The Hitachi Saga

On March 5th, Chef and I decided to make a big purchase. After months scouring the internet, we decided to buy a plasma TV. Having bruised our toes kicking the projection big screen that had been given to us, we were finally ready to move into the digital age. So, we went into Best Buy, found the TV we had wanted and put it in our rented truck. We got it home, bought a new stand for it (which we drilled holes into), and sat back to marvel at the picture on our new Hitachi.

We had bought a Hitachi P50S601 50” inch plasma with 1080 and a great motorized base. We’d been warned that a plasma could have glare and this one did, but the base helped negate that pretty easily. Everything was going great until June 12^th. I was out of the house and got a text from Chef that read “The TV is broke.” In a panic, I replied “Which one?” hoping it was our small one in the bedroom. “The big one,” his reply read.

While watching on that Thursday night, the TV had suddenly blinked several times, shown lines of alternating picture and black and then sound and picture disappeared completely. Trying to stay calm, I checked out the warranty, then our extended Best Buy plan and figured we’d be covered. I mean, we’d only had the TV three months, surely this wasn’t usual.

I called Hitachi on June 13^th and they referred me to a local service rep. The rep called me back within 30 minutes, set up a time to come by the next day and asked us exactly what had happened. From our description, our service center (H S Electronics in Gallatin, TN) deduced that it had been either the digital main board and/or the power supply. Having neither of these parts, he contacted his part supplier to order them.

This is where things went from bad to worse. Hitachi was moving its parts department and it be closed from June 17 until June 30. H S Electronics told me this and recommended that I try and get a new TV, as it is not custom for a 3 month old TV to completely lose sound and power. So I made the first of what ended up being 15 calls to Hitachi each one lasting an average of 10 minutes (this does not include the 5 or so calls they made to me).

After talking with the service rep Aarian, I was give to Bill, the supervisor on duty, who told me there was nothing that I could do to speed up my service time and that they would double the amount of time the TV was broken and add it to my warranty. When I asked him to replace the TV instead of fixing it, he told me that it would take much longer to get a new TV than to fix the old one. That was on June 17^th.

Three days later Hitachi called and left a message to tell me that it would not be June 30^th but actually July 7^th before I got my part. When I called back to ask why, I talked to Pete (for the first time) and he told me there was nothing he could do and no, I couldn’t talk to a supervisor because one wasn’t there. It was 10 a.m.

During this time, H S Electronics was trying to find a part distributor—any distributor—across the country that would have the part as to not have to wait on Hitachi. Hitachi did nothing to help ease this process and at this time told me that even their parts department did not have the part needed for our TV, so it would have to be ordered from overseas and it would be at least July 21^st before H S Electronics would have the part. That was more than FIVE WEEKS from the original time the set was broken. H S Electronics found the part at another distributor which meant the part would be delivered on July 9^th. However, I had to personally call Hitachi to get them to reimburse him for the overnight shipping because they had originally REFUSED to pay him.

The bad news was that the two original parts were not the problem and yet another part had to be ordered. That’s how TV repair works apparently. Trial and error. So we got another part—the logic board—and H S Electronics returned to our house to make the repair. The bad news continued as it was not the logic board either. On July 10^th, we found out it was the panel board—a part that Hitachi would not replace but instead would get us a new TV.

When I called Hitachi yet again to complain that the request I had made four weeks earlier for a new TV was finally being fulfilled on a TV that cost a small fortune, I got Mike. Mike was pretty patronizing. At this point, I was fairly certain that somewhere in the file when my name popped up, so did “BITCH.” I just didn’t think it was right that a broken TV should take longer than a few weeks to be rectified.

Mike just irritated me more. He told me that it would take 2-3 MORE weeks for an MRA (Merchandise Return Authorization) number to be given to me. That it was essentially reversing the sale of the product between Hitachi and Best Buy so that the problem would then become Best Buy’s to deal with. Mike told me that panel boards are just too expensive to replace, but that I shouldn’t be that upset because they were doing BETTER than their warranty by replacing the broken TV.

I requested a supervisor and got Adam Jones (who wasn’t the same Adam “Pacman” Jones that caused turmoil in the NFL). Before we began, I asked Adam politely to take a moment to read my file before we began to talk. He immediately told me that he had already read it before getting on the phone with me and didn’t need the extra time. It would be proved repeatedly while I was talking with him that he had not read it other than my name and TV model.

Adam told me that my expectations of a speedy repair were out of line as the typical repair time for Hitachi was 4-6 weeks. In the at least nine other calls that I had had with Hitachi NOT ONE person had told me that. His tone was patronizing as he repeatedly said “I’m sorry you feel that way.” Not “I’m sorry” but again putting the onus on me. He again repeated that Hitachi was doing better than the warranty by giving me a new TV. I then told him that the cat was out of the bag as Mike had already told me that it was too expensive for Hitachi to replace the panel board. After being cut off at least three more times, I finally asked Adam one thing: Why should I ever buy Hitachi again?

“Because we have the lowest failure rate in the industry at 2 percent.”

I guess he didn’t realize that he was talking to the 2 percent.

After that it took 6 more days for Hitachi to even process my receipt and start the MRA process. They called several times over the next two weeks to let me know they were working on getting my MRA and then the calls stopped.

On August 12^th—nearly a MONTH after the process began on July 16^th, I called Hitachi and got Pete (again). He told me that I was on the last step and that the MRA would be issued in the next 24 hours. He would request an update from sales (who was the last step) and they’d get back to me. They didn’t.

I called back at 8 a.m. CST on the 14^th of August and got Wendy. Wendy told me that it was too early for her to call Sales because they were located in California—where it was 6 a.m., but that she would send an email to request an update from sales. She apologize because sales had been on a retreat and was behind.

Five days after that I called Hitachi AGAIN and got Bob. Bob informed me that since August 10^th no one had called sales to request an update—in fact no one in his department even had the ability to call sales. He then told me that I could try going into Best Buy without the MRA and see if they’ll replace the TV. Again, I asked to speak to a supervisor.

It was at this time that I got Christopher Wallace. He informed me that it was taking longer than normal for the MRA, but that it normally takes at least 3-4 weeks and that no one should’ve estimated time for me. He listened to my saga, apologized for it taking so long, empathized and then said he would talk to someone personally about my case.

On August 20^th—TEN WEEKS after my TV originally broke, Ron called to give me our MRA number and said that by the weekend we could go into Best Buy and they would help us.

At this point, Chef and I were fearful. Neither of us had any illusions that we’d leave with a TV. We walked into Best Buy on August 23^rd and were pleasantly surprised. We got the operations manager, who pulled up the information. I asked him to listen to an abbreviated version of the saga before we began. He listened, empathized and then said he was confident he could get us an even better TV than before. He also hooked us up with another manager who was more knowledgeable in the TV department. In the end, we got an upgraded TV, free delivery and our Best Buy warranty was transferred to the new TV.

So, after nearly three months, did we end up with a new Hitachi? Hell no. At this point I’m leery of anything that even ends in “I”—no “Suzuki” or “sushi” or even “manicotti”.

We have a new Panasonic and we love it. If it works longer than three months, I’ll be happy. If it breaks and takes less than three months, three service calls and 20 phone calls to repair, I’d be ecstatic.

So Many Books. . .So Few Hours

Last weekend my dad came to visit me One of our many activities together was visiting this great used book store. We spent an hour and a half roaming around and I left with an armload of books (added to the armload I'd bought earlier in the week). Now I'm staring at a good two months worth of reading and I feel like each time I choose which book to read, I'm choosing which child to strap the emergency oxygen mask on first when the plane goes down.

My first choice was Ann Patchett. If you haven't read any of her books, I suggest going out and getting at least one--perhaps Bel Canto or Patron Saint of Liars. Anyway, I'm now reading her latest book "Run" that I got in hardback version for less than 50% of the list price. I'm sure writers don't like that, but I love it.

Speaking of writers, the book that my essay appears in will be available for sale on Sept. 25th. Unfortunately the launch party is about 16 hours away, so that's not possible. However, if you're my friend and want to get the book, let me know.

Missing My Girls

Have you ever gone without close female companionship for so long that you feel a pain in your ovaries from lack of common estrogen? It's not that I haven't been around women. Lord knows that our office is less than 10 percent male so we have more PMS days than paydays around here.

However, it's not the same as being able to call someone a bitch without the fear of an hour long visit to the HR representative. The only girl that I can call my "girl" where I'm at happens to work with me, but it's crazy how when you're busy and both out of the office how quickly the deep ache for an hour long session about who was a whore last weekend can take hold.

There are only a few people in my life that I can truly be myself around 100 percent. Luckily, Chef is one of them so there is that nice respite when I come home. Being able to burp as loudly as I want and only get a head shake or "what do you say?" in response instead of a horrified look like you'd just killed a puppy with your salad fork.

It's just weird how many "me"s there seem to be. The me I am with Chef is different than the me I am with my writer's group and the me I am with my hometown girls. I miss being able to hang out knowing that I'm going to be harrassed about something but also knowing that if I wasn't I wouldn't be so loved.

Perhaps it's all the damn hype about Sex & The City or maybe it's because I haven't been up north in almost a year. I need to get drunk, eat pizza and set off some fireworks with my girls!

My Milestone

So today is a big day in my life. Not because of anything big that happened or because it was a day that marked anything special. But today I officially hit 60 pounds lost.

I started changing my lifestyle in August and since then, it's been a challenge, but well worth it. I am officially no longer obese by clinical standards. I fit in normal clothes and I've cut my fat and calorie intake. . .a LOT.

Originally 60 pounds was the goal, but now I'm aiming to weigh less. I'm hoping to take off about 15 more pounds so that I'm well within the "healthy weight" range.

I couldn't have gone even one day without Chef's support. What's more is that I've fallen more in love with him because he loves me no matter what size I am. There are few people that can truly say that they will love you no matter what, but with him, I believe it.

Am I thinner or dehydrated?

The last few days I've been asking myself this question constantly. I'm drinking less water than normal, but I'm still getting plenty of fluids. Yet, my lips have started to crack and my hands are perpetually dry. I've also lost weight. A few pounds since my last weigh in, so not enough to be afraid, but I'm wondering if I lost all water weight.

What are the signs of dehydration anyway? How much water do I have to drink before Chapstick starts working again to soothe my crusty lips?

On another note, the lady in our office that's notorious for not wearing her shoes has now been sporting a full body brace for the last month. Apparently she fell in December and it's just now hitting her. The brace looks like she's always sitting backwards in a chair that's too small for her. I'd feel some sympathy but she only complains about her back when we ask her to fold letters or anything else that is her actual job. She has no problem lifting an entire catering tray of sandwiches so that she can nibble on them. And it hasn't prevented her from taking her shoes off. Perhaps I'm just evil or perhaps my bullshit barometer is just highly attuned.

Purging for the sake of Purge

I'm not talking about any kind of eating disorder so if you were fooled by the topic, don't worry about reading on. I had a moment a few weeks ago where I looked around the apartment that Chef and I shared and about had a nervous break down. It's not that the apartment is all that bad or that we live with old stuff or anything.

It's just that I know that a house of our own is a few years away. Sadly, I've been waiting to upgrade our stuff until we either move or get married, whichever comes first. I'm now tired of waiting and even more tired of the years of crap that I've accumulated. It would actually be worse if we had a house because I would accumulate even MORE crap. It's mostly my fault. I bring stuff home with good intentions. Now our house if filled with good intentions.

So, I've systematically been weeding through each room of the house and throwing away anything that hasn't been worn, looked at, used, or handled in the last 18 months. I started (and still am finishing up) the bedroom. So far, I've thrown away, given away or taken away five garbage bags full of stuff. The most important thing is that it is AWAY.

I don't care if we have to eat on the floor while we save up money for the furniture we want or watch a busted up TV while we save for teh HD version. It's time to make our living space what we want it to be and not just what we can have.

High School Memories

My friend Natalie sent me this questionaire via email. It was different than the usual "what are you wear? Send this out or you're damned for life" kind of chain, so I thought it'd be fun to answer and post here. It's a rehash of high school. Funsies.

1. Did you date someone from your school?
Not technically.

2. Did you win anything in Seniors Who's Who?
I don't remember my high school doing that, so I guess the answer's no.

3. What kind of car did you drive?
1985 Cutlass Supreme that I named Carlos

4. It's Friday night...where r u?
Working at a sporting goods store until 9 and then meeting my co-worker (who happened to be my high school softball coach's best friend) in the mall parking lot for a beer delivery

5. Were you a party animal?
Not by the people in my high school, but by the kids in college that I actually partied with. . .yes.

6. Were you considered a flirt?
Only when I used to stick a green glow stick in my cleavage at parties. Most of the other times, no.

7. Were you in band, orchestra, or choir?
Not in high school.

8. Were you a nerd?
Yes. I went to class, did my work and got the hell out of there.

9. Did you get suspended/expelled?
Sadly, no. I was the only one of my friends to NOT get suspended during my high school tenure.

10. Do u remember your school fight song?
Sadly, yes, but that's because it's also the Michigan fight song.

11. Who were your favorite teachers?
Mrs. Goebel and Mrs. Mautz, Mr. Kelley

12. Where did you sit during lunch?
The journalism lab

13. What was your school's full name?
William Henry Harrison High School

14. School mascot?
Warriors

15. Homecoming court?
Yes, we had one. No, I wasn't on it.

16. If you could go back and do it again, would you?
College-yes. High School-no.

17. Where did you go senior skip day?
I didn't get to skip because I had a softball game that night.

18. Were you in any clubs?
Yes. NHS, the paper, German Club.

19. Have you gained some weight since then?
Gained it and lost it.

20. Who was your senior prom date?
Didn't go to senior prom. Instead I went to eat Chinese and then to the after parties.

21. Are you planning on going to your 10 year reunion?
Already skipped it.

22. Who was your home room teacher?
Mr. Ballard-an odd mix of Ross Perot and John Denver.

23. Who will repost this?
I don't care.

24. Did you play any sports?
Freshman and JV volleyball, freshman cheerleading and Varsity softball for four years.

25. Do you still talk to people from high school?
Yup. At least two on a semi-regular basis and two more when I can or they aren't pissed at me for some unknown reason.

See? Wasn't that fun?

I survived. . .but the Patriots didn't

What a week! I survived turning 29 (although today when I said it, one of my coworkers said "But what's your real age?" as if I were older and just claiming to be 29), two events within 48 hours, and a Superbowl.

What a great game! Even better was a Patriots loss. I'm going to pretend that I saw it coming, but I did dread the avalanche of accolades the team would've gotten if they'd gone undefeated. I'm clearly not a Patriots fan, but despite all that, I was surprised at the lack of sportsmanship that came after the game.

Yes, I think Bill Belichick should've stayed on the field until the last second was run out. Crazy as it was, it seems poor form to leave before the final tick of the game clock. And not that Belichick is ever exceptionally talkative, but the post game interviews were lame. The man has no problem being called a genius (if you can find me a quote where he denies this title, please let me know), but will not allow anyone to really question his decisions.

And Tom Brady acted so surprised at the beginning of the week when Plaxico Burress predicted they would only score 17 points (in the end they didn't even hit that number). His response sounded like "an older brother who has 50 pounds on his younger brother when his younger brother challenges him to a wrestling match." And yet, in the end, he not only had nothing to really say, but also pulled out of the Pro Bowl because the mysterious ankle injury flared up again.

Is it me or does anyone else think that Brady and Moss pulled out of the Pro Bowl because they didn't want to have to answer any tough questions?

29 on the 29th

Me, Oprah, Tom Selleck. We all share a love of guns, a tendency towards self-deification and a birthday.

I turn the big 2-9 on the 29th. I think as a kid I dreamed that this would be a magical birthday. I'd be old enough to realize the numeric symmetry and have some kind of zen year because of it. Of course, that's probably not the case seeing as its a mere day or so before a weekend of hectic frenzy with work things. But there's always hope.

My hope is that soon I'll have a stash of cash to buy some new clothes. While 2008 promises to be double awesome, 2007 brought about a much needed reduction in my size. My clothes that I wore 6 months ago aren't even a viable option any more and the clothes that I'd kept from my slimmer days are now too big as well. I'm really living off the donations of friends and family at this point. It's not a bad problem to have and I'm nearing a size I haven't seen since I was in 8th grade. I'm compelled to keep going, but it's time to stop being cheap and buy things that actually fit.

Happy New Year

Wow! It's 2008 already and I'm already slammed. The person starts on Monday which should relieve me of most of my old duties, but the next two months are going to be crazy at work. Aside from that, Chef and I came back from the holiday to find that our computer had crashed. We had to restart the hard drive from its original state which meant that I had to pray hard that I'd backed up my novel and other short stories. Luckily, I had.

Our trip to our homes for the holidays was definitely interesting. Chef and I created a new car game to pass the time. We also passed a place in Florida that simply had a sign that read "Fantasy Bingo." From this we created our own Fantasy Bingo team. Devised like fantasy football, my first selection in the mock draft was the 72 year old blue hair from Missouri with excellent memory recall.

All in all, it was a great holiday that unfortunately left me wanting more time off. A wish that I won't get into well into March, if I'm lucky. Oh, well.

And I haven't bought a gift yet. . .

Now is the time of year that I freak out. I'm not an incredibly late shopper. I'm not like the hordes of crazy people that are at Wal-Mart at midnight on Christmas Eve. But generally now is when I start to really shop. Usually I have a few gifts under my belt, but this year, I'm behind.

Work has been nuts. I haven't gotten home before 6 p.m. more than once this week or in the last three weeks. I've had morning meetings once a week for the last two months. However, it's a good kind of busy. Productive and with lots of planning for when I'm really busy in January and February.

So tomorrow I will brave the crowds to wade through deals and find some things that I hope my family will like. Plus I have to find things that I hope Chef's family will like. That's pretty challenging. For the first time in our relationship, we're going to both families for Christmas. Seeing as the families are nine hours apart, it's going to be a car Christmas. But in the end, I think it'll be worth it. I haven't spent Christmas with his family, so it'll be nice to see them and how they celebrate.

Aside from working and stressing, I'm still losing weight. Today I saw a former co-worker who said that I looked like I did when I started at this place six years ago. It was nice to hear. I've actually lost 40 pounds now. Only about 30 to 40 more to go. And that's just to get at a healthy weight. But it hasn't been too bad so far.

Grandma Got Gunned Down by Santa Claus

On my nightly walking route, I pass by an Army surplus store. Last week after Thanksgiving, they had someone paint festive holiday scenes on their storefront windows. The paintings weren't complete the first day. Only the white was laid down. First I saw a few snowmen, then a few reindeer and then I saw Santa riding a fighter jet with an American flag flying off the back. It seemed appropriate enough and made the last few blocks a little more jaunty.

Today, I passed by the completed store window. Red, green and black details had been added into the white and the scene really took shape. Most stuck to the same motif the store had set out, but two really stood out. First, the snowman sporting camouflage. Perhaps it's just me, but I thought that being made out of the ground materials and a pure white would be more masking than sporting a red and green camo jacket. But I could let that one go. Next came the plane riding Santa. This time, he was holding up an assault rifle with a scope. He didn't seem to be hunting the reindeer, but it was a little disturbing to see the man known for sneaking into houses carrying a weapon. Did I miss something? Does Santa actually break and enter with force? Perhaps his belly is merely a hollowed out shell used to conceal hand grenades. Either way, seeing Santa with a gun raised above his head is disturbing.

But maybe that's just me.

I like to move it, move it

Since August 1st, I have been walking progressively more each day and counting my calories. It wasn't really a conscious decision to lose weight, but just a spur of the moment thing. Chef has been exceptionally supportive and we've been working on portion size and adding more fruits and veggies to our diets.

I say this now because I hit a milestone last week. I have officially shed 25 pounds. But more importantly, I feel great and have loads more energy. I hope that I can continue making better food decisions. For some reason, this time, it hasn't been that bad. I haven't really denied myself something if I really wanted it, but instead write down what I eat so that I hold myself accountable for what goes into my mouth. Plus I'm now shopping, what I call "front of store." No longer relegated to the back where they put the plus sizes next to the maternity wear.

And what's more, Chef has lost weight by the lack of too many high calorie snacks in the house. And naturally, being a dude, he's lost about 30 pounds.

The other aspects of my life are pretty good right now too. My sports teams are winning, my writing is progressing and work is going very well for the first time in a while. No complaints here.

On another note, I was in a hotel lobby and wasting time waiting for someone, so I stepped into a gift shop. They had some nice jewelry and I was taken with a necklace. I tried it on, liked it and then thought that I shouldn't spend the thirty bucks on it. Two days later, I went back to get it and realized that it was $300, not thirty. I felt like an idiot and then was indignant that they could sell something that looked like it was $30 for ten times the price. I wonder who the hell would buy the thing.

Yes and I feel very touched to have done so

This morning I was walking my usual route before work. Almost back to the apartment. Because Chef and I live in the city, we're used to all kinds of things. One thing I'm used to is getting stopped for directions while I'm walking. Normally, it's not a big deal.

This morning, however, I was walking about a block away from being back home when a big ass blue Hummer pulls up and then proceeds to honk at me. Now, I wear headphones, but I'm also not blind and therefore observant enough to see a car pulling up beside me without having the horn of a small barge blown into my ears.

In the driver's seat is a pretty, petite blonde woman with too much make-up and in the passenger seat is a clean cut looking guy wearing a cowboy hat and a gap toothed smile. The woman was a little caustic when she asked "Where's the Pancake Pantry?" Now, seeing as I've moved to the South, I am a little more accustomed to getting a pleasantry such as "Excuse me" thrown my way, but since the horn honking incident, I had no such expectations.

"Go up to the light, take a left and it'll be two blocks up on your right," I said.

She leaned over the guy and screeched at me to repeat the directions. The guy looked a little embarrassed. I repeated the directions and got ready to throw my headphones back on and motor on when the blonde chick looked at me and said "You've just given directions to Dean Strickland!" and then took off. I did have time to give them the eyebrow raised- I don't care look and see the guy was mortified while mouthing "Thank you" as they sped off.

I don't know who the hell Dean Strickland is and I doubt that I ever will, but this morning, I gave him directions.

Sometimes I'm an Idiot

It's not that hard to believe if you know me, but sometimes I can get myself into some very unique situations. One of which happened yesterday. I wore pants with cuffs and high heels. Separately, not too bad, but together, a lethal combo. A friend of mine got her high heel caught in the cuff of her pants and took a tumble down some concrete steps that lead to a dislocated elbow and a full arm cast for 6 weeks.

I, however, not only have the combo of the pants and heels, but my pants are not at least a size too big and fall off my waist when I walk. As I was going to a meeting, I told my friend that my biggest fear was that my heel would get caught and my pants would come down. It didn't happen going to the meeting, but on the way back from it. I was walking into our office, my heel caught, my pants came down. That would be enough, but there was an underwear situation that had me bare assed in front of my office. Luckily with my reflexes of a cat, I was able to crotch down and pull up without anyone inside noticing. My friend, however, got to see the full moon.

Good times. But at least I'm not in an arm cast.

I Hate Bill Belichick

There are many reasons why I hate the coach of the New England Patriots, but let me be honest and start with the real one first:

1. I am an Indianapolis Colts fan and the Patriots have beaten us at some very inopportune times. I put it out there because very few people like a team that continues to win over and over and the only thing that makes that worse is when the team they beat is yours.
2. Cheating is cheating is cheating. Steroids, videotaping, referee influencing. They all give an unfair advantage, even if the person doing it isn't exactly sure what that is.
3. Bill Belichick has always been praised at being a master of details, a game plan for anything, and yet he claims to not have known the rule about videotaping an opposing team's defensive signals. We're not that stupid.
4. The whole league, and the Patriots specifically, were warned that the NFL would be watching this year. Where does Belichick choose to tape signals? In New York, the home of the NFL's main office. Do the words "above the law" mean anything?
5. The stupid torn sleeve sweatshirt. It's ugly and I'm sick of it getting all the attention.

Okay, now I feel much better. Let the football season roll on!

More What? Mashed Potatoes?

So I'm old enough now where I don't mark on a calendar when the Video Music Awards are. Actually I never marked them on a calendar, but I did use to watch MTV and thereby knew the air date by osmosis.

However, being that football season kicked off this weekend, I have better things to watch than an awards show. I did, however, log on the next day to see Britney's first post-baby, non-night club performance. Look, we all know that Britney's songs aren't musicall good, but they are usually musically entertaining. Meaning they might not remind us of Beethoven, but they do put a nice little jaunt in our step. And she's had some real shitty songs that have just plain sucked. But the one thing that made Britney Britney was that she could take a shitty ass song, add some glitter thongs, dancing midgets, albino snakes and a dash of lesbianism to come up with a truly entertaining performance.

This year was the exception. Girls want to be Britney because she's got a hot body and some great stripper dance moves. Her performace to "Gimme More" (which unlike it's title does not really invite anyone to want more of anything except choices on the radio) was slow, boring and so uninspired that even my lazy ass could've performed the dance routine. When an overweight nearing 30 year says with confidence that she could've out-gyrated Britney Spears, it's time to get a new choreographer.

Look, I applaud any woman that's had two kids in two years and dares to put on a bikini or lingerie for her husband, but doing so for the whole world to see is a little different. Britney wasn't fat by any stretch of the imagination, but her stomach was considerably more rounded than the last time we'd seen it without a child growing inside. Wearing an outfit like that is setting people up with high expectations and then having them come crashing back at you in the tabloids you already loathe and use umbrella's against. Some stylist needs to have the balls to tell that girl that she can be sexy in something that doesn't create the negative publicity.

Does anyone else wonder how long Britney's hair has gotten since she shaved it off and what her natural shade is?

Nearly Everything's Going My Way

Perhaps it's the skeptical nature in me, but nearly everything is going my way right now which leads me to wonder when the shoe is going to drop.

What's going my way?, you ask. Like I said, nearly everything. My lifestyle change program (aka weight loss) has been going great. Chef is ultra-supportive and I'm actually finding that I love eating fruit. Vegetables take a little more effort, but I'm choking them down as well. Plus I've come to realize that a lot of smarter choices adds up to pounds lost. I'm down 14 pounds in 6 weeks. Not too shabby and I'm not hungry all the time.

Plus last week my aunt sent me a big box full of shoes, scarves and a purse that she was cleaning out of her closet. Needless to say, I racked up a lot of new footwear.

Also something I wrote and submitted a year and a half ago was selected to be printed in an anthology meaning that something I penned will be in a book next year. I'm excited because I've been in newspapers, magazines and online, but never in a book. It seems so permanent and grandoise that I love it.

I got to see my niece and nephew last week (and brother and sister-in-law, but let's face it, when you get older you can't really compete with two adorable children). My football teams both won. My friend got married without a downpour on her and it was a beautiful wedding (at which I caught the bouquet). All in all, things are going well.

I would take bets in my head as to what will come crashing down first, but then I wouldn't be able to enjoy the good times.

It's Hard to Find A Bathing Suit in August

So Thursday night I'm driving to Memphis to meet up with my dad and stepmom. We're heading to Texas to visit my brother and his family. Kind of neat because I've only been to Texas once and it was a business trip so it was therefore immediately no fun. Kind of sad because my brother lives in the Texas equivalent of my home town. And it's August and in the middle of a heat wave. But anything to see my niece and nephew.

However, one thing that I'm not thrilled about is that both this trip and a trip I have to take immediately after require a bathing suit. I have not bought a bathing suit since 6 sizes ago. And let's just be honest. It has less to do with my fat than the fact that I live nowhere near a swimming pool and never remember to bring them when I go on vacation. Wearing a bathing suit doesn't really bug me that much anymore. Buying a bathing suit is what sucks.

Actually, I probably would've been fine buying a bathing suit in, say, May. The beginning of the season when all cute suits are available has long since past and the only thing left is a bunch of rejects on the clearance rack. Seeing as I buy nearly everything I own at Target, I went to see what I could get for a good price there.

But I forgot that Target went through a halter tankini phase this year. Let me clue the swimsuit designers in: A tankini does NOT make fat people feel like they're wearing a two-piece. It does NOT hide flaws and it does NOT do a better job than a brilliantly designed one-piece. AND a halter does NOT support the large breasts of the plus size woman nearly as well as you'd think.

After sorting through what seemed like hundreds of bathing suit bottoms and only two tops (quite literal there), I got desperate. The only matching bathing suit I'd found thus far was a floral tankini halter top with leopard print straps and a leopard print bottom. UGGO. So my desperation lead me to the maternity section. (and subsequently also to a major gripe of mine: RETAILERS. . .STOP PUTTING YOUR PLUS SIZE SECTION NEXT TO YOUR MATERNITY SECTION. ONE CAN EASILY DRIFT OVER WITHOUT REALLY NOTICING CAUSING PEOPLE TO LOOK AT YOUR STOMACH AND THE BOLD PEOPLE TO ASK WHEN YOU'RE DUE.)

I grabbed the cute maternity suit, the shitty leopard print one and then took a one-piece that was stuffed in the middle of a rack and two sizes too big to the dressing room. Joyfully the maternity suit was too big in all areas except for the boobs--which makes me fear pregnancy more than I already do. Besides the fact that I've lost nearly 10 lbs in the last 5 weeks and if it hadn't fit, I'd have been thrown into a hysteria that only french fries can cure.

The second suit was the one piece that fit through the boobs, but looks like I dropped a load in my pants--plus it's brown. (Thank you, mom, for the ass that resembles Kansas. Sometimes you can see a thunderstorm coming from miles away across my booty.) The third suit look like something even a transvestite couldn't pull off. So I went with simple, loaded pant one-piece.

Now I'm gonna be pissed off if I don't go swimming in the next week!

Friday, Lazy Friday

Have you ever woken up knowing that you were going to try and accomplish as little as possible? I knew from the moment the alarm went off this morning and instead of grabbing my running shoes to get some exercise as I normally do, I got up, moved from the bed to the couch and then promptly fell back asleep for another hour before getting up. Then I got ready for work and skipped curling my hair and therefore bought myself 10 more minutes of laziness.

I got to work and spent the first hour updating a wellness site that I'm participating in. It's like a free online version of weight watchers that I've become obsessed with. I log in every morning to type in my food intake and exercise from the day before. Then I take 3 minutes to do an online lesson. I've learned a lot about how to count calories just by looking at something.

It's quite interesting and a talent I should've learned in high school at the lunch table eating only twizzlers and diet coke, like the rest of the female gender. Unfortunately, I was a geek in high school and spent my lunch hours in the journalism room working on the paper or yearbook.

After that, I returned some emails, checked some emails and then ate lunch. After lunch I had three errands that I purposely left until Friday afternoon to do so that I could have a way to legitimately waste time. Luckily, Friday afternoon afternoon is also our company's "walking team" time, so I get to jet out of the office in a couple minutes to make up for the walking I missed this morning by sleeping in.

I have a feeling that Chef's not going to let me get away with the same kind of laziness tonight. Oh well.

Late Night Phone Call

Last night, at about 11, I got a phone call from my uncle Mark. I had been trying to go to sleep for over an hour and just couldn't manage to get down when my cell rang. I admit that at first when I get these late night calls I expect someone to have died. It's just how it usually goes in our family.

It wasn't a death, so that was great news. It was, however, a fire. The business that my grandpa started nearly 60 years ago and that my uncle Jeff had taken to a new level for the last 20 years was on fire. It had been closed. No one was hurt. But the fire was damaging.I'd have to say that as far as damage to personal property goes, fire is like the cardiac arrest of them. You don't see it coming. You don't get to say goodbye. You can only just celebrate what you had and hope that you can get it going again.

But on a personal level, the family business had been a special place for me. It was special to all of us in the family in one way or another for various reasons, but since I'm the one with a blog, I'll give you my reasons.

Besides the fact that if I wanted to see my grandfather as a child, I could always hang out at the "shop," as we all called it. Besides the fact that we had more than one Christmas there as a big family or that my grandparents threw my sixth birthday party there when I parents were called away. Besides all that, there is the fact that the shop saved me.

After my mom died I was lost. Keep in mind I was only 21, so I had the normal amount of "what am I going to do with my life?" lostness going on as well. But as normally social and outgoing I was, after my mom died I had quickly turned into someone with social anxiety disorder. I didn't like to see or speak to anyone. After months of this, my therapist told me that I should get a job, but to make things easier I should get a job similar to one that I had before. So with my fresh college degree, I headed to the mall to get a retail job. Thirty minutes, a panic attack and an incident of me puking into a potted plant later and I was on the phone with my uncle Jeff.

All I said was that I needed to find a job like one I had before and Jeff told me to come in the next morning at 8 a.m. to start. I got to work in a loving, family environment that forced me to talk with customers and get over my social anxiety. For a year, I got to hang out, heal and then move on in better shape than I was. I firmly believe that had it not been for that year, I'd have not been able to move away and be where I'm at today, which includes the loving arms of Chef.

But that's just my story. The shop was a landmark in the community and all day people have been sharing their stories on the newspaper article on the web. According to my uncles, others in the community are stopping to help them clean up. Some of whom they don't even know.

It just goes to show the impact that one place can have on a community and how thankful our family, especially my grandpa and grandma and my uncle jeff and his family who have made lots of sacrifices to keep it going, is to be where they are.

Potter-ific

This past weekend was Harry Potter-filled. I had resigned myself to getting up on Saturday morning (and by morning, i mean 8 a.m. not midnight), heading to the local Borders, and grabbing the lastest edition with some coffee, to tuck in for a long day's reading.

However, as Friday wore on and I saw that I didn't really have anything planned, I decided to take a different tact. I took a "nap" from 7 p.m. to one a.m. on Friday night, drove to Wal-Mart (which an hour after the affair was sure to have the least amount of adults sporting eye-liner drawn lightning scars) and picked up the "Deathly Hollows."

Don't worry, I'm not going to spoil anything. But I did stay up until 6 that morning ready, got up at noon and then continued reading on and off for most of the day. I convinced Chef that we needed to see the Order of the Phoenix on the Imax in 3D and he was game. So, we chose what I like to call the "Sinner Showing" of Imax, 9:30 a.m. on Sunday morning. There were plenty of other people there, but not nearly the bone-crushing, arm-rest fighting numbers that would've been later.

Of course, we got next to the group of very obese people that acted as if they had never been to the movies before and were indeed watching the feature from their living room. They were all five sitting behind us with two of the ladies taking up two seats. Chef and I were in the row in front of them, but had moved towards the center as to not be directly in front of the group. While he was mostly spared, this did little for me.

The two larger ladies moved to our empty row (so chosen because in two and a half hours, I know that I'll have to pee at least once, no matter what the movie is). So now I had to maneveur through them when I wanted to pee. They got up no less than two times to refill the two large popcorns. None of this would've bothered me if they'd have spoken at a normal level, but instead, they decided to screech "When ya get up, make sure to grab me some napkins or something because I'm going to be crying when Sirius dies." Not that the majority of people didn't know the twists and turns of the book, but some didn't and that's just damn rude.

I was annoyed the whole time, but still enjoyed the movie. We enjoyed the IMAX part, but there was only about 15 minutes of 3D in the movie. It was cool, but not THAT cool.

So I finished the book last week so that no one (namely Chef who doesn't read the books but chats with people who does and then comes in to shout surprising plot twists while I'm reading) could spoil it for me.

Part of me is sad that the books are over, and the other part is glad that I'll actually live like a human being this weekend.

Still haven't found what I'm looking for

There really isn't a whole lot of double meaning to the title. I'm still looking for a lot of things and when I was starting to write this, that was the song that was running through my head.

Last night I attended a function where someone said something that was not at all that surprising. Something I've probably thought a million times. But when it comes from someone in a leadership position, it just makes you cringe a little harder. Reality sometimes slaps you in the face harder than other occasions.

But cryptic transgressions aside. Tomorrow, or rather tonight at midnight, is the release of the final Harry Potter. To be honest, I want one so bad that I'm actually contemplating busting out anything that looks remotely like wizarding garb and hauling my ass down to a bookstore to get it. But I'll probably just end up heading to Wal-Mart at 2 in the morning to get it in hopes of not having to deal with crowds. Perhaps that's just me.

Chef and I were hunkered in the middle of Harry mania a few weeks ago. I woke up one saturday and saw an ad for the video game. "I think I'd like to play that," I said. Video games are Chef's hobby, so for me to take an interest was all he needed to hear. We got the game and it was really good. The two of us played nearly non-stop all weekend and deep into the work week. It was awesome.

But I digress. Perhaps I'll have more to share on Monday.

Mini-vacation

For our summer vacation, Chef and I went 15 minutes away from our apartment. I volunteered to housesit for a co-worker. I forgot how nice it is to have a house. We grilled out and ate dinner outside. We watered the landscaping and I did laundry until my heart was content. Simple things felt so nice. It made us really think about what we wanted.

"We couldn't live in a big city forever," Chef said. "Like New York or LA. I'd miss having a house and yard."

It's so true though. You never realize the joy being outside and wiggling your toes in the grass until you haven't done it for a while.

Anyway, it was a great vacation. We'll probably go back this week to hang out some more. I would totally volunteer to housesit for people all the time if I could. Perhaps I could make a career out of professionally housesitting. Is there such a thing and if so, where do I sign up?

Not a Morning Person

There are many reasons that I don't get up at 5 a.m. on a regular basis and today at work is just one example. Mostly because I can't function after about noon without at least 7 hours of sleep. That's not necessarily true. If I were just up late and got up at a normal time, that would've been all right. But getting up nearly two hours earlier than normal hurts anyone.

So now I've spent the afternoon alternately sending out emails and intermittently playing games online until a respectable hour to leave. It's now approaching that hour.

Last night I made my first ever loaf of bread. From scratch. I would've been more proud, but Chef brought me back to earth by saying "You realize that people have been baking bread for a long time in history and most without the use of a Kitchenaid mixer." Nonetheless I was still very happy with the results. In fact, I'm craving some carbs right now. I hope to start baking different kinds of breads on a regular basis for practice. If you have any good bread recipes, hook a girl up.

Close but No Cigar

Hmm. Funny how once you title something with a cliche, you begin to think about the cliche. I guess close, but not a winner because you don't get to smoke the celebratory cigar? Anyway, I came in second in about the third job now. I'm so close to landing something great that I can taste it. But I'm not smoking the cigar yet.

However, when I was let down easy at this last job, I was asked to come in to interview for the same position in a different department. I have that this week. We'll see how it goes.

Alas, Chef turned a year older on Sunday. We had a weekend long celebration. I think in the future I'm going to get him one good present to be given the morning after his birthday to help cut the birthday hangover. Because waking up and thinking that'll be 364 more days until your special day is pretty depressing and deserves a treat.

Other than that, I'm just waiting for Paris to get out of jail so that I can have a reason for living again. As Cameron Diaz puts it "When Paris suffers, we all suffer." And so I'm suffering right now. Mostly I just like Cameron Diaz more since then.

Memorial Day Fever

The one thing that majorily sucks about a long holiday weekend is having to go back to work. Three gloriously long days off and then back to reality.

"We're just kidding. You don't really have this much free time. . .EVER."

That's the voice of the vacation Gods laughing in my general direction.

I did, however, have time to go to a friend's wedding reception (it was lovely), take a short jaunt up to my hometown and then do a thorough deep clean of the kitchen. While everything was wonderful, I probably felt best about the kitchen deep clean. It really needed a scrubbing. Of course, now my back is aching from being on the floor on my hands and knees, but what can you do?

On Saturday, I spent some time with some of my favorite non-Chef people in the world. One thing about my current place of employment is that it draws some of the nicest, coolest being I've ever met. We all grouped together for a picture, the past and present employees, and just being around the group made me happy. Whenever I get the calling for a new job, its going to be a bittersweet moment. Sweet because the set-up I currently have is not the most conducive to having the best outcome for my work and because I deserve bigger and better opportunities. Bitter because I'll be leaving some of the coolest people I've ever met.

Speaking of bigger and better opportunities, a side note here: I could be very close to getting one of these in the next week or so. If you have any spare good thoughts, send them my way. I'll take all the good energy I can get.

Yesterday I went to my Dad's house to visit some people. One of the families that I stayed with in Germany was in there on their vacation and I got a chance to hang out with them. Plus, as a BIG bonus, my very lovely and naughty grandmother was there (Naughty is part of her nickname, so don't think I was alluding to any current bad behavior.) One of my aunts also made an appearance, so that was a big bonus too. I love it when my family comes together.

We were all hanging out at my dad and his wife (I'm not calling out names for the protection of my identity--not any other reason). It was a nice afternoon. When my grandma was leaving I was directing her out of my dad's very packed driveway and I didn't do a very good job. She backed gently into my car and I felt horrible. I know that she felt bad, and still does because she is a very empathetic and wonderful lady. However, if there were any car there to hit, I'd have volunteered mine up gladly seeing as it is a 12 year old car and while it runs well (after a recent $800 fix up), its not that important how it looks. Plus she merely nudged it so only some minor paint damage was done. I know she feels bad and wants me to have it fixed, and I will do anything I can to make her happy, but I kind of like it. It gives my car some personality and a great conversation piece. I'm just saying.

Well, I guess I should get back to lounging in the few hours I have left before the alarm goes off.

I'm Smug and I like It

Not really, but on the way to work this morning, I was behind a Toyota Prius with the personalized state license plate that read "SMUG." Being a South Park fan, I laughed out loud despite myself. Those of you who get it with me can chuckle to the delight of a giant SMUG cloud from George Clooney's Oscar acceptance speech colliding with the SMUG of hybrid car drivers. It's glorious. (on a separate note, my work won't let me go onto the South Park web site. It's blocked for being "tasteless." Their wording not mine.)

I've been away from the blog and when he's feeling particularly mean, Chef will look over at me and saracastically say "Great blog today." In my useless defense, I've been trying valiantly to get a new job and between my actual work and finding work, the thought of spending even a few more minutes on the computer every night is just too much. On the bright side, it's summer and things relaz a little at my job. Plus I've got leads leads leads galore on my quest for further employment. Wish me luck.

For now, Chef is out of school for the summer and loving every minute of his break. I'm cranking away. One friend is getting ready to pop out a kid, another is getting married and a third is getting married this weekend while preggers. It's apparently been a busy year for other people as well.

Just something to ponder on. . .

A quick thought to send people's way:

If Sheryl Crow is so damn committed to the environment and wants ME, the girl who had to buy extra toilet paper in college when it was her turn because she used so much, to use only one square of TP when I go, then why is her song the background music to an SUV jingle?

Anyone want to wager a bet on that one? She cares enough to lecture, but is okay with selling her song to promote gas guzzling cars.

I'm just saying. . .

My bad

Okay, so I've been pretty bad about my neglect of this blog for the month of April. I've had to make some choices with my time and if it comes down to sleep, chef or blog, I've chosen the first two for the month. But hopefully I'm back in the loop now.

Tuesday morning I had a weird moment with a stranger. I took my car into the Jiffy Lube (although I would've preferred Mr. Lubie because that name just rocks). I was sitting in the waiting area perusing the USA Today and half-listening to Fox News playing in the background. Obviously it was running the full story on the tragedy at Virginia Tech this week. I had obviously heard what happened, but I hadn't really known details about the gunman. Across from me was an Asian man who spoke with a heavy accent. As we both looked up at the news report and details of the gunman came pouring out including the very Fox-like details of his residency status, I noticed that the man across from me was looking at me for my reaction. Without saying anything I could see in his eyes the anguish of the consequences of this news and felt very weird.

It got me to thinking about how as a white person, I don't normally think of my race. I don't have any strong nationality in my background, more like a mutt, but because I'm white, I don't have it constantly on my mind that I'm white. In fact, the only time I think about my race is when something happens that divides the races. It just seemed odd to me. A weird revelation.

Anyway, I hope to be back on more often now, but I'm not making any promises.

I didn't go to prom either but i'm not crying about it

Have you ever read something the sibling of a celebrity has reportedly said and just winced? Or how about when a celebrity tries to make themself seem more down to earth, but really it just makes you shake your head?

Angelina Jolie got two of those in one great package when her creepy ass brother, James Haven, reportedly told a tabloid that Angelina hasn't been eating because she was grieving over the death of her mother. He claims she's down to a svelte 109 on her 5'8" body.

Grieving sucks and that's not all that unrelatable. Who hasn't had someone close to them die? But its his next rant that really upped the creep factor. He then went on to try adn warrant some sympathy from the audience by talking about how much he hates his estranged dad, Jon Voight (owner of a French convertible?). He claims his dad was such a bastard because he and Angelina did not have cars while in high school.

Does anyone not pity this?

Haven claims he and Angelina's social growth was stunted because they didn't have cars. He didn't even go to prom because he was too embarrassed to have his parents drive him. However, this is my favorite line:

"Angie has been driven to be an independently wealthy woman now because we saw what it was like to be at the mercy of someone who controls the money and pulls the strings."

Hello?!?!? Isn't that called adolescence? Did any one out there control the money when they were a teenager? That only happens in cases where parents rip off their kid, or as I like to call it "Pulling a Culkin."

Now that we pity and sympathize with Angelina, is it wrong to bet on which country her next kid will come from?

I'm thinking she hasn't hit up South America yet. The next baby will be from Equador. Any other guesses out there in the "Where's the Next Jolie-Pitt Kid From?" game?

Is it almost April already?

So, I failed miserably in trying to update my blog three times a week for March. Its true. However, in my weak ass defense, I've had some work things going on that made me pull away from a lot of things. In fact, if I were to self-diagnose, I'd say that I was slightly depressed for the majority of March.

Chef has kept me sane though and done a remarkable job in cheering me up for the most part. So now I'm ready to be back in action. At least on the home front. The work front is an entirely different matter, but one that I can at least now face.

Yup. I'm just that caught up in myself that I've not really cared to comment on other people's lives. Don't worry. I'll get brutally vicious again soon.

Proud to Lose

Can you be proud of a team that loses in the NCAA tournament? I think you can. I'm proud because my beloved Hoosiers looked less like the teams of old and more like a team that has potential. They not only exceeded expectations this year, but when down by double digits with only 4 minutes left tonight against UCLA, they didn't give up. They actually believed they could win and with a minute left tied the score. Yes, it didn't end up a Hoosier victory, but the teams of old would have given up a lot earlier and made an embarrassingly lopsided exit from the tournament.

As you can tell, I've been sitting on my couch and watching basketball most of the day. Okay, all of the day. But, hell, its March. That's what I'm supposed to be doing.

My favorite time of the year

I love March. The weather is warmer and more inviting. My busy season is starting to wrap up a little bit. And with all these excuses to get out and see people, mostly I just want to stay inside and watch basketball. I bought my new baby for the sole purpose of listening to all the tournament games. It's a grand time of year.

Other than that, its same shit different day. I'm still mega-stressing at work. Chef is still being wonderful about it. I'm still walking every day (although I should be walking MORE now.) I've done all that and I set my writing aside for a little while. I've only written a few pages this month and I'm set to pick it up again for the second half of the month, but I needed a break. I actually need a break from a lot of things. I've been going to bed about 2-3 hours after I get home every night and that leaves little time for Chef and I to snuggle up. Well, we aren't actually the snuggling type, but you know what I mean.

So today I came in early. Left on time. And now am dragging my butt home to walk, talk and be with Chef.

My Day Off (Sort of)

Today I took the day off. Chef's spring break is this week and since he works weekends and we haven't had a day off together since my birthday, I cut out.

It wasn't that hard of a decision to cut out. I'm getting to the point of work being unbearable. We are once again without leadership in my particular office. Clients are upset and I've been getting phone calls about every other day with their grievances...literally. It's like Festivus and I'm hearing all the issues they have with us people.

Aside from that, my department seems to be in turmoil. We've had a lot of changes and it seems as if things will continue to get worse before they get better. There has always been at least one stable chain of command and now there seems to be none. No matter how many hours of walking I do a week, I can't seem to relax.

But today was better. Mostly because even if I had to check my email all day, I still wasn't actually in the office. Chef and I were lazy. Actually, not that lazy. We were out of bed at about 8 this morning. One of the things I wanted to get done this weekend was to install my new satellite radio receiver in my car. Chef graciously helped me do it so that I could run the wires from the antenna, which sits about 6 inches from the exact middle of the back windshield, to the middle of my front dash. His patience and diligence allow me to have the radio in my car with minimum wires showing. Honestly, it was one of those moments where you look at someone and are grateful for having them in your life not only for their company, but for their expertise.

Now I'm ready for the NCAA tournament.

My dad sent me money for my birthday and while normally extra money is put into our savings account or used on tuition, this time the money came after my tax return money. So, we've got savings and I've got an excuse to spend some dough on myself. Thanks, Dad and Robin!

Anyway, I've been eying satellite radio forever. Mostly because I live about 3 hours from even getting my teams on the TV feeds. So I chose Sirius. I can get my NFL team in the Fall and every game of the NCAA tournament. I even used a gift certificate to splurge on the boombox accessory. Now I'm jamming to my new two favorite stations: Big 80's and Hair Nation. Good times.

Today I went A Courting

I had never been to traffic court or anything like that. The first time I was in a court room, I was called to be a witness to a check writing fraud scheme that had been caught. I'd been called as a cashier who took a check. . .two years before the court case. Luckily, I was never called to testify that day.

Today, I was not so lucky. Back in August, I was helping a delivery guy into our office when I noticed a dark green mini van trying to turn around in our narrow parking lot. It didn't do a very good job and ended up hitting one of our co-workers cars. I was standing less than 20 feet away and was so dumbfounded that the van didn't stop that I memorized the license plate number and then immediately wrote it down and then told my co-worker.

Apparently, the department of safety frowns heavily upon the hit and runs, so they were suspending the driver's license. Aside from the fact that she never paid our friend's deductible, etc.

So, we had to go to a hearing this morning to testify upon what we saw months ago. It was nerve-racking. The lady was indignant and claimed that she wasn't even in the area on that day. At first I felt sorry for her and wondered if it was her, but the longer she talked the more bullshit she spewed. Then it was basically the fact that her word was directly challenging my word and I knew that I was right. I mean, I didn't just come up with a license plate number that happened to match a green mini-van that just happened to be her car. By the end of the hearing, I was indignant. The person residing was allowed to deliver her decision by mail in the next 30 days. I'll let you know what happens.

February Goal Update

Yes, it's been a while since I updated. Perhaps I should make it a goal for March. Consider it done. I will update my blog thrice weekly in March. In my defense, February is a brutal month for me at work.

Anyway, I'm sitting here sipping on a mixed drink that was garnered through a plethora of free booze that I came upon last week. Chef and I are trying to reinstate cocktail hour in the house without overdoing it and it seems to be going well. I've also discovered that my tolerance level for alcohol is pathetic which makes one cocktail plenty for me.

Aside from cocktails and work, I've still been keeping up with my goals. Well, mostly.

1) I have continued to walk every day of February. I'm trying to step it up, no pun intended, to help jump start the weight loss a little more. That being said, I'm very proud to say that I've lost 12 pounds thus far. I notice some pants are loose and my clothes look better so far. I'm officially 20 percent of the way to my goal. I hope to have 20 pounds off by my April update. We'll see.

2) I'm still writing, but the 30,000 words in January have made my February output less than I had hoped. Instead of the 15,000 words I was working for, I ended up with about 10,000. I'm up to 150 pages and I'm working to try and crank out the rest in the next two months.

On a different note, I wanted to say publicly how proud I am of Chef. He has been invited to be a phi theta kappa at his school. Its the honors fraternity and I'm exceptionally proud of how well he's done in school so far.

Okay, since tomorrow's officially March, be looking for three updates a week. Britney, I'm coming for you.

Just Another Crappy Ass Monday

The only thing manic about today was my attitude this morning. I've been living on the edge of nerves and rationality since last week and I have to see that I'm running thin on both. This time of year is always busy and always annoying and I'm about ready to break.

Luckily, Chef has been there to keep me in check. He's come through when it counts, calmed me down when I needed it and been pretty much a rock. Mind you, a rock that tickles my feet to tortue me, but a rock nonetheless. In fact, last night I was sitting in one room, he was in another and it hit me. I really want to marry this guy. It's not like I don't feel like that all the time, but come on, people. We've all had moments when we really take pride in our decisions.

Now, I'm just hoping that Monday will end less painfully and that a good walk will help me feel better. I guess we'll see.

Super Bowl Break down

Woo hoo! The Colts are Super Bowl Champs. I'm excited and that's all there is to say about that.

The Super Bowl as a whole, however, there are lots of things to comment on. First is the pre-game show. Not so much the talking heads spouting off at everything. I don't mind them (except for the lisp-y Shannon Sharpe). I do, however, wonder what the hell the NFL was thinking to put Cirque de Soleil on. Does any football fan really need to see tye-died lizard men jumping off of swings with their teams logo across their chest? How about a perpetually smiling kid with his face made up to look like a creepy rag doll bouncing up and down with giant balloons strapped to him? People holding gian butterflies? No? None of that appeals to you? Me neither. Cut the crappy ass pre-game show of at least that theatrical performance. Or if you must have one, at least make it a really cool marching band. Football and marching bands go together.

Other than that the Super Bowl was pretty enjoyable. Prince was as good as a half time show really can be and the game wasn't a blow out in the first half. Can you ask for anything more, at least if you're not a Bears fan?

On another note, I am getting sick. I can feel it in my scratchy throat and lithargic manner. I came into work early this morning and am leaving a little early this afternoon. After a very short walk today (have to keep the streak going) and perhaps a warm bath, I'll be sleeping until my heart is content. I can barely stay awake now. This isn't good.

January Update

It's officially the end of January and tomorrow will make the first five weeks of working towards the goals I set out for 2007. I am determined to exercise more, drop 60 lbs by blood, sweat and lots of tears, and write 1000 words a day in January.

I promised to be pretty open about how things are going. Which will be easy when I'm doing well, and not so easy when I'm gorging myself on oreos. Nonetheless, January has been a pretty good month for me. I feel great, which is the most important part.

So how am I doing on my specific goals? Check it out:

1. Write 1,000 words a day in January for a total of 30,000 words. Right now I'm up to 29,340 with plans and time set aside to write tonight and go over my goal. I've written 109 pages for a novel that I am actually going to finish. Not only that, I'm going to continue writing every day and have a goal of 15,000 words for February.
2. Lost 60 lbs. Every morning this month I've gotten up and walked for at least 20 minutes. If I had an early meeting, I'd go after work. Sometimes I'd walk before and after work. I've walked to the grocery store up the way to get an item or two that I've forgotten. Mostly, I've just walked to zone out. I have to say that I've walked before many times. Usually walking at night and three times a week, but this time, I'm on a mission to do it every day. This is getting harder because its cold as balls here, but I'm still doing it. Other than walking, Chef has made me promise to eat breakfast every morning. So now no matter how late I am for work, I eat a bowl of cereal. I've got it down to two minutes. I can spare two minutes to not feel absolutely ravenous by 9:30 every morning. The combination of the walking and eating breakfast has helped me a lot and so far in the last 5 weeks, I've offically lost 8 pounds. I just went and weighed myself (yes, at work--we have an old doctor's scale in one of the bathrooms). Eight pounds in 5 weeks is healthy, so I'm happy about it. Hopefully with another couple of weeks, I'll crack the ten pound mark.
3. Work towards being happy at my career. I've done something every week to help myself with this and so far I'm seeing some of the fruits of my labor. If that turns into anything larger, I'll be really happy. But for now being proactive is enough.

So that's where I'm at after January. Eight pounds lighter, walking more, feeling better, more than 100 pages written and new opportunities popping up. Not too bad a start for 2007. Now comes the tough part: keeping the momentum going.

Speaking of momentum, the weeklong festivites leading up to the Superbowl are killing me. Mostly because I can't wait for the game for the first time in years. Only four more days. . .Go Colts.

It's my Birthday!

Yes, this is a self-serving email and not because I'm excited, but because I'm having a good day so far. I took the day off of work (although I had a deadline this morning that I had to log onto my email for) for the first time in my tenure as a "professional." Mostly because my last two birthdays were on weekend days.

Anyway, I got up this morning at around 9 a.m., went for a long walk and then walked to the post office to pick up a package. At the post office, I saw Todd Snider, a great musician that I love. Even in my poof ball hat and sweats (I look oh so lovely but oh so warm when I walk), I went up to him and said hello. He was very nice and it wasn't a disappointment meeting him, as it is when you sometimes meet people you admire.

Now I'm back at the house and finishing up the work that was due. Actually, I just sent off my last email and I'm waiting to make sure there aren't any snafus before I get ready for the rest of my day. Chef and I are heading out to a huge mall here to do some birthday shopping and then a birthday lunch/dinner. And because I'm a big geek, my birthday shopping will include a bookstore visit that I'm totally excited about.

I'm also excited because last night I hit the 100 page mark on my novel. True to my goals, I have written more than 28,000 words and 100 pages this month. With three days left, I have time to get to my 30,000 word goal for January. It's been wonderful so far and I'm really excited to keep going. I'll give an official end of the month review of how my 2007 goals are going in a few days.

Riding high, not dirty

After investing many hours of time and an amount of money that I can't really calculate, it seems like my interest (devotion seems too strong a word) has finally paid off. The Colts are going to the Superbowl.

Some friends have asked me if I'm going to throw a Superbowl party and the answer is a voracious 'No.' Not to be rude to anyone, but I'm almost embarrassing to watch a game with. Even regular season games have gotten to the point that Chef either leaves the room or just leaves me alone. He has described my mannerisms during sporting events as autistic in nature. Although I think that actually does a disservice to those who are autistic. I think I'm actually spastic. I clap my hands repeatedly and tend to rub them together like the evil characters in melodramas do when they're talking about their maniacal plots. It's not attractive, so I'd prefer to do it alone.

Last Sunday, however, for the first time in months, Chef was home during a game. He works the weekends, so he's been spared for most of my drama. He's worked through the entire playoffs until the meeting against the Patriots. In fact, he even had a friend over. Not to watch me or the game particularly, but they ended up doing both.

They got to see the agony of the first half when the hope that I could cling on to was a last minute half-ending offensive charge that ended with a field goal. My dad, who embraces technology on Sundays to be able to chat with my brother and I, sent me a text message that read "A glimmer of hope?". A glimmer indeed.

As we all know by now, the game ended with a bang and not just the sound of me jumping up and down in my living room. Now I'm merely counting the days until February 4th. I don't even mind rushing through my birthday (which on a side note, is the same as Oprah's. The only thing this means to me is that when she dies there's a remote chance that my birthday could become a national holiday. Then I wouldn't have to take it off!). Although I'm not letting Chef off the hook on that one.

And so I leave you with this. . .only 10 more days until Superbowl XLI. Let it a good game. That's all I'm asking.

Philanthropy is the new Apathy

Remember when celebrities were apathetic? Or perhaps they weren't really apathetic, but instead decided to keep their causes to themselves?

Okay, so perhaps adding a little star power isn't necessarily a bad thing when it comes to drumming up support for a cause, but you can go too far. And that's what Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have done by moving their international brood to New Orleans. Are the celebrities in a contest to see who can be the best person in the world? It's getting old.

It's not enough to adopt children from impoverished countries, deliver your child in an impoverished country or vacation in an impoverished country and report your findings in a poorly written article for a woman's magazine. You must live in an impoverished country. Except living in them would make you too far away for film shoots and 21st century health care, so you find the next best thing: New Orleans.

Here's the thing though, Brad and Angelina aren't living in the Ninth Ward. They're living in the French Quarter. Their children aren't going to run of the mill public school, but International Public School that one normally has to wait on a list to get into. No such trouble for little Maddox.

I can only imagine how the two of them compete. Angelina grows her hair out and donates it to Locks of Love. Brad, not to be outdone, decides to donate bone marrow to a matching fan. Then Angelina donates a kidney. It's never gonna stop.

Seriously? Ben Seaver?

I don't really have time to write a blog but considering I haven't had a break at work today except for the 30 minutes I spent running an errand PLUS I came in about 45 minutes early. So I'm taking the time now.

Is anyone else out there upset about the McDonald's Dollar Menunaires commercials? The commercials themselves don't bother me too much. It's just the big where Jeremy Miller springs up and says "These people live like money grows on trees- Trees they can't find."

Okay, for those of you who don't remember, Jeremy Miller is Ben Seaver on Growin Pains, a kid that started off so incredibly cute he was irresistible and then ended up so not cute as a teenager that the "Ben Seaver Syndrome (BSS)" sprang up. BSS meaning a cute kid that grew uglier the older they got. Some could say taht Danny Bonaduce would fit into this mold.

Nonetheless, I find it a little insulting that Ben Seaver is springing up in the middle of the commercial making fun of me for ordering off the dollar menu. McDonald's, is it really wise to insult the people you're trying to hawk food to?

Ben Seaver, we all know where your money tree is growing: McDonald's.

I Got To Play in Who-ville

Yesterday morning I got to do something that I'll probably never get the opportunity to do again. In fact, there are probably not a lot of people on the planet that get to do it, so I feel really lucky.

I got to play with a robot. Not the Johnny 5 kind of robot in Short Circuit, but a robot used to operate on people. To be honest, this robot probably never reached its two robotic hands into a human or used its third arm to peer inside a chest. It was a robot used to train doctors.

I was on a special tour of a facility and we got to try this robot surgeon out. Its used in all kind of less invasive procedures. One part of it was a large machine that sat next to the patient. It had three arms: two to hold various tools and one to control the camera. The other part of the machine was where a doctor sat. He or she would put his or her head into a view finder and see what the camera was seeing magnified ten times. . .in 3-D. As the doctor sits there, he or she places his or her hands on top of two controlling mechanisms that are intuitive--meaning whatever move the doctor makes, the robotic arms mimic.


When I got to sit at the machine, the camera was set upon a tiny area of colored foam protrusions. There was a penny in the midst of the protrusions that looked HUGE in comparison. We could use the hands to pick up the penny and then use them to pick up even smaller rings and move them from one brightly colored glob to another. The doctor told us that the small area we worked on was nicknamed "Who-ville" in homage to Dr. Seuss.

It was truly one of the neatest things I've done in my life. To be honest, a few years back I probably would've passed on the opportunity, afraid any lack of ability I had might affect my cool status. Now I'm smart enough to know that I'm not cool at all and therefor can make a fool of myself at will for a good experience. And this was definitely a noteworthy experience.

I Hate Donald Trump and other useless things

I don't know why he really started getting under my skin, but Donald Trump is pissing me off. The man has never heard of the "high road" and his bickering with Rosie O'Donnell is ridiculous. Not only that, but I've finally had enough with the self-indulgent everything is named after me God complex.

Mostly, I just caught the last 30 minutes of The Apprentice last night and got fired up. I, like most people, haven't watched the show in forever. Mostly because its boring and they must have hired a new casting director because instead of the new contestants being interesting or relatable, they're mostly just annoying egonmaniacs who were cast because they worship Trump. The fun part of the show in the beginning was watching them crap out on the challenges and then bicker a bit in the boardroom. I tuned in about 20 minutes into the show, completely missed the challenge, watched the losers suffer in this season's oh so creative twist--the tents, and then wasted nearly 20 minutes (including TWO commercial breaks) watching the two biggest losers argue about which would be sent home. By the end, I was hoping everyone would be fired and the show FINALLY cancelled.

Then you have Ivanka on the show. She was brought in for sex appeal. I get it. It's a little creepy that Donald's pimping out his own daughter, but it's kind of like watching an hour-long interaction of the Watson's girl. And I know this chick is a Trump, but when I watch her, I think of the years she dreamed of being a model and people would put her in their show because her mom spent thousands with them.

Okay, enough about the Trumps. Tomorrow is Presh's birthday. I'm so excited for her!! Happy Birthday Presh!!

Less than 2 weeks until my 2nd Blogiversary

Only thirteen more days until this humble and somewhat lowly blog is two years old. Not to sound too proud of myself, but I honestly didn't think I'd last more than a few days until I got bored with it. So, yes, I blog less and they're less interesting, but at least I'm still doing it. And I'm averaging more than 7 visitors a day. Yes, I know it's no google or perezhilton, but I also just write about nothing. Mark your calendars and treat yourself to something nice on January 18th, my second blogiversary.

On another note, I've got to break down and buy a scale. I've tried using the scale in our office bathroom, but it's an old one that uses the sliding weights and makes you feel even shittier as you have to push it up one more notch. And that stupid level arrow makes the most humiliating "DINK" as it clangs on the bottom. In scale words, "DINK" translates into "You didn't really think you weighed that little, did you?".

Nonetheless I'm still walking every day. And yes, I'm probably going to write about it because I also planning on writing about when I don't walk. I'm holding myself accountable to you all. I've also written my 1,000 words a day--not including this. It's really been a great experience so far to struggle and realize that there's no formula to writing. I can write the middle of the story now and go back to the beginning later, if I want to. A part of me has always been holding to the writing chronologically philosophy. It's very freeing.

On another note, I will be inconsolable this weekend if the Colts lose in the playoffs to the Chiefs. Last year's Pittsburgh game pushed so much adrenaline through me and had so many ups and downs that I didn't go to sleep until 4 a.m. that night. This year, I'm just hoping for a good, old fashioned ass whipping by the Colts. I have a feeling, however, that it's not going to be that easy.

3,000 down, 27,000 to go

Okay, so I've written the first 3,000 out of my goal of 30,000 words for the month. It's not that bad now, but I know by the end of the month I'll be wanting to kill my characters off out of mercy. The story is crap, but since having a shitty first draft is the first step, I'm going to trudge along and know that the smell belongs.

I'm almost a week into my exercise program and have kept up with that, too, so far. No idea if I've lost any weight, but I do have more energy. In fact, last night I had so much energy that I was tossing and turning until nearly 4 this morning. With an ass early meeting, this meant about 2 hours of sleep. I'm about to fall asleep at my keyboard, but I still have to walk when I get home.

Wish me luck, suckers.

Not so new resolutions. . .

I figure if you try to change yourself before New Year's Eve, you say that your goals are not resolutions. Resolutions tend to suggest that you'll be serious about something for January and then give up by February. At least that's been my experience with resolutions in the past.

However, I think if you decide you want to change your life before New Year's and you start acting before New Year's, you can classify your goals as goals. I also figure if I write them on my blog and have my friends, family members and strangers, I'd be held more accountable, as well. At the very least more people can give me shit if I don't meet them.

So, here goes. Here's what I want to do for 2006-2007:

1. In January, I am going to participate in my own little writing boot camp with two of my writing group friends. I have a goal to write 30,000 words by the end of the month. That's 1,000 words or about 4 pages per day. It all started with a group that already participate in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Apparently it's November and I missed it, but I liked the idea of committing to writing a set amount of words in a month. My friend Terry loaned me Bird by Bird, a great book on writing by Anne Lamont. One of her first goals is writing a shitty first draft. I always start to censor myself about 5 pages into something and then lose interest, so I figure the word count will at least get me to power through it. Plus at the end of the month, I can say that I have my novel, even if it is in a shitty form. Besides, writing makes me happy and being held accountable for it would actually give me no excuses not to do it.
   
2. I need to lose 60 pounds. There's a personal side to this challenge that is to remain my own motivation, but the less personal side is that I have a weight problem. However, I love food and have decided that I'm going to tackle the exercise portion of this goal before I hit the food portion. So, I'm back to walking every day and have started listing my times for my usual route as to increase the walking to a quicker pace and eventually to a semi-jog. I'm also going to tackle a beast that I've given up a long time ago: the scale. My friend Lara said that she needed the scale to see her progress and while I hid from the scale in the past, I know that I'm the same way. I need to see cold hard numbers. Of course, that's going to require buying a scale and I won't really be able to do that until mid-month. Hopefully by then, I'll have dropped a pound or so.
3. I'm going to be happy with my career. This is a little ambiguous and will remain so until I figure out what I want to do professionally. However, I will take steps to do so every week.

Mostly, I just want to live life and realize that my life is not in front of the TV (unless the Colts or Hoosiers are playing). I'll give updates but with my word count quota for January, expect them to be less. And wish me luck!

It's Killing Me Slowly

Christmas that is. Or the Holidays. Hannukah. Channukah. Kwaanza. Whatever the hell you call it. It's draining me. I'm had to stuff Christmas cards, got ot Christmas parties, go to business dinners, buy the last of the gifts that people are sure to either hate or not really care about, wrap aforementioned gifts, ship aforementioned gifts as Chef's family is out of state, make cookies for a party, have two lunches for business, pick up forgotten gifts, pull hair out.

Now we're all really just ready for the long ass weekend. Everyone left my office about 30 minutes ago. I'm contemplating taking Friday off for no other reason than I just don't need or want to be here. Of course, I'm sure something will come up tomorrow to prevent me from doing one of the two things that I need to get done to get out of here.

Besides waiting for work to let out, I'm also dying a little each day waiting to open Patrick's present. He brought it home yesterday and laid it in plain sight (wrapped up, of course). He told me that I could open it before Christmas if I wanted. Of course I want to. However, if I open it up, I'll have nothing to open on Christmas. The various arms of my family have become so accommodating to everyone's schedule that we celebrate Christmas on the 23rd and 24th and have nothing to do on the actual day. It's insane.

So in the name of holiday propriety, I'm not going to open it. At least tonight. I can't make any promises about tomorrow.

To appease Presh. . .

Here's my third blog of the month, presh. It may not live up to the standard of the rest, but remember that you asked for it.

Today I bought wine completely for the kitsch factor. I've bought alcohol in the past because it had candy in the bottom or because it was the "in" drink (my one and only mojito) or because it was flavored funny. I have never bought WINE on the kitsch factor until today. You can't really get too kitschy with wine because it's grapes. That's pretty much it.


But today, I bought Bitch wine for my writing group party tonight. It would generally be a conversation starter, but if anyone reads this between now and 6:30, I'm sure I just ruined the surprise. Since only about 5 people visit this site a day, I think I might be safe.

So I'll bring Bitch, drink Bitch, and start to bitch. It's the circle of life. Kind of like pooping. Except verbally.

Four days and counting. . .

While Christmas is a week away, I choose to count down until something far more important to me: my last day of work for 2006. One of the perks of my job is a lot of time off and our time off this year goes from 3:30 on Friday until 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday, January 2nd. And don't think I'm not excited.

I've actually taken two vacations in 2006, up from my normal 0 vacations. I think this has wet my appetite for more time off. I find myself and my 6 weeks acrued time off having a hard time getting up on Mondays. Then I begin to think that with all my time off, I could theoretically take off every Monday for 30 weeks of the year. With holidays, that would be almost like having a 4 day week every week. How cool would that be? Plus I acrue 2 more vacation days every month, so really I'd only be using half of my paid time off. This is sounding like a better plan every second I rationalize it.

My shopping is done and I'm preparing mentally for the big day. Hope you all have gotten shitty Dirty Santa gifts like I have!

Can you be "ticked on"?

One of our local neighborhood newspapers runs a section called "Ticked off!". This section allows people to write in and comment on something that makes them mad. Then the paper publishes their rant without attaching a name to it. That kind of anonymity makes for the worst kind of airing of prejudices. Luckily, that makes for the BEST kind of reading.

Please read my new favorite letter of all time and make a note of how many factual mistakes there are in it.

Okay, I'm not even going to comment on the person's opinion because everyone can have an opinion. I'm just going to comment on the factual mistakes. My favorite being that Mexicans are pole valuting into the country. I've never seen a Mexican pole vaulting champion, but if you know of one, please let me know.

Naturally my favorite comment is the line about English, "If it was good enough for Jesus, it should be good enough for them." Lord knows that English was Jesus's first language. I mean, come on. Phonetically, the words just sound the same. Jesus. English. It's God's will.

Obviously I'm hoping this is a joke. Swampy likes to go on the Internet message boards and spew the most racist and backwards things to rile up the public. It's good reading and good fun. I sincerely hope this is the efforts of someone with the same kind of humor. However, I'm really doubting this is meant as a joke.

Again, opinions aside, its people like these that make me so glad we have free speech in this country.

I wouldn't say I "missed it", Bob

Before I get to my usual rantings, I have another career related one: I got passed over for a promotion. My organization is merging with another and with it more positions were created. Instead of firing anyone they created a whole new level of confusing middle management positions, of which I was told we could apply for. However, yesterday I got the call that not only was I not applying for one, I wasn't getting one.

It was one of those "I understand why this person got the position, but I don't agree with it" scenarios. We've had three positions in our office where seniority had NOTHING to do with the promotion. The less senior person got the position in all three cases. Yet in my department, I was told that seniority was the deciding factor and the person who was chosen had 12 months more time in his job. This despite the fact that I had helped him achieve more than 30 percent of his goals AND served as his leader on three separate projects, all over the last year. He did not step up to lead once.

I really have nothing against the guy. He said all the right things when I talked to him today, but its just awkward knowing that now I have to REPORT to him. I'm disappointed and my ego is hurt because this is the FIRST opportunity in 3 years that our department has had for promotion. I really don't want to have to wait around until 2009-2010 to get another chance to advance.

On a brighter note, the organization did admit to underpaying me by 11 percent for the last two years. So I got an 11 percent raise today. Yesterday I was worth 11 percent less. Although I'm very happy, its still hard to swallow that I've been THAT much underpaid for the last twoyears. My raise is retroactive, but not two years retroactive.

So, that's what's going on in my life. My unappreciation for the good things that happen.

Wasn't only a few months ago. . .

This is the post where I get all crazy and explain to people why we never believe it when a celebrity goes on TV to deny, apologize or address rumors. It's because they lie.

Only a few months ago, Britney was telling Matt Lauer that she and Kevin were great and that she had Sean Preston on her lap while driving because she was country. We knew you were lying then and it only took a couple of months, a few breaking up text messages and an appearance on David Letterman to back it up.

However, one thing Britney did cry and cry about was the paparazzi's intrusion into her life. Look, I can't proclaim to know what it's like to have people following me around all day and asking annoying questions because I don't have kids. The paparazzi are just like an annoying daycare swarming you at all times but instead of "Why?" they ask "Are you and Kevin getting a divorce?" over and over and over again.

But isn't it convenient that now that she's single and ready to mingle, Spears ends up in front of the flashbulbs again with Paris Hilton. Britney's in between publicists right now, but even an amateur knows that a night out with Paris will totally get a lot of attention. And it did. It was even on the Today show this morning. Their friendship of convenience is getting more press than Britney's cover of "My Prerogative."

In other news of the worthless, I'm happy to hear that the Cowboys cut their losses and released Kicker Mike Vanderjagt, aka Jimmy Canada. The most accurrate kicker in football except for when it really matters was an astounding 13 for 18 this season (72 percent). Not only that, but two of his misses were against his former team. I was so happy that Chef had to get me to stop repeatedly rewinding the Tivo to hear the thunk. It's been years, but apparently Vanderjagt still hasn't learned that "an idiot kicker" is not as important as. . . well, nearly every other player on the team.

It was the night before Thanksgiving. . .

And all through the apartment, the only thing I can hear is Chef snoring.

It's been crazy lately. Our branch of non-profit is merging with the Florida branch which means that I get to travel to the Sunshine State. I was in Orlando last week and although I was bombarded with Mickey, I never really got to leave the hotel. I did, however, get stopped in the security line at the airport. Apparently my underwire bra was enough to set off the metal detector. It happens all the time and my only comment is that it takes a LOT of engineering to hold my boys up.

I also had another incident in the Orlando airport. As I was walking, a lady dragging her wheeled suitcase behind her clipped me and I went tumbling. It was my second best fall ever. I went on all fours and it was in slow motion. The six co-workers I was traveling with were all concerned, but none of them laughed at the time, which shook me a little. I mean, I fell. It was funny. Laugh.
My best fall involved falling down a flight of stairs with my skirt going over my head to expose my thong. It was a couple of years ago, ladies. We were all wearing thongs then, so don't give me shit about it. Nonetheless, it still remains my best fall.

I came back from Orlando and I have to say that Chef surprised me. He had cleaned the apartment, cooked Chicken Parmesan, uncorked the wine, lit candles, dressed up and totally pampered me when I got home. Sometimes leaving has its advantages, if only that I get wonderful treatment when I return.

Tomorrow is Turkey Day. I'm only not panicking because I've already taken care of six Christmas gifts. Normally at this time of year, I haven't even started yet. Actually, I've taken care of six Christmas gifts and two birthday gifts. Mostly because as a January baby, I know the pains of getting the combined gifts and I really feel for December borns. Talk about stealing your thunder.

I hope everyone has a nice holiday. I plan on eating a lot of non-traditional items as my families don't really do the whole turkey thing. However, I know that pumpkin pie will show up in my stomach at some point over the long weekend. If nothing else, Chef will make me one.

Here comes the sun, do do do do

Isn't it amazing how much better the sun shining makes a day?

Yesterday and a few days before, it's been raining. Not a big deal until you consider the rain one more reason that God hates you. Okay, so I had a bad day on Tuesday. It started out okay. I had lots of errands to run and two conference calls and a meeting to work around. Plus I had to vote. That's where things got ugly.

I went to the voting place feeling like it was my lucky day. The lines were amazingly short. One of the election volunteers even commented on us being so lucky. Then on my way out, I helped an old lady carrying an umbrella and her cane down some steps and to her car. The combination of the old lady and the voting made me feel like super-citizen. I was feeling so good about myself.

Until I was driving down the alley near my house to pick something up before I headed back to work. The rain had made the most treacherous pothole in the alley invisible. It just looked like a big puddle and in my glow of good deeds, I didn't remember to avoid it. I hit that sucker so hard that it blew my tire out. I hope that whoever I voted for will fix this sucker!

Anyway, I barely made it to the parking lot of the apartment complex when I started to go hysterical. Car troubles bug me out more than nearly anything else. So, Chef comes out of the apartment and begins to change my tire. I love Chef all the time, but on days when its raining, I'm in work attire and he's outside changing my tire for me, I begin to really appreciate what love is.

Anyway, he gets the car jacked up, the bad tire off and what happens? The spare is flat. So me and my friend Julie take the tire to a service station about 1/10th of a mile away from the apartment. They fix the flat and Patrick changes the tire like a Nascar pit crew. I almost think he wants a rivot gun. Considering this is the second time he's changed my tire for me, he probably deserves one.

I go back to work 30 minutes late for the meeting I'm supposed to be in. My friend had told two of the people in the meeting why I was going to be late, but apparently they didn't pass it along, so people thought I was just rude.

I leave work to home and Chef is cooking dinner for us, like the cute, cuddly and wonderful boyfriend that he is. I stop at the market to get dessert and vegetable oil (there were no crappy jigs or tampons in my purse this time--that one's for my girls). I have to fight the 45 other people circling the tiny parking lot for the 5 open spaces. I get one, get downpoured on on the way in, get my stuff and go home only to realize that I hadn't gotten the vegetable oil afterall. I nearly cried when I realized that I would have to repeat the process.

When I REALLY got home, I was wet with rain and really tired. Of course, Chef again came to the rescue (have I mentioned my knight in shining armor?) and had a cocktail in my hand in no time. From there on, it was a good night.

That's the long, boring version of Election Day for Ashley.

Sushi, Football and Paula Deen

Because of all the extra time I'd been spending at work surrounding our large event, my boss graciuosly offered for me to "work at home" one day this week. This translates into him knowing that I will be at home and the work part is optional. He's very nice that way.

So on Friday, Chef and I ran some errands, grabbed some sushi for lunch and dropped off a sandwich for a friend of mine that was waiting in line to see Paula Deen. For those of you who don't watch Food Network, and shame on you, Paula is a good ole Southern broad whose recipes are delicious but also induce almost instanteous heart disease. We're talking whole sticks of butter and a dozen eggs. Of course, down here, she's a God. My friend started waiting at 10 a.m. and the signing didn't begin until 1 p.m. She was 150 people back.

Paula's well and good, but I'd have to say that my favorite shows are Everyday Italian (Giada is soothing to me even though she's skinny), Rachel Ray's show (although 30 minutes is a crock of shit) and Good Eats (this is campy it's funny--kind of like the old Batmans). Sandra Lee is my least favorite because it seems like she's a substance abuser. No one needs 300 recipes for cocktails and some of the stuff is so ridiculous I think she must have been smoking crack when she came up with it.

All that aside, I got to spend a leisurely weekend alternately spending time with Chef and watching football when he was working. It was glorious and almost perfect.

Are we really that stupid?

I hate getting political. I honestly believe that politics are like religion. You can't really convert someone away from their beliefs but only make someone understand your point of view.

However, in these times, it's really hard not to comment on politics. It's November and unless you live under a rock or watch Tivo exclusively, you've been bombarded with political ads. And this year's ads have been pretty nasty.

But its not the ads so much that piss me off. Anyone with half a brain realizes that advertising is at its worst in the hands of any politician and his or her crew. What makes me mad is how every little political blip now becomes the first 30 minutes of the Today show each morning.

First there was the big blow up over Kerry's "joke." It wasn't a joke, John Kerry. Jokes are funny and comedians usually despise all politicians. So unless he's become self-hating, I think we can all agree Kerry's statement was a stab at the president. People are smart enough to get it. Well, most people are. Having every other political party point out that Kerry and all democrats think that soldiers are stupid essentially makes me think that people believe Americans are all gullible.

Or at least that we think words are more hurtful than being a sexual predator. I have to say that I think soliciting kids over the Internet is a lot creepier than just about anything. Especially when that person was sponsoring legislation to prevent the very act they were taking part in. I'm talking to you, Mr. Foley.

Besides, everyone knows that Democrats are sexier. No one ever says they want a nice piece of elephant. I can't take credit for that. A friend at work told me about a t-shirt that said that on it.

But then again, that's just my opinion. And the great thing is that America is that my opinion counts just as much as everyone else's. It counts for one vote. Which I plan on doing on Tuesday. And then I can go back to watching regular TV. And in the end, isn't that what we all hope for?