it was enough to close bridges and interstates. And enough that I ended up outside on the golf course behind my parents' house making snow angels with my five-year-old nephew... because, you know, that kind of thing seems like a really good idea after a few drinks. Not that Owen was drinking very heavily, mind you.

Though I didn't get to see Jeannette and Co. on Christmas Day, I was glad to hear they had a turkey on hand and were able to scrap together a nice holiday dinner unexpectedly. God help us if Kevin and I had been stuck in our house on Christmas Day, having to throw together a dinner from what we had on hand. Because there's only so much you can do to make hotdogs and fishsticks seem festive...

Of course, you never know -- our food could get to seeming a whole lot fancier once my parents deliver that grill that Santa brought us. I was really only pretending to be bummed about it not fitting in the Honda Civic with all of our cats and luggage for the drive back -- I love that my parents now HAVE to visit us! ;-)

Hope everyone had a "Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!" Ho! Ho! Ho!

December 13

2004-12-13T23:07:00.000-05:00

Today is one of those days that has classically become a homesick day for me. It's my dad's birthday -- Dear Old Dad, as he is affectionately known. My dad's birthday, with its proximity to Christmas, has long been the day we got together and decorate the Christmas tree. It's a tradition I've missed out on for five years in a row now. Today, my dad is 60 (though he tells me he's looking at it dislexically this year, wondering what he might talk about tomorrow in his first-grade class -- man, I love my dad!). I called my parents' house earlier and talked to not just my dad, but my brother, my mom, both sisters, one nephew -- and my dad again. I wanted so badly to transport myself through that phone and to be there to help hang the ornaments on the tree. Sure, I was there less than a month ago, and I'll be back less than a week from now, but I still can't shake the bug of wishing I was there now. And these next four days are going to seem so long, as I wait for our next trip to New Orleans.

Until then, this beer is for Dear Old Dad. Cheers!

Not Your Traditional Christmas Carols

2004-12-13T22:51:00.000-05:00

Kevin and I finally started our Christmas shopping near the end of last week. We had to. It was the only thing we could think of to do to get us feeling in the Christmas spirit. Despite the fact that we'd bought and decorated our tree as early as November 30, and that I'd been addressing Christmas cards since that following Sunday, as I whooped and hollered at the goings-on of NFL football, we were both feeling a bit like Charlie Brown at the beginning of the Peanuts Christmas special -- happy and all, but just not really into the whole Christmas thing just yet.

And it wasn't helping that we had one of those local Clear Channel affiliates on the radio that had been playing Christmas music nonstop since before school started back up in the fall (okay, so that's a slight exaggeration, but only a slight one). In fact, I have to wonder if my Christmas-music-listening-to experience wasn't doomed outright by the fact that I accidentally heard on the radio few verses of the contrived, manipulative stupidity that is "The Christmas Shoes" before it was even mid-November (Do people REALLY like this song? I sincerely do not get it!).

At any rate, I made a concerted effort not to tune into the 24/7 "Sounds of the Holidays" broadcast until at least after Thanksgiving. And even then it wasn't long before I found myself desperately looking for something else to listen to besides Amy Grant singing "Away in a Manger" or Mariah Carey singing "All I Want for Christmas Is You." Don't get me wrong; I like Christmas music. I just can only take so much of it. Especially that smarmy crap they play on the radio. One day, when I could no longer take Mannheim Steamroller ruining yet another traditional favorite, I happened over to the classic rock station and blared Van Halen's "Runnin' With the Devil" so loud that I had to vent the sunroof. Interestingly enough, I found myself feeling downright festive. And I believed I turned a corner that day.

So, it's no surprise that tonight when Kevin and I went out to my car to run a few after-work Christmas shopping errands that the volume on my car stereo was turned almost embarrassingly loud. It's only because I'm finally in spirit of the season. You would have cranked up the volume, too, had you heard the Christmas Classic "More Human Than Human" by White Zombie on your way home from work. When the Christmas Spirit overcomes you, there's just no stoppin' it!

Sick. And Tired.

2004-12-03T10:31:00.000-05:00

Part of the reason I've been so slack as of late about updating my blog is that I've been sick. My throat started hurting somewhere before I hit the Alabama-Georgia border on my drive back and felt as if someone had taken a blowtorch to the lining of it by the time I got to Atlanta. During rush hour. In the rain.

Of course, what I was really worried about was that I might start experiencing the less-than-fabulous symptoms of the stomach bug that was going around while I was visiting with my familiy -- "The Puking Shits," as my sister dubbed it. But I didn't develop that until the night before Thanksgiving, and I was fortunate to not have to deal with any of the puking part, though I was up all night long running to and from my bathroom. I wondered if I might have to ask Kevin's parents to set up my Thanksgiving meal on a TV tray in front of the toilet.

Thankfully, I was over the gastrointestinal distress by the time we gathered together for our feast. Of course, by then my sore throat had morphed into the mother of all colds, I was exhausted and dehydrated, and I hardly had an appetite. I was feeling very thankful when Kevin suggested that I might go lie down in one of the guest rooms after we ate and get some rest. I only planned on resting for twenty minutes or so. I slept for three or four HOURS. And had no trouble falling back to sleep once we got home and sleeping well into the morning.

Meanwhile, my sinuses set out to break the world record for snot production. And I'm not just talking about volume -- you should see the color and consistency of this stuff! I felt horribly sorry for all of the people working in cubicles adjacent to mine, who had to hear all of the nose-blowing and sniffling, and who now are enjoying the hacking, very productive coughing that is going on as my cold reaches the post-nasal drip stage. Yes, I've become that person -- the snotty, sniffling, stuffed up, coughing person at the office who no one wants to go near, and whom everyone is secretly completely grossed out by.

But I'm trying to keep it under control. I've been mainlining Sudafed Cough & Cold all morning.

Now Accepting Anonymous Comments

2004-12-02T15:57:00.000-05:00

Because, really, why wasn't I accepting them before?

Looking for Adventure, and Whatever Comes My Way

2004-12-02T15:10:00.000-05:00

My apologies to all two or three of my loyal readers who have, no doubt, been coming to this site daily over the last couple of weeks, drumming their fingernails on their desks, clicking and reclicking the refresh buttons on their browsers, desperately wondering if I'm ever going to post an update or if I even made it safely to and from New Orleans on my aforementioned road trip, or if instead I may have accidentally detoured off of the interstate into some little backwoods part of Mississippi and gotten myself recruited into a snake-handling cult, where I might now be demonstrating the fine art of flossing to my fellow parishioners. Stranger things have been known to happen.

Rest assured, I did indeed make it to New Orleans and back in one piece. And I was right about the drive only taking 10 hours -- though I managed to add half an hour to my travel time on the way down. But, believe me, that 20-minute wait at Starbucks in Montgomery, Alabama, for my Venti Gingerbread Latte was SO worth it -- Starbucks having appeared like a beacon in the darkest night, just as I was preparing myself for what I thought was an inevitable encounter with bitter, burnt, God-only-knows-how-long-it's-been-since-someone-cleaned-the-carafe gas station coffee.

Oh, and speaking of gas stations, that little incident further down the road at one of the scariest fueling stations I could have found in all of Alabama, in which I inadvertently managed to overflow my gas tank, gas pouring down the side of my car and into a puddle on the ground before I even realized what was happening, added some time to the drive, as well.

It turns out that those sensors that are supposed to shut off the gas pump automatically when the tank is full don't work all of the time. And while you may think you're being very street-smart by turning the pump on and waiting inside of your car while the tank fills up because you're a woman alone at night in what appears to be a shady part of "town," you only end up looking like an idiot when you have to jump frantically out of the car and yank the pump out of your tank while gasoline literally puddles at your feet.

And gas is getting awfully expensive to just be pouring onto the ground -- though I tried to think of it as a tribute to my former cars that couldn't be there with me. In the meantime, I wasn't about to start my little Honda Civic without first calling my dad and getting some reassurance that I likely was NOT going to die in a fiery explosion the moment I turned the key in the ignition. I'm happy to report that I did not go up in flames.

It was around 1:30 in the morning when I finally arrived at my parents' house, disheveled from the drive, hyped up on caffeine and smelling like BP unleaded. The very picture, I'm sure, of what my parents once envisioned when they looked at their youngest daughter and imagined what she might be like when she grows up.

Good Enough for Me and Bobby McGee

2004-11-18T16:45:00.000-05:00

By this time tomorrow, I'll be heading out on the open road -- sunroof open, stereo blaring, me singing along at the top of my lungs as if I were some legendary rockstar. In concert.

Depending on who you ask, the exact distance between my office and my parents' house in New Orleans is either 717.5 miles or 719.4 miles. Yahoo! Maps seems to think the drive takes about 11 hours 2 minutes, while Mapquest is putting its money on 11 hours, 30 minutes.

I'm glad I'm not letting either of them do the driving.

My plan is to leave straight from work tomorrow at 4:00, thus beating the hectic Columbia rush hour (which, by the way, is a complete joke by DC area traffic jam standards). I expect it will take about 10 hours, give or take the possibility that I might get tired along the way and opt for a Motel 6 rather than fall asleep on behind the wheel (relaxing as sleep-driving can be). Given the time zone change, I expect I'll get there about 1 a.m. Central Time. Or beer-thirty, as I like to think of it.

In the meantime, you may see me driving along on the highway, holding up a Bic lighter through the sunroof, demanding that I do an encore. It's when I start screaming "Freebird!" that you should really worry.

Trouble in Paradise

2004-11-16T15:50:00.000-05:00

Kevin and I have an recurring argument: I say that Jinx would be the perfect name for a pet monkey. He says Rupert. Not that we have a pet monkey or are getting one any time in the near future. Or even entertain the notion that we might someday, many, many years down the line, own a monkey. But still...

Is there any hope at all for this relationship?

The Dreaded Office Potluck

2004-11-15T15:00:00.000-05:00

"ARE YOUR READY TO FEAST? On Monday, November 15, 2004, we will have a FELLOWSHIP & FEAST in the Private Dinning Room from 11:30 until 1:00. A sign-up sheet will be placed on the bulletin board in the Marketing Services area. We have so many new people in the area. What better way to get to know them?"

I knew from the moment I opened the email that nothing good could come of this. Forced fraternization among a department of 30 or 40 people, who might rather be off taking a real lunch hour, away from the building, than pretending to be excited about the spread of questionable casseroles of indeterminate origin.

It's a tradition that, no doubt, dates back to the very first office, in which cavemen were coerced, in the spirit of forced camaraderie, to drag in animal carcasses to share with one another. The catch being that you knew what kind of animal you'd nabbed, where and how you'd stalked and killed it, how long it had been rotting in your cave -- the only cave you could ensure was kept up to your standards of cleanliness. Meanwhile, you had no idea even what species your officemates had hauled in. But had to grunt gleefully in appreciation of their efforts. Come to think of it, potlucks really haven't changed all that much since the days of the cave people, save for casseroles being the new carcasses.

The sign-up sheet for today's potluck had been posted on the bulletin board for nearly a full week, in plain view, where we could all happen by and see who'd signed up for what -- ever anticipating the gourmet creations we were soon to delight in. It was broken into sections, with a certain number of blanks for desserts, for drinks, for main dishes, for side items, etc., thus ensuring that we had plenty of variety and had all bases covered. (You know you're in the South when someone lists "macaroni and cheese" under "vegetables!") So, it was with eager anticipation that we counted down the minutes to the big occasion!

For my part, I chipped in, along with the gals I usually lunch with, for a plate of finger sandwiches. None of which I ate. It turned out that we'd ordered a plate of salad-type sandwiches -- chicken salad, egg salad, tuna salad, ham salad and other mayonnaise-y creations. And since I don't like mayonnaise ... well, let's just say that it's probably not a good sign when you don't even like the food that you're bringing to the potluck!

Ironically, I experienced neither fellowship, nor feast at the "FELLOWSHIP & FEAST" event. Like just about everyone else, I put enough food on my plate to be polite and then took my seat at a table with people I'm already friends with -- people in my immediate group that I work closely with every day. And then, much like the cave people, we all watched the clock and wondered how long we were obligated to stick around. Except that the cave people probably had to stare at a sundial or something, but you know what I mean...

Say, is that leftover carcass on the back table??

But it's ONLY November

2004-11-15T13:13:00.000-05:00

Surely I'm not the only person who stubbornly waits until hypothermia sets in to finally break down and put a coat on. Maybe it's because I grew up in New Orleans, where it so rarely gets cold enough before Thanksgiving to warrant even a heavy sweater. But I just can't bring myself to haul out the winter wear before it's even December -- no matter how chilly it gets. It just feels silly to me. I mean, this is South Carolina after all -- it's not exactly known for its blizzards. People in the Midwest have got to think we're downright wussy for even owning things like earmuffs (which I, by the way, do not own, as I am not a wuss!).

Still, when I heard the words "overnight freeze warning" in last night's weather forecast and saw today's projected high at just a tad over sixty degrees, I might have thought to grab at least a light jacket before I headed out this morning. But I didn't. No, instead, as I wandered across the parking lot, insulated by only my skirt, thin sweater and pantyhose, amid other folks who were wearing coats and even scarves, I pretended not to be shivering, so as not to appear like a complete idiot for not having dressed appropriately for the weather.

And, you know, I kind of feel that I'm a little bit better than everyone else for not having broken down and put on my coat already. Clearly, I'm a lot tougher than these other pansies, don't ya think? Yeah, that's the ticket!

Jeans Day

2004-11-12T10:16:00.000-05:00

Today is one of many Fridays when we were offered the option of wearing jeans to work if, and only if, we contributed to some cause. My company is big on bribing its employees in this fashion. Sometimes it's to encourage us to give to the United Way. Sometimes it's for heart diseaase or cancer research. Sometimes it's to raise money for a group of coworkers who have teamed up to walk for juvenile diabetes or to ride bikes for multiple sclerosis. And sometimes, like today, it's to solicit donations for the food bank. Otherwise known as a chance to clean out the pantry and finally unload some of those items you must have been smoking crack when you bought. Like those "No Salt Added" greenbeans that I brought in with me this morning. I mean, really, no salt added?? What was I thinking?

You Don't Have to Go Home, But You Can't Stay Here

2004-11-10T17:20:00.000-05:00

One of the great things about New Orleans is that the bars don't ever close. Well, some of them do. But there are no laws forcing them to. So if the one bar you're sitting in starts to shut down and the bartenders begin to mop the floors around you (Erika knows what I'm talking about here, having more than once been the person sitting next to me on the only other bar stool that's not yet upside down on the bar), and you're not feeling quite done for the night, you can always find another place to go. In fact, a real pro already has a strategy mapped out.

Back when I was finally finishing up my sixth and final year of getting my bachelor's degree, my sister Gina and I had our strategy nailed down perfectly. We'd start at the Bulldog on Magazine Street -- with fifty beers on tap and some of the best bar food on the planet (mmm... crawfish banditos!). Plus, we knew the bartenders, which I'm fairly certain had something to do with our bill always coming to no more than $7.50, no matter what we ordered. It was a great time.

When the Bulldog shut down, usually around two in the morning, we'd head up the road the road to the Half Moon, where we typically would find most of the guys who had just gotten off work at the Bulldog. We knew the Half Moon bartenders, too -- they were the kind of servers who, just when you were saying to yourself, "Okay, I'm getting out of here just as soon as I finish this drink," a fresh new drink would appear on the bar right in front of you. Like magic. So, we often ended up staying there until they shut their doors around four or five.

If we were still going by then, there was always the Club on St. Charles, which NEVER closes (you know you're in trouble when they start pulling down the thick curtains so that people inside won't be able to tell that the sun is coming up). There's nothing quite like stumbling out of that place at seven in the morning, the sun shining painfully bright in your eyes, and nearly getting taken down by a jogger.

Ah, memories! (fuzzy as they are)

I mention this not to illustrate my history of all-night barhopping, but because today is Gina's birthday, and in light of the occasion, I can't help but reflect on that space in time when we went from being simply big sister and little sister, to being amazing friends. The kind of friends who can stay up all night talking about anything and everything, laughing our asses off, without even realizing how quickly the hours are melting away, save for having to get up every now and again to find a new place to sit and talk.

Our lives have changed a lot since then. I now live in a different state -- one that won't even sell beer on Sundays, much less allow the sinners to stay out partying all night long on school nights. And Gina's got two beautiful young boys to raise -- who don't yet have the fake IDs necessary to get them into the all-night bar scene. But we're still close as ever -- still continuing on that same conversation, as we move from one space to the next. Although we won't be clinging together our beer glasses tonight, I hope that she's having a very happy birthday!

The Magic Touch

2004-11-09T11:10:00.000-05:00

The other day as I was closing the laptop, it made a sort of cracking sound -- you know, the sound of plastic breaking? The hinge that connects the screen on one side hasn't been right ever since. The bottom part of it is coming apart, and neither Kevin nor I can seem to get it properly snapped back into place. So, now it makes a cracking sound -- you know, the sound of plastic further breaking? -- every time it opens or closes. I'm thinking it's only a matter of time before I manage to rip the screen right off of the laptop altogether, in which I'll have my very own flat-screen monitor! Connected, of course, in the most ghetto way possible to the other half of the laptop, which I will no doubt find some other way to break.

But there's always a silver lining, right? Being the optimistic gal that I am, I'm already seeing a number of good things that could come of this situation. For instance, once I've successfully managed to transition our laptop from a mere portable computer into two separate components, perhaps we could take the new "flat-screen monitor" portion and fashion it into a makeshift TV -- a fancy flat-screen TV! It would really be fantastic considering that I, um... well, I broke the TV, too.

It happened yesterday when I came home from work. It had been working fine when I was home during lunch. But for some reason, in the post-work hours, having kicked off my shoes and settled down on the futon, hoping to catch some Access Hollywood or That 70s Show reruns, when I tried to turn the TV on, nothing happened. At first, I assumed it was the remote control (stupid remote control!), but none of the other five hundred remote controls seemed to be doing any good either (stupid collection of various Sony remote controls linking all of our Sony television / DVD / stereo / Playstation2 components!). I even got up off of the futon and walked across the room and attempted to turn the TV on the old-fashioned way. But when I pressed the "power" button, still nothing happened. So, I flipped through a catalog and gabbed on the phone with my sister until Kevin got home.

Two hours later, we had that baby pried open and, with the aid of a flashlight (which is actually part of a flashlight / fluorescent lantern /radio-with-siren thing that I got by smoking a whole lot of Marlboro cigarettes back in my wilder days), we managed to find a fuse. We're hoping that it's the culprit, though we were unable to find a replacement last night, as the fuses in the Christmas light aisle at our local Target were not the right size or voltage. Kevin's going to try to hit Radio Shack during lunch or after work, and see if he can't get us up and running again. In the meantime, we're making do with my old TV -- the one that once graced my bachelorette pad. It's a 19-inch, bottom-of-the-line Daewoo. We couldn't even connect the digital cable and DVD player to it without routing them through the VCR. And the picture sort of bends at the corners, and the color is a bit off in splotches that sort of seem to travel around the screen.

Yes, it's that bad.

For what it's worth, I also effed up dinner. I seem to be on a roll. You may not want to let me near your children.

Minibottle Watch 2004: The Voters Have Spoken

2004-11-03T15:08:00.000-05:00

I'm happy to report that South Carolina voters yesterday elected, by a huge margin, to repeal the minibottle law! Bye-bye minibottles!

Hooray!!!

Good to the Last Drop!

2004-11-03T09:36:00.000-05:00

This morning I went down to the cafeteria here at work, as I always do, to get a cup of coffee. Only today, instead of topping it off with my usual half-and-half and a couple packets of Equal, securing the lid and carrying my coffee to the register to pay for it, I did this: spilled it all over myself.

I'm not talking about a little dribble on my shirt either. I'm talking half a cup of hot coffee down the front of my skirt and puddling around my feet. Thank God I decided to wear dark colors today! Naturally, I was more embarrassed than anything. I tried as hard as I could to turn invisible as cafeteria staff hurriedly gathered around making sure I hadn't been hurt -- and they had the whole mess mopped up before I could finish remaking my coffee. Because, you know, as embarrassed and suddenly alert as I was, I still needed my fix.

Election Fever!

2004-11-02T15:34:00.000-05:00

Woohoo! Election Day!!

Kevin and I resisted the urge to go try to be among the first to line up at our polling place. The word on the street is that the lines are VERY LONG. At my office, folks were trickling in one, two, even three hours late, after having stood in line waiting to cast their votes -- and I'm hearing the same from those who braved the lunch crowd. Kevin and I are both leaving work early (around four) to try to beat the five o'clock rush. I can't wait to get my "I Voted" sticker, so I can be part of the IN crowd!

Among other kooky things on our ballot this year, I'm told that there's a guy running for coroner who is running for TWO separate parties. So, he's on there TWICE! He could potentially lose to himself! Of course, I'm told he's a real nutcase and that the other candidate -- or pretty much ANY other candidate -- is a better choice. Although, I imagine you have to be a bit of a loon to even want to be coroner in the first place.

Anyway, Happy Voting!! Here's hoping we at least have a clear winner by tomorrow... and no more minibottles!

Now that it's November...

2004-11-01T14:15:00.000-05:00

Did you know that if you walk around a residential neighborhood early in the morning on the day after Halloween, you're bound to find perfectly good candy, still in its wrapper, randomly scattered along the sidewalks? Yeah, me neither! But I was up and walking around this moring, and there it was -- M&Ms, 100 Grand bars, Smarties and more. I could only imagine that it was dropped by trick-or-treaters who either were too little to steadily manage their candy bags, or had their plastic pumpkins so amazingly full that they literally overflowed. Both scenarios made me smile, much as I grieved the sad loss of perfectly good loot. Still, I resisted the urge to collect it up and devour it, as that would have completely negated my purpose of being up and walking around the neighborhood so early.

You see, this morning I hauled my ass out of bed at six -- a full hour earlier than usual, which wasn't all that difficult thanks to the time change. But rather than enjoy a relaxing extra hour of rest, I put on my sneakers and workout clothes and hit the pavement for four good miles -- mostly walking, but with some significant bouts of jogging. It's my new fitness initiative, as we enter that great season of eating known in some circles as "the holidays." I've got to make room! My plan is to do four miles a day, whether I do it running, walking, crawling or even centipeding my way down the street. (In some circles, the break-dance move I refer to as the "centipede" is known as the "worm." I wonder if that's a regional thing...)

I must say, I'm off to a fantastic start! So far, I've stuck to my new plan for one day straight!!

Now if I could just continue to resist the urge to pick up stray pieces of candy on the sidewalk. Not to mention the gazillion tons of leftover Halloween candy that people brought into the office this morning. We didn't have any leftovers ourselves. We completely ran out of candy last night. We were down to just two pieces when I went to turn the porch light off -- one for Kevin, one for me, right? But just then two little witches appeared at the door, and there went the last of our treats!

Trick or Treat!

2004-10-31T18:26:00.000-05:00

I'm so excited -- we're actually getting trick-or-treaters this year! I like to think the little ghouls and goblins are happy for having stopped here, too, since our candy selection rocks. We're giving out Kit-Kats and Heath Bars! (Note: That's HEATH Bars, not HEALTH bars. If we were lame enough to give out HEALTH bars, I should hope the kiddies would come back and roll our house in toilet paper.)

Happy Halloween to all!!

Adventures in Team-Building

2004-10-29T14:56:00.000-04:00

My senior manager came into a meeting the other day and jokingly announced that she was having one of those days when she might rather be on the side of the interstate picking up trash than working here. Haha! Remarks like that sort of make me miss reporting directly to her. The one flaw of my new supervisor (if you recall, there weren't already enough layers of bureaucracy in the health insurance industry, so we added a new one a few months back), whom I sincerely like, is that she's just not cynical enough. While I appreciate the "Great job!" and "Good work!" emails, the sunshine-y, "glass is half full" outlook lacks character. I tend to think a little cynicism helps make the world go 'round.

But I can't really complain about my job this week (actually I can, but I'll take a cue from my new boss and will look on the bright side). We've been playing a lot of games -- I mean, um, participating in a lot of "team-building" activities these last few days.

The first was Compliance Challenge 2004 (which sounds so much cooler when spoken in the booming voice of a wrestling or monster truck show announcer). Each year, all employees are required to endure a refresher course on HIPAA and corporate compliance standards. Usually, this involves an overly energetic trainer reading PowerPoint slides to us and trying to engage the group in discussions about company policy. Only everyone in the room is too busy struggling to keep his or her eyes open to be able to even pay attention. So, this year, they decided to spice things up with a more exciting format -- Compliance Jeopardy!

Except that it wasn't really like Jeopardy at all, save for a decently made replica of the Jeopardy board. It even included Daily Doubles, though they were handled all wrong. When one of the teams got a Daily Double, rather than being able to bet some or all of the points they had already accrued (because gosh knows we weren't playing for money like they do on REAL Jeopardy!), they just doubled the point value of the question. For instance, if you said, "I'll take 'Things That Will Definitely Get You Fired' for 400," and got the Daily Double, the question was then worth 800 points. And anyone could answer it. In fact, you didn't even have to phrase your answer in the form of a question! Um... isn't that the foundation upon which the entire premise of Jeopardy is built?

Then, in lieu of our regularly scheduled ultra-boring team meeting this week, the five of us in my group got together to bond. (It was actually my idea that once a month we should do this in lieu of the usual agenda of our weekly meeting.) We kicked off Tuesday's session with the Two Truths and a Lie game -- the one where everyone says three things about themselves, two of which are true, and one that is a complete lie. And then you try to guess which is the lie. I thought about throwing people off by saying three very outrageous lies just to see if my coworkers might actually believe that two of them were true. For example:

1. Due to an unfortunate childhood accident involving a Lite Brite and a Snoopy Snow Cone Maker, all four fingers on my left hand are actually made of plastic.
2. One time when I was in college, I accidentally killed a guy when I held up a Blockbuster store for beer money, but someone else went to jail for it.
3. When I'm not at work, I always wear a tinfoil hat to keep the aliens from reading my thoughts. But only when I'm not at work. The aliens are totally tapping into my work-related thoughts. (HIPAA should really look into this.)

Which do you think is the lie?

There was even more team-building to be had at our department staff meeting yesterday morning! We split into two teams of six and competed to see who could uncode the most acronymns! Most were health insurance terms such as PPO, HMO, COBRA, etc., but some were a little more obscure. I was so psyched when it was my team's turn and the acronym ANSI came up -- I mean, hello?, shout out to my NEMA days! I still think I should have gotten at least half credit when I suggested "Bell Biv Devoe" for "BBD" (which also refers to one of our plan names). But I don't think they were taking me very seriously after my "OOP, I did it again!" remark (OOP referring to "Out Of Pocket" in insurance-ese).

Oh, the fun never ends.

Brain Overload

2004-10-28T13:30:00.000-04:00

With all the mudslinging preceding the upcoming election, the Boston Red Sox winning the World Series, my fantasy football team returning from an 0-4 start to win three straight games, not to mention a lunar eclipse -- the "blood moon" just days before Halloween, it's no wonder my subconcious mind is getting some wires crosssed.

Last night, I dreamt that Byron Leftwich, quarterback for the Jacksonville Jaguars, was running for president. I'm pretty sure I was going to vote for him, too. Oh, well. Back to being undecided.

As we all know, NFL football has absolutely nothing to do with presidential elections... Or does it?

Very, Very Scary

2004-10-25T23:17:00.000-04:00

In honor of Halloween being officially less than a week away (and in an effort to talk about anything besides the upcoming election), I offer the following top ten list of very, very scary things:

10. Ghosts, poltergeists and voices from beyond the grave

9. The UNdead -- vampires, mummies, zombies and Joan Rivers

8. Werewolves, bats and other creatures of the night

7. UFOs and Aliens

6. Urkel

5. Ninjas

4. Country Line Dancing

3. Dentists

2. Spiders

1. Dentists with mouths full of spiders

Yeah, those things all scare the bejeezus out of me.

Globalization

2004-10-25T11:50:00.000-04:00

The other morning, my boss used the word "global" (or some variation of it) in a meeting. For the rest of the day, I caught myself referring to the "global reach" of that project, or "factors that would apply globally" with regards to this other project, and so forth. I must have said something to that effect four times in our next meeting alone. It was as if I couldn't help but throw the word back out to her. I hope my boss doesn't think I was mocking her. I certainly didn't intend to. Rather, it was as if my brain had fixated on that one corporate buzzword, and I was unable to stop saying it -- I was annoying even myself.

Next thing you know, I'll be saying things like, "implementing innovative solutions for strategic project management process improvement."

In Which I Invoke the Immortal Words of Famed '80s Band Loverboy

2004-10-22T15:03:00.000-04:00

Everybody's workin' for the weekend
Everybody wants a new romance
Everybody's goin' off the deep end
Everybody needs a second chance, Oh

You wanna piece of my heart
You better start from the start
You wanna be in the show
C'mon baby, let's go!

Now, I won't pretend to understand the deeper meaning behind Loverboy lyrics. I'm sure there's some really serious philosophical undertones that I'm not hip or intellectual enough to get -- I mean, especially that part about starting from the start? I totally hear them on the "workin' for the weekend" thing, though. I am so freaking glad today is Friday that I might very well turn the volume on my car stereo to full-blast if I happen to be lucky enough to catch this gem on the radio on my drive home.

It could happen, too -- most radio stations love to recycle this kind of stuff on their Friday evening rush-hour shows (right after they sound the "five o'clock whistle"!), as part of a Weekend Kickoff montage that includes such standards as "I don't wanna work; I wanna bang on these drums all day" and "Take this job and shove it." Now that I think about it, the whole thing sort of suggests that a lot of people don't particularly like their jobs. Or maybe are just real lazy and don't like working at all. Hmmm...

Is it five o'clock yet?

The Count

2004-10-20T15:46:00.001-04:00

'Tis the season to scare the bejeezus out of ourselves by watching scary movies (and, if we're lucky enough to catch them, those documentaries that the History Channel sometimes broadcasts around this time of year about ghosts, witches, werewolves, vampires and all things supernatural -- I love those!). Since we're newly ordained Netflix nerds, we've been taking full advantage of our newfound access to just about any DVD we can think of to get our hands on some of the classic horror flicks. (We actually have framed vintage movie posters for Creature from the Black Lagoon, Phantom of the Opera, The Invisible Man and Frankenstein hanging in our den. Nerds like us were made for Netflix.)

Last night's feature was the classic 1931 version of Dracula, a role Bela Lugosi made famous. Not to mention a film that would more than half a century later be remade to feature the fine acting talents of Winona Ryder, who Kevin says has the screen presence of a salt shaker, and Keanu Reeves, whose acting Kevin likens to that of a pepper shaker. More than once, after a few drinks, Kevin has reached for the salt and pepper shakers at a bar and has stood them side by side and proclaimed it to be a reenactment of one of the many well-done scenes in said remake. But I digress...

There are many things that set these older, classic films apart from newer releases in the horror genre -- and I'm not just talking about how difficult it was for us to watch the version of Phantom of the Opera that corresponds with our poster, which turned out to not even be a "talkie" and proved difficult to read by the third glass of wine. I'm talking rather about how much more challenging it was for filmmakers to create a sense of fear and terror, without being able to fall back on computer-generated special effects, creepy musical scores, realistic blood-and-guts stage make-up, or, you know, color.

To make Dracula seem like a real badass, Bela Lugosi employed all sorts of eerie, over-the-top facial expressions, his make-up emphasizing his dark features against his pale, "undead" complexion. For added effect, dramatic lighting seemed to shine directly in his eyes every time the camera focused in on him. Truth be told, compared to some of the villains in recent horror movies, Bela looked about this scary:

Of course, it was 1931.

Monday Again Already?

2004-10-18T11:10:00.000-04:00

Well, another weekend has cruised by at warp speed, while the few hours I've spent here at work so far this morning already feels like an eternity. Ours was another whirlwind weekend. We jumped in the car Saturday morning and drove up to Fredericksburg, Virginia because that's one of the places I sometimes go to meet up with old friends of mine from Louisiana (makes a lot of sense, don't it?). Sarah and Jo drove up from New Orleans, and Allison came down from Arlington, and much beer was had, while we had these types of discussions:

"Damn, what happened to all those years between college and 30?"

and

"Cori and Matt's kids are never going to fully appreciate the caliber of party that was once thrown in this house!" (Cori has proclaimed that they shall never find out.)

and

"Remember that time when..."

It was a fun night, but a quick one. Kevin and I were back in the car early yesterday morning, listening to the NFL broadcasts on our Sirius radio, trying to glean as much fantasy football info as possible, because we're fantasy football nerds like that.

Old Navy Denim

2004-10-15T16:20:00.000-04:00

Since we've at last reached a point in the season when it finally feels like fall (our predicted high for today was just 65 beautiful degrees), and since I'd chucked every old pair of jeans I had when we moved, I decided it was high time to reintegrate denim into my wardrobe (despite still not being the size I was hoping to be before making such a purchase). So, during my lunch hour today, I headed to Old Navy and went straight to the stacks of folded jeans along the back wall.

I grabbed a size Fat Ass in a couple of different styles -- one being the traditional relaxed fit and the other being something a little younger and hipper, just in case I might discover that the barely-covering-my-crotch, low-rise style is actually quite fetching on me. And yes, the tags were clearly marked "Fat Ass" -- I even grabbed a "Fatter Ass" size of each just in case.

For kicks, I tried on the low-rise ones first, and it turns out I can pull off the "look at my butt crack" look just as well as most of the young girls I see around town -- which is, you know, not well at all. Of all the girls I've ever seen sporting this look, only about a handful didn't look as if their midsections were so huge that their guts were spilling out over the waistband. To make matters worse, these jeans were manufactured with that stretch fabric. So my midsection actually was spilling out over the waistband. And this was the "Fatter Ass" size. I began seriously to consider a combination of lyposuction, gastric bypass surgery, and having my jaw wired shut. Not that I was even close to stretching the stretch denim to its full stretch potential. I probably could have fit in the pair two sizes smaller had I tried (and most girls seem to try).

Still, after trying on the first pair, I wasn't feeling very confident about there being enough denim on the planet to cover all that swing on my back porch. I began to think I might have crossed that line between being able to shop at places like Old Navy and having to shop at specialty stores with names like "Bertha's Youthful Stouts" or "Laverne's Livin' Large Boutique" or "Tent World." As if it's not hard enough for me, at six feet tall, to find clothes that fit. I don't think there are any "Big and Tall" women's warehouses in Columbia. I felt myself expanding right there in the dressing room. Soon, I imagined, I'd be relegated to wearing muumuus and buying my clothes on QVC because I'll be too fat to leave the house.

But I wasn't going to be deterred so easily. I had to at least try on another pair. I'd given up my usual practice of eating food for this. I'd trekked what I'm sure was one of the least efficient routes to get to the mall from my office, and had sat through some of the worst lunchtime rush traffic. I wasn't going to throw in the towel without trying on the "Relaxed Fit" "Weekend" jeans (not to be confused with the jeans you might wear during the week to the office -- or to cocktail parties!). So, I bit the bullet. I took a deep breath and prepared to squeeze my fat thighs into the jeans... only these didn't have to stretch. And they weren't even the "Fatter Ass" size, but merely the "Fat Ass" size. And they FIT! They were even sorta slimming. And they were only twenty-five bucks!

I briefly entertained the notion that I might buy two pairs just in case I never again happen upon jeans that fit me so well. But then I remembered... these effing jeans had better be too effing big for me by Thanksgiving. I'm detmerined to show up a little slimmer when I see my family and Kevin's family in late November. Perhaps by then, they will have been downgraded to my baggy pair... which will work perfectly for Thanksgiving Day "eating pants!"

"Our State Fair is a Great State Fair!"

2004-10-15T14:20:00.000-04:00

Last night we went to the South Carolina State Fair. It was our last chance to go since we'll be out of town most of the weekend, and come Monday, it will be time for the carnies to dismantle the rickety Ferris wheels, pull down the awnings on the fairway games, clean up the vomit outside of the Gravitron, hitch the food stands to the backs of their trailers and haul on out of town, no doubt on the way to set up in some other city.

To be honest, the idea of the Fair is almost always better than the Fair itself. When you first catch a glimpse of the lights and the rides, and see the crowds of people lining up to buy tickets, you get anxious to reach those gates yourself. But once you get in, and take a closer look, well... suffice to say, it's a far cry from Disney World. The rides look scary for all the wrong reasons (some didn't look safe to even stand next to). The livestock smells. And even if there was a chance of winning one of the fairway games, who (over the age of seven) really wants a Care Bear so big you'd have to open the sunroof of the car to get it home?

We did enjoy seeing the prize-winning 252-pound pumpkin and feeding some of the animals in the petting zoo. (The llamas were hysterical!) But mostly, we just walked around and engorged ourselves on high-fat, high-cholesterol, high-calorie fair food. Which pretty much included anything you could deep fry and/or put on a stick. There were fried Oreos, fried twinkies, fried candybars, fried mushrooms, fried cheese sticks, corndogs, funnel cakes and elephant ears... I think next year I might set up my own stand right outside of the gates. I'll be peddling syrup of ipecac for those folks who want to avoid digesting any of the crap they just ate. I imagine I'll make a fortune.

Birthday-Palooza!!!

2004-10-12T14:33:00.000-04:00

In addition to it being the traditional Columbus Day, there are three very important things about today, which I simply must address:

1. My baby brother is 27 years old. Which seems downright impossible to me at times, as I still envision him as the eight-year old kid brother who used to tie his GIJoe men to the ceiling fan blades with fishing line and set them aflight, burying them in the backyard if the mission ended badly; the kid who had a crush on my friend Sarah when we were in middle school and promised he would marry her someday; the kid who, at sixteen or so, cracked us both up by yelling, "We got NO BRAKES!" to a couple of rollerbladers on the side of the road when I was driving the van down Harvey Blvd; the little boy who stuck a whole sheetful of red heart stickers on his face one year at Valentine's Day. My brother and I share a sick sense of humor, a dorky little dance that we made up, memories of a time I spun the aforementioned van out 180 degrees on a particularly rainy day on Terry Parkway, which we vowed never to speak of again (oops!). Happy Birthday, Brian!!!

2. My niece Lauren, Brian's little girl born on his own birthday, is 2 years old. I missed the little party they had for her at my parents' house last night, but it was only because of geography. I'd have been there in a heartbeat to see Lauren blow out her birthday candles, with her cousins Elizabeth, Owen and Hayden there to cheer her on. Every time I see Lauren, she seems even more darling. On the last day of my last visit to New Orleans, she, Brian and I sat in the backseat of my dad's car on the way back from our lunch at Drago's, and she kept "accidentally" reaching over and touching my arm from her carseat, then giggling shyly as she pulled her hand away, and then she'd do it all over again. I took a 15-second video of her hugging and kissing her beloved plush "Puppy," which I play for people I know every now and again just to show them how cute she is. Happy Birthday, Lauren! I can't believe you are two already!

3. My best friend Cori is 30!! Welcome to the crowd, babe! Now you're a thirtysomething just like me and Erika! I first met Cori when we were in the third grade, and I can remember so vividly her 8th birthday party, when my mom gave us a single check for $5.00 for the birthday girl, not realizing that it was a double party for both Cori and Sarah (Sarah's birthday is on the 21st). Yeah, so they had to split it. I can confirm that Cori is THE BEST FRIEND that two dollars and fifty cents can buy!! Kevin and I are actually headed up to Fredericksburg this weekend for a birthday party for all of the October birthdays -- Cori, Sarah (she and her mom are driving up from New Orleans), Lois (2 years old on the 3rd), Allison (who became a thirtysomething herself just this past weekend), and some assorted Frednecks. It's the least I can do for the girl who managed to get my whole family and my best friends together in Raleigh this summer to surprise me for my own 30th birthday! Happy Birthday, Cori!!

Coincidentally, when I mentioned to my boss that today was my brother's, my niece's and my best friend's birthday, she said, "Oh, it's my husband's birthday, too!" What is it about this day?

Overheard in Cubicle-Land

2004-10-08T10:54:00.000-04:00

"If you have a cold and you take that shot, you get the flu!"

This is such a myth, and as a health writer, I can't help but feel annoyed that misinformation like this persists. You cannot get the flu from getting the flu shot. The vaccine is made from a dead virus. Sure, some people have reactions to it and some people still manage to get the flu despite having gotten the shot, and some people even end up with the flu the same week they get the shot (the immunity takes a couple of weeks to build up). But no one gets the flu from the shot.

Of course, most of us won't even be able to get flu shots this year due to the supply being cut in half suddenly. Our usual free flu shot clinic here at work has already been cancelled. I'm kind of bummed about that, to be honest. I always get flu shots, and here's why:

1. I'm a pain in the ass to be around when I'm sick. Just ask Kevin. I whine and I moan and I toss and turn and I am just miserable. It's really a bad scene.

2. I hate to waste perfectly good sick days on actually being sick. Where I work, we don't really have allotted "sick" days to begin with, but rather a pool of "annual leave" days that are to be rationed as we see fit for sick time, personal time, vacation time, etc. In other words, sick days = vacation days, and who wouldn't rather use those days for vacation?

3. Even when I didn't get free flu shots, the $15-20 I generally spent on them was always less than what I would have spent on TheraFlu, kleenex, Nyquil, Tylenol, chicken soup, throat lozenges, etc. to help me cope with actually getting the flu.

4. I work in a large office building. Hundreds of people work here, and we all share elevators, a cafeteria, bathrooms, door knobs, conference rooms, stairwells, etc. If someone here gets the flu (and what are the odds that the entire population of folks working for BlueCross will avoid the flu -- especially in a year when none of us can get our free flu shots), chances are we're all going to get it. Which means I'll get it, too, and that makes me feel so sorry for poor Kevin who will have to deal with my whining.

I must be psychic!

2004-10-07T10:01:00.000-04:00

Last night I dreamt that I was running late for work and then, what do you know, I actually ended up being late to work this morning! (Cue "Twilight Zone" music!) Do you think maybe I should buy a lottery ticket while I'm on such a roll with this intuition of mine?

I was really only running about five minutes behind schedule. But where I work that's plenty late enough to guarantee that you won't be parking anywhere even remotely near the building. In fact, I suspect the area of the parking lot where I ended up finding a spot may not even be in Richland County -- perhaps not even the state of South Carolina. So naturally, I got almost all the way to the entrance when I realized I left my water in my car. And sure, it's just water, but I paid for that fancy bottled water, so dammit, I'm not just gonna let it sit out in my car and bake in the hot sun all day. So, long story short, between parking in the East Jesus Land sector of the parking lot at work, walking almost all the way to the building, then walking all the way back to my car, and then walking all the way back to the building again, my five minutes late turned into much more like 15 minutes late. It's a slippery slope, I tell ya!

In case you're wondering why I've not updated this blog for nearly (gasp!) a full week, I offer the following list of distractions that have been eating up my incredibly short span of attention as of late:

1. Kevin and I signed up for Netflix! That's right -- DVD rentals delivered right to your mailbox! Our first shipment of movies shipped Monday and were in our hands the very next day, and we have already shipped two of them back. It's a good thing we're motoring through them so quickly, as we already have some dozens of movies queued up. And we'll never have to stand in line at Blockbuster again! What the heck took us so long to sign up for this magic?

2. Our long awaited Cost Plus World Market finally opened. It's the first one in Columbia -- and we'd been patiently waiting for it to open since they announced they were building it last year. Having lived in Northern Virgina, we were spoiled for having ready access to just about any store you could put in a strip mall. Columbia, on the other hand, just got its second Starbucks location this past year. You could imagine our excitement as we wandered up and down the aisles of ethnic spices and sauces, some of which we'd all but given up on ever finding in this town. At one point, I overheard another giddy customer make a long distance call from his cell phone and say something the effect of, "You will not believe this. I am standing here in Columbia, South Carolina looking at a whole shelf dedicated to [some foodstuff I did not catch the name of]..." It was good to know we were not the only ones awestruck by this new mecca.

3. Our Internet access at home seems to be on the fritz. It waivers between working very slowly and unreliably and not working at all. It's been particularly annoying when we're trying to watch football on Sundays and are simultaneously staring at the computer screen waiting for the stats to refresh on GameCenter on NFL.com, so we can keep up with our fantasy football scores. I'm beginning to suspect that the stoner who installed our cable connection may have done a bit of a slack job.

Our Civic Duty

2004-10-01T14:03:00.000-04:00

Having put it off until nearly the last available moment, Kevin and I officially registered to vote during our lunch hour today (tomorrow being the last day to register in time to vote in the Nov. 2 elections). Not that we hadn't ever registered before, but we just hadn't gotten around to it here in South Carolina, since there haven't really been any major elections since we moved here.

Of course, we felt very strongly about getting in under the wire for this one. As we all know, this is a very important election. When we go to the polls this November, we'll have a great opportunity to make a real change in the way we live our lives and in the way people from other lands perceive us. That's right, I'm talking about repealing the South Carolina mini-bottle law.

If you haven't been to South Carolina, you may not realize this, but our state laws mandate that bars and restaurants can only serve liquor from those little bottles most people associate with hotel mini-bars and airline beverage carts. Bars in our state always have little shelves full of them. It's silly really. I mean, what a waste of packaging.

It does tend to make for a strong drink though. If you order, say, a screwdriver, in one of our bars, you can rest assured that there is an entire mini-bottle of vodka in it. (Incidentally, a JUMBO, BIG-GULP size margarita has no more liquor in it than its smaller cousin.) Drinks like Long Island tea, which have multiple liquors in them, can't even be ordered by the glass, but rather by the pitcher. (Yet we're still scratching our heads wondering why we're leading the nation in drunk-driving fatalities per capita...)

We're the only state left in the nation that has such a law (props to Oklahoma for keeping us from being the only state where tattooing is illegal). This November, the fine citizens of South Carolina will get a chance to vote for change. I've got a good feeling about this, and I'm hoping that it's just the beginning! Maybe next we could tackle the blue laws!!! (Of course, we'd probably better get to it before these freaks move in and try to take over our state and secede from the Union...)

You got served! Word.

2004-09-30T09:41:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking that, as an alternative to tonight's presidential debate, I might like for the candidates to dance fight for my vote. Dick Cheney could bring the boom box, and John Edwards can spread out the sheet of cardboard. I bet Dubya's got some rad moves! And John Kerry might catch the attention of some of those coveted swing voters if he just loosened up a bit and maybe did a few backspins.

I happen to know that this is one of my best ideas yet. Just look at my horoscope:

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): You are in a brilliant mental mode and can brainstorm problems with ease. Be careful not to show off too much, as partners could become jealous. Your words can reach a wide audience, and your ideas will be taken seriously.

Indecision, It's What's for Dinner

2004-09-29T19:38:00.000-04:00

Because we haven't gone on a real grocery shopping expedition in quite some time, the one thing we were sure of regarding dinner was that it would involve a trip to the neighborhood Piggly Wiggly. Neither of us had any meal ideas, but we figured if we wandered around for long enough, looking at the assorted food items, sooner or later we'd get a hankering to eat some combination of them, right? Wrong.

We leisurely strolled around for a good twenty minutes up and down the aisles, past the usual selections in our varied dinner rotation. Nothing seemed particularly fetching -- save for an elderly gentleman near the meat counter wearing plaid pants AND a plaid short sleeved, button-down shirt, tucked into said plaid pants. And they weren't even coordinating plaids -- making the outfit that much more intriguing. I suggested to Kevin that seeing an individual decked out in such an outfit must surely be some sort of omen.

Apparently he agreed because shortly thereafter we were out of that store and cruising around town, trying to think of a restaurant where we might let someone else cook for us. But nothing was really appealing to our tastebuds there either -- each place was either too packed, or we'd eaten there too recently, or we just weren't in the mood for that type of cuisine. I was beginning to think we might have to eat leftovers or something (eating leftovers being the Anne-and-Kevin equivalent to eating shoe leather -- we'd have to be desperately in need of nourishment to even consider it, which doesn't seem to stop us from feeling obliged to fill our refrigerator with rotting containers of week-old food, mind you...).

And then it occurred to us: We could have someone both make our food and bring it to us, to be eaten in the comfort of our own home!! Two words: Wing Zone!

God bless hot wings delivered right to your door!!

T is for Truancy

2004-09-29T19:07:00.001-04:00

The high school called again last night to let me know that my child didn't show up at school yesterday. It was the same automated message I received Friday -- the same type of message my own high school used to employ to alert parents when their kids were absent.

Our strategy was always to intercept these calls, and if need be (i.e., if a parent were in the room), make like it was a different call altogether.

Ring! Ring!

Me: Hello?

Automated Message: This is a call from John Ehret High School...

Me: Oh, Erika? Hey, how are you?

Automated Message: Your child was not in school today...

Me: Oh, yeah, school was great today -- well, except that pop quiz. It was a real doozy! ... Uh-huh. Oh, you have to go now? Okay, bye.

Click.

Mission Accomplished.

I'm sure I thought I was terribly suave. Oh, but the work I would have saved myself had I been clever enough to give the school the wrong phone number from the get-go! That's just brilliant!

In case you don't already know this about me, I'm not actually the mother of a high school student. I'm only 30 years old -- so, clearly that would be impossible. Now, before you try to tell me that plenty of 30-year-olds actually do have teenage children (I once worked with a woman who was a grandmother by age 35!), allow me to explain: my parents would have commenced killing me had I come to them at the tender age of 14 or 15 and informed them that they were going to be grandparents. But I digress...

I like to think that if I did have a teenage son or daughter, he or she would possess the brilliance to have come up such a devious scheme -- the criminal mastermind-type genius to concoct a way to be able to ditch school without later having to spend the better part of the evening standing precariously near the telephone in the kitchen, pretending not to be waiting for it to ring. I can't help but feel strangely proud of my pseudo-child for having done it.

Of course, I also think it builds character for children to learn certain lessons the hard way -- lessons such as "Why you should double check to make sure the fake number you're putting on your school registration forms doesn't belong a smartass with a lot of time on her hands."

The automated message told me I needed to write a note explaining my child's absence, and I'm thinking about sending one in! Let's see...

Dear School Administrator,

Thank you so much for alerting me to the fact that my child wasn't in school on both Friday, September 24 and Tuesday, September 28. I can't really explain the absence. You see, my child didn't show up at home either. I don't know what to do. Sometimes it feels as if my child and I don't really know one another at all. Perhaps it might be insightful for us all if you, my child and I all got together for a conference to discuss some of the more challenging issues that have arisen as of late. I think it could be a real breakthrough for us all.

Sincerely,
A Concerned Parent

Just imagine the look on that kid's face when I show up for the conference!!

**Update: Just got another call -- my kid skipped school AGAIN today!!

The Little Things

2004-09-27T17:56:00.000-04:00

I stopped at the Shell station on my way home from work (there's nothing quite like the combination of bad weather and Monday to guarantee that my gas light will come on at some point during the day). There I was, filling my tank, when a complete stranger came out of the store and walked directly over to me. At first I thought he was about to hit me up for change or try to sell me Amway out of the trunk of his car. But instead, he looked me right in the eye, motioned his Saran-wrapped convenience store cookie toward me and said, "Excuse me, ma'am, I saw you from inside the store, and I just have to say that you are one gorgeous-looking woman." I didn't know what to say. So, I made like a Citibank commercial and in a socially awkward moment simply said, "Thank You," and continued pumping my gas. And he just walked back to his car. I had to smile.

Suddenly in a good mood, I turned my radio up and sang nice and loud the rest of the drive home. And, just after I got off my exit, I happened behind an SUV that was adorned with one of the best bumper stickers I think I've ever seen. It said "Cleverly Disguised as a Reasonable Adult." How ironic would it have been if I'd stolen it?

Actual Conversation

2004-09-26T01:18:00.000-04:00

She said: I'd really like to have my parents up here one of these days. I'd like for my family to finally meet your family.

He said: Maybe we could arrange a paint-ball tournament.

She said: Huh?

He said: Don't you think paint-ball would be a great way for our families to get to know each other?

This Just In

2004-09-24T15:04:00.000-04:00

Dogs can smell cancer! I bet my cats can, too. They're brilliant creatures. They're just not all that helpful or altruistic. If my cats sensed that I had cancer or some other debilitating condition, they likely would just shrug their little shoulders and carry on with their ruining of the furniture. (Tip for cat owners: Don't ever make the mistake of assuming your cats will regard a rattan chair as anything other than a scratching post.)

In other news, a guy in Missouri officially changed his name to "They." I can only imagine how this might further confuse those who already struggle with proper subject/pronoun agreement -- people who like to use the plural form of a pronoun as a catch-all, especially in instances when the gender is unknown. Often a person who makes this mistake may not realize that they're butchering the English language (incorrect pronoun used on purpose to help illustrate a point). For example, this sentence includes a common grammatical error: "Everyone seems to think that they know how to use proper grammar." This sentence, on the other hand, is now grammatically correct: "After the individual in Missouri got a legal name change, They was featured in Yahoo! News." Painful, isn't it?

Oh, and while I'm doing a little round-up of the news, I may as well comment on my horoscope for today. Now, I don't put much stock in horoscopes, but just what does the astrologer for the Washington Post think I do for a living?

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Passions are running high, so dress seductively. The more expensive you look, the more likely you will attract clientele with money to burn. Someone is likely to pull out all the stops to have his or her way with you.

Hello Sinus Headache, My Old Friend

2004-09-24T09:03:00.000-04:00

I woke up this morning with the familiar feeling of daggers stabbing me behind the eye. Must be something in the air. Lucky for me, I don't get seasonal allergies so bad that I spend entire seasons with itchy, watery eyes, congested to the gills, leaving a trail of snot rags everywhere I go. (Poor Kevin!)

To be honest, I don't recall having any trouble with seasonal allergies at all until I moved to Northern Virginia. I think this is largely because, until then, I hadn't really experienced living in a climate that has all four seasons. In New Orleans, where I grew up, there really only are two: Intolerably Hot and Humid and The Other One, which typically lasts just those few short months between Thanksgiving and Mardi Gras. My theory is that I simply never developed much of a tolerance to pollen. And so, when I moved to the DC area, land of flowering trees and Claritin, my histamine response went wild.

I can remember days in Virginia when the grass and tree pollen in the air was so potent that in the time it took me to walk from the office to my car, I'd sneeze about four dozen times. Mostly though, I just get sinus headaches. On a handful of random days each fall and the spring, so much pressure builds up in my sinus cavities that my skull nearly explodes.

There's nothing quite like waking up feeling as if you drank an entire jug of cheap red wine the night before -- only you didn't even get to enjoy any cheap red wine whatsoever. Had I known I would feel this way no matter what I did, perhaps I would have uncorked (or unscrewed, depending on how cheap your definition of "cheap red wine" is) some fun! But I'll be okay. In addition to my usual breakfast of diet coke, coffee, and the generic Target version of One-a-Day for women, I had an appetizer of Motrin Cold & Sinus. So I'm both caffeinated and medicated. It's going to be a banner day!

Oh, and if, at some point in the day, frogs start raining from the sky or a swarm of locusts descends upon a major metropolis, it's probably my fault. You see, I ran out of my usual daily moisturizer and this morning applied something to my face called Night of Olay. Surely, that goes against some laws of nature -- the results of which have yet to reveal themselves. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Me, Like Paris Hilton

2004-09-22T23:15:00.000-04:00

Of all the revelations reported to be in Paris Hilton's new book, Confessions of an Heiress, this is my favorite: "I have size 11 feet."

Finally, someone with enough celebrity status to be able to make a difference has come forward to champion the cause for those of us who have long outgrown the ability to be able to enjoy shoe-shopping. Women like me who so quickly grew beyond the spectrum of commonly available shoe sizes that we don't even browse the department store shoe displays. Oh, no! We've long since learned that they rarely keep anything larger than a 10 in stock. No use putting yourself through the humiliation of seeing the look of shock on the salesperson's face when you ask for a size larger.

No, us big-footed gals get to shop at places like Payless, one of the few stores that features a full selection of shoes for those of us who are well endowed below the ankles. And by "full selection," I mean a variety of cheap shoes that look so exactly alike that you may as well leave the Payless tag on them because everyone will know where you bought them. Occasionally, discount shoe "warehouse" stores have larger sizes, too -- but only select shoes, which typically are either orthopedic clogs or drag queen spike heels. Oh, to be able to shop in a real shoe store!

Once when I was 13, my mom took me to a one of those shoe stores in the mall to buy a sensible pair of loafers to get me through the school year. The salesman actually suggested I try on a pair of the men's shoes. Just in case puberty wasn't already doing a good enough job at making me feel completely awkward. That's right -- I hadn't even gotten to high school before my flippers were too big for normal size shoes.

Up until now, women like me have suffered in silence -- quietly trying to pass ourselves off as the rare female creatures who simply don't care to own more than a few pairs of shoes. But I feel the tide's a turnin'.

I'm hoping Paris Hilton can do for us what Christopher Reeve has done for spinal cord injuries, what Michael J. Fox has done for Parkinson's disease, what Britney Spears has done for women who accidentally got drunk and married high school friends they thought they were crazy about in their drunken bouts of Las Vegas-induced psychosis and then quickly had to find someone else to marry in an attempt to direct attention away from the previous drunken elopement. Finally, we size-11-footed women of the world now have a voice, too.

We have Paris Hilton!

2004-09-22T10:29:00.000-04:00

I didn't need to check my calendar to know that fall was finally here. The weather has been so perfect these last few days that we've thrown open all the windows and shut off the air conditioner altogether. It's gotten so cool during the night that I've rarely made it through 'til morning without spreading the quilted throw across my legs, on top of our usual bed linens. There's nothing quite like the crisp of fresh fall air.

It's been fabulous! ... Well, except for the birds. The thing about sleeping with the windows open is that you quickly discover that birds keep very different hours than us 9-to-5ers. The birds in our neighborhood apparently like to begin their squawking around 4 a.m., which is convenient for the larger cat who sleeps at the end of our bed who also likes to wake up at that ridiculous hour, even when there are no squawking birds to rouse him from his slumber, and attack the smaller cat sleeping, and minding her own business, nearby. When you introduce open windows, squawking birds and miniblinds to the equation, you get a pre-dawn frenzy that tests the very limits of your sanity.

The symphony of sounds to which we often wake is an intricate medley of squawking birds, the majestic growling and hissing of cats "at play," the drumming of heavy paws trouncing across hardwood floors and then scampering around (barely) sleeping heads, the rhythmic clawing of metal blinds, the baritone meow of a cat in operatic soliloquy from one room to the next -- singing his ode to morning.

Now, you may or may not realize this, but cats don't come equipped with snooze bars. Gosh knows I've checked. But I'm not going to resign myself to simply having to get used to it. No, I like to think I'm more resourceful than that. Yeah so, I'm thinking about getting a tranquilizer gun and keeping it on the nightstand...

(kidding!! ... well, mostly...)

On the Road Again

2004-09-16T16:08:00.000-04:00

My new supervisor came by a little while ago and gave me permission to sneak out a bit early to get a head start on my trip. Woohoo! I'm headed up to Virginia this evening -- Fredericksburg to be exact -- to spend the weekend with Cori and her new baby (I'll try to resist the urge to check and see if "bouncing baby boys" actually bounce). It will be the first time I've been to Virginia since Kevin and I moved to South Carolina more than a year ago -- the first time, in fact, that I've driven that direction on I-95 since then. Yahoo! Maps estimates that the trip from my office to Cori's doorstep should take 6 hours, 36 minutes. We'll see about that... Hope everyone has a great weekend!!

All Safe on the Homefront

2004-09-16T11:47:00.000-04:00

I spoke with my parents and my sister this morning to find out how they fared riding out Hurricane Ivan. I'm happy to report that they were not taking refuge on the roof, escaping 20 feet of flood water, watching clusters of fire ants and poisonous snakes go by, amid a veritable ocean of rainwater mixed with sewage and refinery chemicals. Of course, I feel horribly for the poor people in Mobile and other spots along the Gulf Coast that seem to have taken a real beating. But I'm relieved to hear that my hometown of New Orleans dodged yet another bullet.

Correspondence

2004-09-15T16:28:00.000-04:00

Dear Walmart General Manager,

As a busy career woman, juggling an equally demanding personal life, I was thrilled I was at the prospect of being able to shop while having my oil changed at a Walmart Tire and Lube Express location. I mean, what a fantastic example of multitasking! Of course, I'd heard the recent allegations of questionable treatment of Walmart employees in the area. But my experience today proved to me that such allegations were surely preposterous!

Who would have thought that a huge conglomerate like Walmart would be nice enough to allow all of its auto service employees to take their regular lunch breaks all at the same time, despite the midday rush of customers lining up for "Express" lube service? That must do great things for the morale of your staff. I understand how precious things like lunch breaks are -- you see, I was on my lunch hour, too, forfeiting my usual practice of eating food, because I needed to get an oil change and pick up a few sundries before a long road trip I'm taking tomorrow evening after work.

Of course, my own employer is not nearly as understanding as you are. I'm not supposed to take extra long lunch breaks, nor is it ever acceptable for me to forego work that someone is anxiously waiting for me to finish -- work that I promised a client would be done within a certain allotted amount of time -- simply because the clock says lunchtime. That's why I asked when I finally got someone to take down my information for my oil change (that's a whole other story, by the way -- an amusing little anecdote that perhaps I'll share one day while I'm sipping coffee in your customer waiting area, reading War and Peace, waiting for future "Express" service on my car), I asked how long it should take, noting that there were no cars in line in front of me. "About half an hour," the guy said, which I assumed meant 30 minutes. Of course math can be tricky!

After 40 minutes or so of wandering around the store, I moseyed back to the service counter, thinking my car must certainly be ready. I could see it out there through the window -- parked in the oil change area, no one around it, the hood closed. "Looks like they're done," I thought. But, au contraire, they hadn't even begun! When I inquired about my car ("Which car is yours, ma'am?" "Um, that one, the black Honda Civic right there that no one seems to be working on."), I was assured that it would only be "about 15 more minutes." Silly me thought that meant it would be done in 15 minutes, when what the guy apparently meant was that it would be 15 more minutes before he even got around to popping the hood, much less doing actual work.

Workers in other industries might feel pressured or intimidated by a client standing there, angrily checking her watch, pacing back and forth, pulling out her cell phone to call the office and explain that she's running late because the work is taking more than twice as long as she was told to expect. But not your employees! No, you've got a staff of trained auto service specialists who seem empowered and confident in their ability to consistently deliver the same level of service to every customer who walks through that door (a door, mind you, that opens easily from the outside, but requires someone behind the counter push a security button to let you out from the inside -- such that, if you were to consider flying into a screaming rage of, "Well, if you're not going to effing work on my effing car, can you please just give me my effing keys back so I can get the eff out of her you effing a-holes!" and running out, they would have the power to keep you locked in -- as if you weren't already disadvantaged by the fact that they have your car and the keys to it!). They seem relaxed in the knowledge that they have the upper hand in all negotiations, such as, "Can I at least pay now so that I can get out of here as soon as the car is ready?" "Well, no ma'am, we have to wait until the work is properly keyed into the system."

While I contemplated keying a few choice words into the system myself, frustratingly pondering how I might begin the most irate customer complaint letter of my life, your employees never lost their cool. It was as if my convenience and satisfaction were the furthest things from their minds. A full hour and a half after I arrived at your Tire and Lube "Express" center, after paying full price for an oil change that took three times as long as I was led to believe it would, one of your associates calmly handed me back my keys and told me to have a nice day. Ah, service with a smile!

Who says Walmart's only concerned with the bottom line?

Sincerely,
A Valued Customer

I am a star employee.

2004-09-15T13:09:00.000-04:00

Today is my one-year anniversary at my job. Hallmark dictates that one year is the "paper anniversary." In other words, the gift my employer should bestow upon me to thank me for my whole year of loyal, dedicated service should be some form of paper. A $10,000 bonus check would certainly fit that description. Then again, so would a pink slip. I suppose I should just content myself with a fresh pad of post-its from the supply cabinet (which I will use for work purposes only, of course).

Shaken, Not Stirred

2004-09-15T10:04:00.000-04:00

Hurricane

1.5 ounces light rum
1.5 ounces dark rum
1 ounce orange juice
1 ounce fresh lime juice (NOT Rose's or RealLime)
1/4 cup passion fruit juice, or 1 tablespoon passion fruit syrup
1 teaspoon superfine sugar
1 teaspoon grenadine
Cherries with stems, and orange slice to garnish
Ice cubes

In a cocktail shaker, mix the rum, passion fruit juice or syrup, the other juices and the sugar until sugar is dissolved. Add the grenadine, and stir to combine, then add ice and shake. Half-fill a hurricane glass with ice, then strain drink into glass; add ice to fill. Garnish with orange slice and cherries.

My dad called last night from New Orleans to tell me that he thought of me earlier in the day, as he boarded up the windows of the house in preparation for Hurricane Ivan. Last time he boarded up the windows, I was his ready assistant -- helping to measure each window, and then cut huge sheets of plywood down to size and hold them up, while my dad secured them in place. That was Hurricane Georges, the last big storm that came our way while I was still living in New Orleans. Georges wasn't as big a storm as Ivan, but he seemed to have our number, heading on a treacherous path right toward us. Experts spoke of worst-case scenarios on the news -- storm surges, flooding, the storm going up the mouth of the Mississippi and dumping Lake Ponchartrain on us, a city immersed in water and wreckage. We braced ourselves for the worst.

In the end, the storm ended up taking a surprise turn to the east before making landfall. We lost power for a good 18 to 20 hours. We got some rain and some wind, but no damage save for the beer getting warm (we drank it anyway). We were lucky. The next day, we took the boards down from the windows and put them in the garage, where they've remained ever since... until yesterday. Even as I read about the thousands of people evacuating New Orleans yesterday and today, part of me wished I could have been there to help put those boards back up. I've kept a close eye on Ivan over the last few days, checking every handful of hours to see if there have been changes to the projected path, consulting with the guy across the cubicle row from me who happens to have been a meteorologist in a former career, making regular visits to the National Hurricane Center Web site.

I'm hoping this one turns out to be another near miss for my friends and family back in New Orleans. For good measure, though, I've advised my dad to buy more ice for the beer this time... just in case...

Good luck to all in Ivan's path. Let's hope he turns out to be a dud.

Work is funny.

2004-09-10T16:25:00.000-04:00

My new supervisor came by this morning as I was looking up the LSU football schedule online and said, "When you get a minute, I need to talk to you about a couple of things. Just come by -- it won't take long." My first thought was that if she had a few things to discuss and it would only take a minute, why not just discuss them while we're both here in my cube? My second thought was that perhaps it was something more serious than just a few questions about a few of my projects, and that perhaps I should be worried. My third thought was that if I was getting fired, I may as well get it over with early in the day so I can get out of here in time to enjoy this beautiful weather we're having. And it is beautiful here today, despite the flood warnings they were harping on our morning newscast. So, I grabbed a pen and a steno pad and headed right over.

Of course, I didn't get fired. Although I don't particularly love my job, I seem to be good at it, and I get stellar reviews. I blame my parents. No matter how slack my attitude, I just can't shrug off this pesky work ethic they instilled in me. I can't complain really. I have a good job. I make decent money, I work with fantastic people and I have Internet access, among other perks. Still, I l like to remind myself that it's just a job -- not my life. And, I must say, I've discovered there's a certain freedom in not really loving one's job. While my more dedicated coworkers may lie awake at night, stressing over some new project or upcoming meeting, I'm more likely to still be laughing about things like this:

Recently, a new office supply policy was implemented in our department, where by, if you want to take pens, for instance, from the supply cabinet, you have to mark down on the "Supply Cabinet Form" how many are left so that the person who orders the office supplies will know when to order more. The email announcing this policy used manila folders as an example: "If there are 316 manila folders and 16 are removed, cross out the number 316 and write 300 in the NOW column." I suppose the old system of our department admin person simply looking to see what supplies were running low was too difficult.

In other news, it was announced in this week's employee e-newsletter that we now have a lactation room on site for nursing mothers! A quiet little refuge where new moms can go and be with their newborns during feedings. I'm not sure, however, what they expect you to do with your baby during the rest of the day. There's no daycare center, nor are you allowed to bring children to work with you and have them just hang out in your cube. And leaving them in your car in the parking lot is frowned upon.

Oh, and earlier this week, in a truly Office Space moment, in our weekly team meeting (new adventures in "team building"), after very sincerely asking us for feedback and suggestions for handling a certain issue, our new supervisor said, "Uh-huh... yeah... those are certainly some interesting ideas, but for now let's just keep doing things the way we have all along. Any questions? Everyone happy?" At least this time she didn't pass out copies of any articles that she "found empowering and wanted to share with the group." Don't get me wrong, I like my new supervisor, and I think she's a capable leader. But I'll truly feel sad if I ever discover that she failed to make the cheerleading squad in high school. It would be such a waste of potential.

Happy Friday!

Twister

2004-09-08T14:12:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, the mess that was formerly Hurricane Frances dumped heavy rains, and knocked down trees and power lines, all across our fine state. At work, a handful of us took the inclement weather as an excuse to escape from our cubicles and gather at the window like schoolchildren, watching the dark clouds churn in the sky. I'm sure I wasn't the only one half hoping a tornado might touch down in the parking lot and cause just enough damage to the building to ensure that we'd all get sent home.

It wasn't an entirely unlikely scenario either. There were more than a dozen tornados reported in our area. Our local newscasters were on the scene to interview the first available rednecks they could find:

"Oh, yah, that thar tarnado? Sheesh! Skeeter and me, we was jes' sittin' right thar on that sofa on the porch we done built onto the double-wide, tryin' to see who could spit the farthest. When all 'er a sudden, it done ripped right outter the sky. I thought fer sure it might whoop that El Camino right off them cinder bricks! ... So, um, are we goin' be on TV?"

Who needs Super Doppler technology when you've got eyewitness accounts like that??

Disclaimer: This post was intended solely for entertainment purposes. Devastating weather phenomena are not a laughing matter, nor is it politically correct to make fun of rednecks. Unless you happen to be Jeff Foxworthy, in which case it isn't really all that funny either. However, I stand by my God-given right to make fun of our local network news team.

Today is an excellent day.

2004-09-03T10:48:00.000-04:00

Not only is it Friday, but it's the Friday before a three-day weekend, which means that parking was plentiful when I got to work, despite the fact that I slept a bit later than I should have. Truth be told, I've slept a bit late just about every day this week -- sort of a prelude to my sleeping very late these next few days, as I try to enjoy my holiday weekend in the laziest fashion I can manage. There's nothing left to move, no rushing around to be done in order to catch flights, no early morning obligations. I can sleep as late as I want to tomorrow and the next day and the day after that. I may even sleep right through the militant feline insurgence that occurs each morning at the foot of our bed around 4 a.m.

It's also just gorgeous today -- almost fall-like. I walked out of the house this morning and didn't feel like I needed another shower by the time I got into my car. My makeup didn't slide right off my face. My hair didn't go into a humidity-induced funk. There was even a gentle breeze. It should be a crime to have to squander a gorgeous day like today by sitting in front of a computer inside my windowless cubicle. At least I was able to enjoy the drive in -- I had the sunroof open and the radio blaring, which always puts me in a fantastic mood. I'm in such a good mood, in fact, that I've even been rather enjoying the soft sounds of 70s, 80s, 90s and today from the easy-listening radio station that just happens to be the only station in all of Columbia that the little alarm clock radio in my cube picks up clearly and consistently.

Plus, I'm feeling giddy with excitement for Cori and Matt, who by now are probably getting acquainted with their brand new bouncing baby boy. (Kevin and I have been wondering if they actually bounce -- I suppose there's only one way to find out. Perhaps Cori ought to think twice when I ask if I can hold the baby when I go see her in two weeks. Just kidding!!)

Welcome to the world little Nathan Henry! What a fabulous day to be born!

"To Do"

2004-09-02T22:40:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow morning, Cori, my best friend since I was eight years old, is having a baby -- her second. My own "To Do" list includes things like revising a series of bulletins to help our sales and marketing staff promote a discount program on hearing aids for our members. Thus is life in the fast lane.

Ah, September!

2004-09-01T15:45:00.000-04:00

You should know that I'm a bit of a dork about changing seasons and getting to turn over a page in my calendar to a whole new month. It's the first thing I did this morning when I got into work -- both the huge desk calendar that includes scribbled notes about meetings and project deadlines, and also the little Spongebob Squarepants calendar that hangs on my cubicle wall and serves mainly to annoy those coworkers who think we should all check our silliness at the door when we come into work, which I absolutely refuse to do. I tend to believe that a twisted sense of humor is not only beneficial, but is downright essential, if you expect to maintain any amount of sanity when you work in a field as mind-numbingly boring as health insurance. I spend a lot of time laughing at work (notice that I didn't say laughing "with" work). I think it's good for morale.

At any rate, it's always been refreshing to me to start out a new month. As a kid, I looked forward to seeing the changing decorations on the classroom bulletin board -- black cats and orange jack-o-lanterns for October, pink and red hearts for February, spring flowers for May. (Side note: In my high school cooking class, there was a bulletin board with the words "Home Economics Skills" across the top of it all in capital letters. I removed the "S" so that it said "Home Economics Kills." I don't think the teacher ever noticed.)

September, of course, was usually school supplies and autumn leaves, both signs that the dog days of summer were finally behind us. Much as I love summer, I've always had a special place in my heart for those first fall days when the humidity begins to ease up, the days get a little shorter, and you can finally wear jeans without keeling over from heat stroke -- a real plus for those of us who are tired of shaving our legs every day. And, of course, after a long hiatus, in September, football once again becomes an integral part of our lives. It's just magical!

Back to the Daily Grind

2004-08-31T23:01:00.000-04:00

"Pseudo Monday" came quicker than I may have liked. After a long weekend with my family in New Orleans, my plane touched down in Charlotte just before nine last night. Then I had to go find my luggage on the baggage carousel, catch a bus back to the satellite parking lot and drive 90 or so miles back to Columbia (mind you, this may have been easier had the kind folks in Charlotte put up some signs indicating the way out of the airport, but I digress...). I didn't get back to our house until around 11.

Once there, Kevin and I stayed up a few hours, catching up and talking about our weekends, decompressing with a couple of cold beers and a series of West Coast Chopper shows on Discovery. Suffice to say, when the alarm went off this morning, I was not ready for it. And my daily grind ended up being much more than I typically bargain for even on a real Monday, much less a Pseudo Monday when I've been away for a few days. It took me a good hour to get through my voice mails and emails, and then I had three meetings to attend -- and I still hadn't even begun my monthly report, which was due today. Calgon, take me away!

Of course, it was completely worth it! I had a fantastic trip. I got to go to a really happening birthday part at the New Orleans Children's Museum on Sunday, when my nephew Owen -- arguably one of the most amazing kids on the planet -- turned five. Over the weekend, he told me that, for my birthday, he would get me a robot that makes breakfast -- he even drew a picture of what said robot, whom he later named Frank, would look like.

I spent a lot of quality time with my parents this weekend, too -- on Saturday, the three of us ate at Crescent City Brewhouse and later boiled some of the best shrimp I've ever had. We had a lot of laughs over the "actuator" malfunctioning in the air conditioner of my dad's car, and we shared many a "Vitamin H." Also, in the few days I spent at my parents' house, I became so acquainted with the ducks that gather at the back deck looking for bread each day that I caught myself missing them this morning, as I dashed out of the door to go to work.

I took mental snapshots of all of my nieces and nephews these last few days -- Elizabeth filling her little kid-sized shopping cart with as many little kid-sized cakes as she could fit at the little kid-sized grocery store at the Children's Museum, Hayden repeatedly jumping up on the coffee table at my parents' house and then stomping his foot and shouting with excitement and pride for having done it all by himself, Lauren reaching her little hand over to my arm as we rode back from lunch yesterday and just barely touching my arm and then shyly giggling over and over, Owen waking up early Saturday morning after a sleepover at my parents' house and watching with amazement as the sun rose over the golf course.

I often get to wondering when I'm visiting New Orleans why it was that I ever left, though I like to think that I'm wiser for having taken the chances that I have so far in my life. There's no question in my mind, however, about why I go back. And about why I will continue to go back again and again and again, even if it means rundown mornings at the office when I can barely take a break from my meetings to catch up.

I know I'm not alone in that either, which is why I offer the following travel tip for those of you who might also find yourselves going to great lengths to visit with family or catch up with old friends who now live many states away:

A really good way to ease any anxiety you may have about your plane crash landing on the runway when you arrive at your destination is to fill your bladder to near-bursting during your flight, to the point where you're in so much pain that the only thing you can think of as the flight crew readies for landing (when it's far too late to take advantage of the in-flight facilities) is the possibility your your bladder may actually explode at any moment if the damn plane doesn't freaking land already so you can get to the restroom. Trust me on this one. Also, you should probably not accidentally leave behind your digital camera as you leave the plane in a medical-emergency-like frenzy, in which case you will have to go back and wait, legs crossed and dancing, for every other passenger to get off the plane before you go back on to retrieve it. Just a tip...

Are you ready for some football?

2004-08-26T14:08:00.000-04:00

Tonight is our fantasy football draft, which probably means little or nothing to those folks who are unfamiliar with the fantasy football phenomenon. All the cool kids (or at least, I would imagine, the majority of Maxim subscribers) are doing it. But don't let anyone fool you -- fantasy football is the nerdest way possible to follow the NFL.

For those of you who may be scratching your heads, wondering what the heck I'm talking about, I offer the following summary of how fantasy football works:

First, you round up some fellow sports enthusiast geeks -- preferably ones with Internet access and plenty of free time on their hands. Try for 10, 12 or even 14 to form a sizeable league. Each person antes up his or her share of the pot to play, and immediately begins trash talking during the weeks leading up to an event more celebrated than Christmas in some circles: the draft.

Participants take turns drafting players from various teams in the NFL, until each person's roster is full. In our league of 14 teams, with 23-player rosters, the criteria for "draftable" really begins to slip by those final rounds (usually around 1 or 2 in the morning) when all of the good, or even "kind of not so bad," players have been taken -- "plays in the NFL" becomes somewhat negotiable.

Once you have your team set, you spend the rest of pre-season at the edge of your seat, refreshing sports news sites, anxious about the possibility of one of your guys getting injured and/or arrested before the season even starts. You analyze your roster, deciding who is and who isn't a "must-start" for each week, and what players might possibly fill the other starting positions. In our league, you can only start 11 players a week (you only get points for your starters), which means you have to bench more than half of them. At some point, you inevitably bench a guy who ends up having a career day (a lot of swearing ensues). You wonder whether to trust your gut, knowing that your gut has failed you before.

You become obsessed with your team -- each player's well-being and performance. You find yourself talking to them, begging and pleading with them to get out there and run the ball just one more time. Next thing you know, you're watching football for stats and stats alone -- who threw the ball, who caught it, how many yards. On a typical Sunday, for instance, you might find Kevin and me watching whatever game is being telecast in our area, a full array of bad football-watching munchies spread before us. Only, we won't be watching with our undivided attention. No, chances are, we'll be hunched over the laptop computer on the coffee table, following the stats for ALL of the games, and clicking back and forth to the live scoring updates on the league Web site (in stark contrast to the days when we used to spend our football Sundays drinking beer all day long down at Crystal City Sports Pub, a favorite bar in Virginia that had satellite feeds for all of the games). At the end of the day, we sometimes know more about how each individual player did than which NFL teams won.

You spend the first half of the week either celebrating your victory or analyzing your defeat, and the second half of the week preparing for your next match-up. It becomes all-consuming. You spend your free time researching past performance, making projections, sizing up match-ups, reading way too much into things head coaches say during press conferences. I know people who go as far as to create spreadsheets, in an attempt to forecast who may come out on top next week.

It's great fun! And I am so psyched about another year. It is going to be fantastic!

Here's to my Crescent City Bar Crawlers finally winning one! (And, no, in case you're wondering, my fantasy football team logo above is not a self-portrait!)

must... finish... moving...

2004-08-25T15:42:00.000-04:00

If moving were an Olympic event, then Kevin and I would be the Paula Radcliffes of the sport. We got off to a strong start, determined to keep up the pace, only to find ourselves ready to give up, crying on the side of the road, our heads in our hands, just as we're getting to the homestretch.

It was a joke from the very beginning that I must have strategically planned my long weekend trip to New Orleans to coincide with the last weekend we'd have to finish moving out of the old place, leaving Kevin to do it by himself. I was hopeful we'd get it done before though. That way Kevin could take to pathetically pining away for me the whole time I was gone, like he's supposed to do when I'm out of town, rather than be distracted with the responsibility of having to clean out our old place.

But, alas, here we are, less than 48 hours away from my departure, and we're still just "almost done." Mind you, we've been almost done since that first weekend. We haven't given up yet though. We made a trip to and fro just last night to gather some more of the miscellaneous things that were left -- framed pictures and other decorative elements, Kevin's beer-brewing supplies, some more books. None of what's left is difficult to move, nor is there even a whole lot of it, but it's tedious. And we've still got to do the actual cleaning once we get all of our crap out of there. Considering that we're drafting our fantasy football teams tomorrow night, we either get it all done tonight, or poor Kevin will be left to finish it up himself this weekend.

Guess we'll give it the old college try... (Of course, the old college try, if I remember correctly, usually involved a lot of beer, and rarely resulted in much actually getting done...)

Pig Brother Is Watching

2004-08-23T21:54:00.000-04:00

Tired of writing checks? In too much of a hurry to pull the debit card from your wallet? Think cash carries traces of scary microbes? Then has our neighborhood Piggly Wiggly got the solution for you!

During a recent trip to the nearby Pig, we noticed a strange contraption attached to the credit/debit card reader. It had a dark glass oval on it, with some tiny red lights behind it. Kevin jokingly said, "What's this for, to scan your eyeball?" And we both laughed. The cashier, however, who couldn't have been more than twenty, did not laugh. She looked at us very seriously and said, "No, it scans your fingerprint, and can deduct money right out of your checking account." She wasn't even kidding.

It's called Pay By Touch -- and they've since enlisted the same young, bright, enthusiastic faces that recruit for wacky religious cults to greet you at the door and try to get you to join up. They even have mylar balloons and matching T-shirts. According to a brochure thrusted into our hands during a one of our shopping trips, in which we assured them, once again, that we were not interested, here's how it works:

"Just place your finger on the scanner, enter your phone number, then select Express Checking (a direct withdrawal from your checking account) to pay... No more fumbling with wallets, checks, ID cards or cash. Think of Pay By Touch just like a physical wallet, but one that can't be lost or stolen -- and can be accessed by you and you alone."

Let alone the fact that it's quicker to enter my four-digit debit card PIN than my entire phone number, am I the only one who thinks this whole idea falls into the category of sort of scary futuristic?

I just don't know how I feel about Mr. Pig having my fingerprints on file -- I'm especially suspicious considering that pigs don't even have their own fingers.

Insomni-Aack!!

2004-08-23T11:50:00.000-04:00

I swear I was sleepy around 10:30 last night. So, I crawled off to bed, read until my eyelids felt heavy, turned off my bedside lamp, closed my eyes and waited for sleep to overtake me.

By 2:30 a.m., I felt like a Unisom® commercial -- intermittently staring at the clock, thinking, "If I fall asleep now, I can still get four solid hours before I have to get up for work." In the meantime, Kevin snored, as if showing off that he was having no trouble at all falling asleep. Since the Serta counting sheep were apparently not showing up, I really had no choice but to relocate to the den and watch Nick at Nite until I conked out on the futon.

Whatever did insomniacs do before there was Nick at Nite?

The Sequel

2004-08-22T21:46:00.000-04:00

Because the original was such a smashing success, Wheat Street already has a sequel!

Check out Wheat Street 2: Electric Boogaloo, in which Kevin nerds his own blog!

Sunday already?

2004-08-22T20:59:00.000-04:00

I have a love-hate relationship with Sundays.

On the one hand, I truly savor the almost boring comfort of brewing a pot of strong coffee, spreading out the Sunday paper on the table, tuning into CBS' Sunday Morning and taking in a long lazy morning -- all while still wearing my jammies. But sooner or later -- usually as afternoon fades into evening -- I'm struck with the realization that my two-day pass is about to expire, and I'll have to get back to the daily grind. It's not that I hate my job -- it's more the "have to" part that gets me. My job is okay, and I actually like the people I work with enough to look forward to seeing them most days.

Last night, in fact, Kevin and I drove damn near halfway to Charlotte to attend a housewarming party for the guy who works in the cubicle across from mine. Even my new supervisor showed up, and we all got to meet (and, let's face it, analyze) her husband, who spent the better part of the night glued to the sofa. I think he was trying to chameleon into the background, so that he wouldn't have to interact with any of us. Of course, a big-ass cheap beige leather sectional (a tragic thing that sometimes happens when a single guy attempts to decorate his own place) is a bit difficult to camouflage against. So, I'm afraid said new supervisor's husband wasn't invisible enough as to not become fodder for tomorrow's lunch hour gossip.

The party was alright, and we stayed much longer than I thought we would. This was amazing considering that Kevin and I were off to such a rough start, thanks to our Friday night selves not giving a rat's ass about how our Saturday morning selves might feel. Mental note: Chances are if you've just stretched happy hour to more like three hours, you probably don't need that bottle of cabernet blend you're thinking about picking up on your way home from the bar, no matter how badly you're in the mood to drink red wine and watch The Big Chill.

Of course, The Big Chill is a fine movie, and one that we watch repeatedly without ever getting tired of it. So, naturally, Kevin woke up on the futon in the den sometime in the pre-dawn hours with the bright light of the lamp shining in his face and the television blaring. I, on the other hand, had actually made it to bed, though Kevin tells me I was sleeping with the light on when he found me. Suffice to say, we didn't get much done yesterday (save for finally getting our cable and Internet service installed -- yet another reason for us not getting much done).

In our defense, we weren't the only ones who showed up at last night's party still paying for the night before. The new guy in my department had stretched his Friday night happy hour to an impressive seven hours. Of course, he's 24 (That's right -- I work with a guy who was born in 1980!). Presumably, Kevin and I should know better. But what fun would that be?

I suppose I can't really complain about it being Sunday already. It's been a good weekend -- it just that it feels like we were just getting started!

"Run, Forrest, Run!"

2004-08-20T16:18:00.000-04:00

If you were to have driven around the vicinity of our neighborhood any night this week in the post-work, still-daylight hours, you may have seen us out there -- two not-quite-fit persons, panting and sweating, trying not-very-convincingly to blend in with our more in-shape counterparts. Shandon is one of those neighborhoods overrun with people in Coolmax® and sneakers, where cars stop to let runners and walkers go by, because, more likely than not, the drivers on their way home to change into their own running shorts and head out to hit the pavement of our tree-lined streets.

Kevin and I have both logged plenty of miles on our own since we moved here. When I was out of work last summer, I ran or walked nearly every day, and earlier this year I made a feeble attempt to train for the Crescent City Classic 10K race (of which I ended up walking the whole last mile). On nice days, Kevin has walked the two-mile stretch from home to work and back again -- and has even doubled his efforts by walking home for lunch. But it wasn't until recently that we began taking long walks together around the neighborhood in an effort to get off the couch, take in some sunshine and scope out the environs of our new little house before we had the chance to move into it. Our walks were nice -- and quickly became something we both sort of looked forward to (albeit not with quite the same zeal as we might look forward to cracking open a couple of ice cold beers and watching a football game).

But this week, something unusual happened. On Monday after work, as we changed into our shorts and t-shirts, Kevin said, "For some reason, I feel like running today." Mind you, Kevin hadn't attempted to run in more than ten years. And I, despite having been quite the runner in the past (a mere five years ago I was able to run up to ten miles without having to stop even once to scoop up one of my lungs or other vital organs), had been a lot more slack in my running endeavors in recent years than I would care to admit. Now seemed as good a time as any to make like Forrest Gump and just do it.

And so we ran -- a mile from our new home down to the nearby middle school, where we walked a mile on the track around a field full of kiddos practicing soccer, and then jogged the full mile back home. Suffice to say, it's a lot more humbling when you're out of practice. But we did it. Monday, and then again on Tuesday, and then again on Thursday, giving ourselves a little break on Wednesday to ride our bikes instead. Yes, we're diving head-on into our new "active lifestyle." Which is not to say that it's been easy.

No, quite the contrary, we've woken up just about every morning this week feeling about how we could only imagine it might feel to be a hundred and ten years old -- creaking joints, aching muscles, curmudgeonly disposition. But somehow we managed to soldier on and do it all over the again the next night after work.

Well, except for tonight, of course. It is Friday after all. And we have happy hour plans!

2004-08-19T15:57:00.000-04:00

We hadn't really planned on moving again so soon.

When we settled into our last place, after hauling everything we owned in a bursting-at-the-seams Budget rental truck from Northern Virginia to Columbia, South Carolina -- four short months after hauling it all from Arlington to Alexandria -- we swore we were going to stay put for a while. We'd done enough moving. So, naturally, it wasn't long after our lease was up that we happened upon the perfect place -- only a couple of miles from where we'd been living.

It's a cute little brick house with two big bedrooms, plus a den. There's fireplace in the living room, hardwood floors throughout, a side porch and a huge backyard. Oh, and closets -- lots and lots of closets, and attic space, too. In fact, Kevin and I marveled with such awe at the features, you would have thought that we'd previously been living in a van down by the river -- "Wow, it's so bright in here!" "Look, a linen closet!" "Check this out -- the cats can't push the bathroom door open here!" We tried hard to convince ourselves when we went to look at it that we were "just looking," but our minds were made up pretty much immediately. And I can honestly say that out of the seven different places, in three different states, that I've called home over the last five years, this is the one about which I'm most giddy.

So, here we are again -- hauling our massive collection of books and CDs, our computers, our refinished IKEA furniture, both cats, and other assorted crap -- into yet another new place, one we plan to stay in for a good long while. And this time, we mean it!