My Own Kind of Benefits

Today was my favorite supervisor's last day at work. She finally retired after 37 long years with SSA. I've worked on the job for about 2 1/2 years, and I have the utmost respect for anybody who makes a career out of a government job. Recently, I find myself forcing a smile most of the time, when what I really want to do is scream. That's never good. I find that working out and vacation planning usually help me relieve my stress. Last year alone, I went to Fort Lauderdale/Miami, San Diego/Oceanside, and New Orleans (twice), and I had memberships at two gyms. I'm thinking I'll need to up my travel dose this year and maybe go to Mexico or something in order to cope with our decreasing staff and increasing workload.
On the upside, I get some fun vacations out of the deal. Kevin's so laid back - he just lets me plan everything and then he's along for the ride without too many complaints. God bless him for his patience and understanding. Also, God bless Priceline.com, without which I might never have left this state. On the downside, a few more years with increasing duties and my travel expenses will probably outweigh my salary, therefore rendering my career with SSA pointless...

It's Not Your Fau-au-ault!

Anybody who ever watched "Friends" probably remembers Phoebe's song that went, "Smelly cat, smelly cat. What are they feeding you? Smelly cat, smelly cat. It's not your faauu-aauu-ault." Possibly one of the greats of our time...
Anyway, my brother now has in his posession the actual cat that inspired that song.
There was this really sweet cat living outside his girlfriend, Felicia's house, and Craig fell in love with it, though he despises all other cats. So the longer Craig was around it, the more he wanted to take the cat in. Finally, my parents and Felicia's grandparents agreed to let him have the cat, so Craig and Felicia took the cat for its shots and flea treatment yesterday. Evidently, either the shots or cat food didn't sit well or the cat's nervousness from his new surroundings set him off, because there was a stinch in Craig's room like no other last night. It was so gross - and constant. I swear the cat was on auto mode or something, because each time the smell would lighten up, it's my belief that the cat's stinch sensor went off, and he was like, "Oh, time to do it again! Yippee!" At one point, Craig was gagging, Felicia and I were laughing, and my mom was spraying air freshener throughout the room with her shirt over her nose. It was a good time.

Bushisms

I'd like to take this opportunity to share a few quotes from our beloved president, courtesy of the "Bushisms" calendar...

1) "Teach a child to read and he or her can pass a literacy test."
2) "This foreign policy stuff is a little frustrating."
3) "It is clear our nation is reliant upon big foreign oil. More and more of our imports come from overseas."
4) "Neither in French nor in English nor in Mexican."
5) "I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe - I believe what I believe is right."

I don't think any commentary is necessary from me at this time. Just something to think about.

WonderWoman

So I have a confession to make. After all the talking I did about being nervous to go back to my aerobics class last week, I ended up working late and not going to class. So tonight was my first night back, and of course I was late because I had to work later than I thought. So when I walked in, class had already started, but Elliott somehow found the time to shout at me, "Well would you look who's graced us with her presence! Come on in, your highness. Too good for Elliott? Too good to work out?" I don't know why it is that I still like him, but I do.
Tonight, he told us about his obsession with WonderWoman. I'm not surprised to hear it, but evidently he has devoted one of the rooms in his house to his Wonderwoman figurines/clothes. He said he has about $30,000 worth of Wonderwoman memorabilia. Obviously.
You know what I like about Elliott, though, is that he is who he is and you know what you're getting in to when you go around him. He's definitely going to be sarcastic and he's definitely going to say tacky things, but he's also going to be funny and entertaining. And I like that he took a chance and started his own gym. It's a scary thing to leave a job (even if you may not love that job) where you feel secure to start your own business that may or may not be profitable. I guess the key is to not overthink it and just go for it. It really takes a special person to be able to do something like that, though.
My little brother, Craig, is one of those people. At the age of 21, he has already started his own recording studio, and he records lots of the local bands. He's also the lead singer/bass guitarist/song writer for "The Remote Junkies," and he's really awesome at what he does. I can't imagine being 21 and knowing what I want to do in life. I'm almost 25 and I still contemplate what it is that I'm going to do when I grow up. I'm hoping to win the Lotto, so that I can travel, rollerblade, and work out full time...

The Beauty of a Saturday

I'm in such a weird mood today.
I had to work overtime today, which means that I had to get up at 5:50 this morning in order to be in Angleton by 7:00. I do this Monday - Friday with no problems, but Saturdays are meant for sleeping in. Overtime days at work are so nice though - there's no angry mob demanding checks now, no screaming kids running around the lobby, and we get to dress however we want. It's the only day that I actually like my job...
After I got off of work, I had this crazy burst of energy, so I came home and did the laundry, swept and vacuumed the floors, cleaned the bathrooms, did the dishes and de-fuzzed the couches (we have a cat that sheds like crazy). My body then revolted and I had to give in and take a nap, but evidently my brain was still in go-mode, because I just lay in bed with the same panicky feeling that I used to get during finals at A&M. So I sat there, resting but not really, thinking of all the things that I could be doing with my time. Finally I came to the realization that I was wasting my energy trying to nap. (Isn't that a funny statement? How much energy should it take to nap?) It's such a bummer when that happens.
I swear, there was a period of at least three weeks during finals of my sophomore year when every time I would try to sleep, I'd start thinking of all the things I needed to be doing for school and work, so I'd panic and jump up out of bed to study. Then in the mornings, I'd be so tired from not sleeping that I'd have several cups of coffee, which made me shaky and even more panicky. So when I'd try to sleep again, I just couldn't do it because I was too busy shaking and panicking. It was such a vicious cycle.
So now, I'm in a shopping mood. That means in one day, I've been in a working mood, a cleaning mood, a relaxing mood, and now a shopping mood. I'm guessing this is what is meant by the term "moodswing." But you know, I really think I have my boss to blame for this. If I didn't have to get up at 5:50, I'm pretty sure I'd still be in my pajamas right now. And really, isn't that what Saturdays are all about?

My Boo

Several thoughts for the day:
1) I've decided to name my car "Boo." That way, when somebody asks about my car, I can be like, "Yeah, that's my boo." Up until now, I've had very few opportunities to use that phrase, but that's all about to change...
2) I have a new reality television obsession. The show's called "The Club" and both Kevin and I sit, glued to the T.V. on Wednesday nights, waiting for the drama to unfold. This is what happens when you get old and boring - you have to depend on T.V. for excitement. Very sad.
3) Pink is my new favorite color. Lately, every article of clothing that I pick out seems to be pink. I'm hoping that I'll soon be able to quit my job and pursue my true calling as the Bubble Yum spokesperson. I think I'd be good at that.
4) Number three (above) reminds me of a psychology professor that I had in college that wore nothing but black every single day, except for on test days, when she dressed in pink from head to toe. She was bizarre, and I loathed her because I was sure that she purposely did this to convey to us the utter joy that she felt while torturing students with her random test questions.
5) I might have obsessive compulsive disorder. I really had nothing else to say here, but I couldn't leave the list on a number that wasn't a multiple of five...

I Dream of Jeannie

I'm so nervous. It's been about a three weeks since I went to the gym, and it's now inevitable that my aerobics instructor will yell at me when I go back. The man is crazy, and I love him for it, but I hate when he calls me out after I've been MIA for a few classes. I missed a few weeks of classes when we moved in to our house, and when I went back in, I was a little early for my step class. Well Elliott (the aerobics instructor) is in the middle of his toning class, and he actually stops counting to turn around and yell at me. He literally goes, "Eight, Seven, Six - WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?- Four, Three..." He didn't miss a beat. I couldn't help but laugh, but it was still embarrassing. And what's funny about it is that he knows it's embarrassing, but he just doesn't care.
What's great about his class is that he makes up his own moves, so he does these off-the-wall moves like the "I Dream of Jeannie," which is complete with crossed arms, head-nod and dramatic eye blink. At one point, we were doing a cool down, and he says to us, "OK Girls, I want you to close your eyes and picture that hot Latino man you've been dreaming of...Oh wait, you can open your eyes, girl, because here I am." Elliott should have his own reality TV show. I'd definitely tune in...
So the point was this: I'm going to be called out and ridiculed in approximately 3 hours and 3 minutes...let the countdown begin.

"Sure Toyota, You Can Have My First Born..."

I bought a new car this weekend. I hate buying cars - I never feel like I got a good deal (I usually don't), I always feel like I could have gotten them to throw in something else (like tinted windows - which they didn't), and I always end up with this crazy knot in my stomach that doesn't go away for days. On the upside, I really like the car.
And also, I'm having a garage sale on Saturday just to get rid of all our excess stuff, so I was going through my closet and found all these old cassette tapes. I was going to throw them out, but then I realized they're my old Duran Duran and INXS tapes, and I couldn't stand to part with them. So instead, I opted to keep them and ended up jamming to Duran Duran all night last night. It was a good time. I now remember why I used to hate cassette tapes. I kept fast forwarding too much and missing the song, and then rewinding too much and missing the song. It was such a pain!! Thank goodness for CD's.

Little Mary Lou

I have a request from my friend, Amy, to tell a story and lighten the mood a bit from yesterday's post. I've decided to grant this request...
So about two years ago, Kevin and I went with my brother, Craig, and his girlfriend, Felicia, to Astroworld. After we got there, I saw that they had the bungee cord trampoline thingy, (it's the trampoline that you can jump on while you have a bungee cord harness strapped to you so that you can jump really high in the air without much effort) and being that I had wanted to try this out for as long as I could remember, I was very excited.
Felicia and I get in line for the trampoline, while Kevin and Craig watch from a distance. As I'm waiting, I begin to watch this tiny little girl that's jumping. This kid is good. I'm talking Mary Lou Retton / Carly Patterson status. She's jumping at least 25 feet in the air and doing triple front flips and double back flips with the greatest of ease. A crowd literally forms to watch her tricks. I can't even begin to express to you how easy she makes this thing look. So much, in fact, that she has me truly believing that I, too, will transform into Mary Lou Retton when I put on the harness.
Tiny Mary Lou finally finishes with her turn, and I get on the trampoline and strap on the harness. And as I'm jumping higher and higher into the air, I happen to look down and notice that the crowd has not yet dispersed. I'm a bit nervous at this point, but I'm still thinking that doing flips will be easy, so I continue jumping.
When I finally get up to maybe 15 feet, I decide that it's time to try my first back flip. I'm in the air, feet off the trampoline, and I try to swing my legs back over my head. My feet get about even with my chest, and that's it. I fall back to the trampoline on my back. Oh, the shame of it all! So I'm a little disheartened, and a little embarrassed, but I'm thinking that I'll be better at front flips.
I get up some height to my jump again, and this time I try the front flip. Now keep in mind that Mary Lou was doing three of these things from the time that her feet left the trampoline to the time that she hit her peak of about 25 feet. I go, and from the time that my feet left the trampoline to the time that they land again on the trampoline, I do one sad little flip. And even at that, I land on my knees on the trampoline. I'm clearly not a gymnast. But I'm ambitious, and I'm still thinking that I'll get better at this. So I try the flip again, but this time I don't even have enough momentum to kick my feet over my body, and I end up stuck in the harness in the upside-down position. I hit my neck on the trampoline, and then the bungee cord pulls me up while I'm still in the upside-down position, so I'm just kind of suspended there, looking up at the ground. I'm freaking out now. Everything seems to be in slow motion, and I'm realizing that people are still watching this. So I try to look to Kevin (while I'm still upside down, keep in mind) for some support during this trying time, and though my vision is a bit distorted, I can clearly make out Kevin, Craig and Felicia pointing and laughing at me. They didn't even try to hide their laughter for me. I felt so alone, and also a little bit like Lucille Ball. It was a sad moment in my life...
Needless to say, I didn't finish my turn. As soon as I was able to get my feet back on the trampoline, I ditched the harness and got out of there asap! I think I might have some emotional scars to this day.

Not-So-Liberal Media

This is an article that I just read on the Washington Post website. I'm not surprised that we didn't find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but I am disappointed in our "liberal" media, the "watchdog of the government," that this was reported almost as an afterthought. I searched for this story on The Washington Post, ABC, CBS, FOX, MSNBC and CNN websites, and not one of them used this as their top story. In fact, on the few websites where the story was posted, I had to click on the "politics" tab and search through the piles of headlines to even find it. It's a pretty sad world we live in when President Clinton's affair topped headlines for months, and an issue like this one, which directly affects so many people, is practically pushed aside.

Search for Banned Arms In Iraq Ended Last Month
Critical September Report to Be Final Word
By Dafna LinzerWashington Post Staff WriterWednesday, January 12, 2005; Page A01
The hunt for biological, chemical and nuclear weapons in Iraq has come to an end nearly two years after President Bush ordered U.S. troops to disarm Saddam Hussein. The top CIA weapons hunter is home, and analysts are back at Langley.
In interviews, officials who served with the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) said the violence in Iraq, coupled with a lack of new information, led them to fold up the effort shortly before Christmas.
Four months after Charles A. Duelfer, who led the weapons hunt in 2004, submitted an interim report to Congress that contradicted nearly every prewar assertion about Iraq made by top Bush administration officials, a senior intelligence official said the findings will stand as the ISG's final conclusions and will be published this spring.
President Bush, Vice President Cheney and other top administration officials asserted before the U.S. invasion in March 2003 that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program, had chemical and biological weapons, and maintained links to al Qaeda affiliates to whom it might give such weapons to use against the United States.
Bush has expressed disappointment that no weapons or weapons programs were found, but the White House has been reluctant to call off the hunt, holding out the possibility that weapons were moved out of Iraq before the war or are well hidden somewhere inside the country. But the intelligence official said that possibility is very small.
Duelfer is back in Washington, finishing some addenda to his September report before it is reprinted.
"There's no particular news in them, just some odds and ends," the intelligence official said. The Government Printing Office will publish it in book form, the official said.
The CIA declined to authorize any official involved in the weapons search to speak on the record for this story. The intelligence official offered an authoritative account of the status of the hunt on the condition of anonymity. The agency did confirm that Duelfer is wrapping up his work and will not be replaced in Baghdad.
The ISG, established to search for weapons but now enmeshed in counterinsurgency work, remains under Pentagon command and is being led by Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Joseph McMenamin.
Intelligence officials said there is little left for the ISG to investigate because Duelfer's last report answered as many outstanding questions as possible. The ISG has interviewed every person it could find connected to programs that ended more than 10 years ago, and every suspected site within Iraq has been fully searched, or stripped bare by insurgents and thieves, according to several people involved in the weapons hunt.
Satellite photos show that entire facilities have been dismantled, possibly by scrap dealers who sold off parts and equipment to buyers around the world.
"The September 30 report is really pretty much the picture," the intelligence official said.
"We've talked to so many people that someone would have said something. We received nothing that contradicts the picture we've put forward. It's possible there is a supply someplace, but what is much more likely is that [as time goes by] we will find a greater substantiation of the picture that we've already put forward."
Congress allotted hundreds of millions of dollars for the weapons hunt, and there has been no public accounting of the money. A spokesman for the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency said the entire budget and the expenditures would remain classified.

Adventures in Blogging

I'm intrigued. Today I saw the link at the top of my blog that says "Next Blog." I've really never taken a look at random blogs, but today was a slow day at work, so I went for it. It was an interesting journey.
There was a blog titled, "Travels of a Flatulent Gnome," and it was complete with actual pictures of this gnome in random places. Like he was sightseeing or something. Outstanding!
There was another one named "Bella Van Weinerhausen." It had me at the name. It was really just a strange person ranting about random things, but the name itself was captivating.
And there was one last really off-the-wall blog that I came across before my phone rang. It was called "KylesGirl12345" and the only message that was posted literally said, "Kyle I love you so much I hope we are together for a long time. Love u lotts." You go girl - get your man via blog entry!
If ever you are reading this and have some extra time, you should really take the random blog journey that begins with the "Next Blog" link located at the top right-hand corner of this page. I highly recommend it.

Old-son

There is a man at my office that bugs me as much as any human being ever has. He's that person that goes on and on about nothing, and you can always bank on the fact that whenever we have meetings, he's going to say something so inappropriate or off the wall that your mouth involuntarily flies open in shock and/or horror.
In the past two months alone, he's told me several times that he could tell I had gained weight. (You never say this to a woman.) Then, when I went on a diet and lost all the weight, he told me that I looked bad because I was beginning to resemble Twiggy. He has a real tendency to humiliate and belittle people for no reason.
Not to mention that every morning, he says to me, "Good morning, Old-son. See how I call you Old-son and not Olson. It's because our job's causing you to age really fast." He explains this to me every morning. Then he laughs for a few minutes and waits for me to do the same. I do not partake.
After I got a haircut last week, he came up to me and said, "Oh no, your hair's thinning. Maybe it's because you're getting older. I guess there's something to your name, Old-son." What the hell?

A Weekend of Firsts

Girls' weekend is officially over, and I've had several firsts over the past few days:
1) First time to go out in Ft. Worth - I don't know why or how I got it in my head that the city was not so nice, but I was wrong. It was really nice and there were lots of cool places to go. I was impressed.
2) First time to eat with chop sticks. Though I was not very good, I did manage to pick up a California roll without using my fingers. Who knew???
3) First time in a piano bar. I really thought that when people talked about piano bars, they were talking about tame lounges where a piano can be heard playing in the distance. I was wrong. It was awesome, and one of the musicians looked much liked Jerry Springer, while the other resembled Willie Nelson. Bizarre.
4) First time to fly all by myself. I was kind of nervous, because every time I've been on a plane before, I was with either my husband or with a friend. But I flew from Dallas to Houston this morning with no incidents to speak of. A good end to the weekend, I think.

Girls' Weekend

This weekend is girls' weekend. My friend, Lisa, and I made the long trek to Dallas today to hang out with our friend, Allison. Something about girls' weekend makes me so happy - the long, dramatic talks about nothing and everything, the chic flicks and fatty foods, the fact that we tend to get so loud and chatty - there's nothing like it. So in honor of this sacred event, I've decided to tell about a girls' weekend of old. Due to the nature of this story, all names will be changed to avoid any subsequent embarrassment from participants of that particular girls' weekend.
Lucy and I had just graduated from Texas A & M, and we were so excited to be making our first official joint trip to College Station to see our friend, Gretchen. Our other friend, Beverly, happened to be going out of town, but before leaving, she graciously offered us her apartment for the weekend...
For lack of other things to do in College Station, Lucy, Gretchen and I ended up at our favorite bar, Hole in the Wall. We did some drinking; we did some dancing. Long story short, it was late and time to leave. But being that we had done more drinking than dancing, it was clearly not a good idea for us to do some driving. So we did what any College Stationite would do: we called Carpool. I think I should give a quick shout out to Carpool, which is a student-based organization that offers free rides home to anybody that needs a ride, so that people don't feel the urge to drink and drive. Keep up the good work!!!
First of all, on the way back to Beverly's apartment, Gretchen whips out her wallet and tries to bribe the Carpool driver to take us through the McDonald's drive thru. She offers to pay him. He declines. She offers to buy him a meal. Again, he declines. Needless to say, we arrive at Beverly's apartment hungry and looking for food. The next logical step for three hungry girls with no mode of transportation is to utilize the available resources and raid the refrigerator. And that's just what we did.
I can still picture Lucy and Gretchen's sad little faces when we opened the refrigerator/freezer and found two Weight Watchers meals, a package of Saltine crackers, and a bag of pecans. This is clearly not what we're hoping for, but we're resourceful girls and this is just a bump in the road. So we heat up the Weight Watchers meals and eat them. We open up the Saltines and eat them. We even grab a handful of pecans and go at it. It was not our proudest moment, to say the least. But we're giggly and chatty, and we have the best time eating those horrid foods. See, this is what girls' weekend is all about.
Fast forward to 2:30 a.m. There we are, Lucy, Gretchen and I, scrunched up together on Beverly's full-size bed, talking about lord knows what, when Gretchen glances in to the closet and spots a bright blue, formal gown. Evidently, Gretchen loves this dress, because she decides that now is the time to spring out of bed and try it on. Now, this is quite a spectacle, because Gretchen has had a few drinks and this dress is extremely long and flowy. Gretchen stumbles and hops around, trying to get in to the dress. She is finally successful, and I'm in the process of zipping the dress up, when Gretchen looks down and decides that the dress is too tight on her, because in her head, she can see her belly button through the bodice of the dress. Of course this sets Gretchen in to fits of, "Can you see my belly button?" "Am I fat?" "Is this dress too tight?" "Maybe I shouldn't have had those pecans." Drama is always an active player in girls' weekends, let me tell you.
But, always on top of the situation, Lucy and I quickly gain control by combatting these remarks with "you're totally skinny" comments (Gretchen is totally skinny), temporarily calming Gretchen's mood. We fall asleep soon after, and the drama of girls' weekend is silenced...for now. It will inevitably wreak havoc again at the commencement of the next girls' weekend. But that's a whole other blog entry :)

Kids...

I had a conversation with Spiderman today. No lie.
This family of five - two parents, two extremely rowdy boys, and one extremely bratty girl - came in to our office today to get new cards. It turns out that the oldest boy, who was about four years old, had taken it upon himself to glue their old cards to the floor. Very creative, that one.
So as the parents are trying to get out identification for themselves and their three children, the youngest boy, Zack, wanders over to our security guard and starts a conversation. Zack is probably only about two and a half years old, and I can't make out a lot of what he's saying to the guard. However, it's about this time that Zack's mom realizes that her son is all the way across the lobby, talking to a complete stranger. As probably any mom would do, the woman calls to her son, "Come here, Zack." Now Zack is a lively little man, and he seems to be displeased with his mother's command, because he shoots her a look, crosses his arms and says, "I not Zack! I Spiderman!"
The mother, looking a bit humiliated, just sighs and says, "OK, come here Spiderman." She had obviously been through this before.
As he's crossing the lobby, a little old lady who's sitting on the front row starts talking about what a cute little boy Zack is. This is clearly a bad idea because Zack is a boy's boy, and it's my guess that calling him cute really doesn't sit well with him, because this time Zack squares off with the lady and shouts, "I not cute! I SPI-DER-MAN!" This kid was not backing down. Score two for Spiderman.
So as Zack is moving closer and closer, I make a mental note to call him Spiderman. Zack's obviously not afraid of making scenes, and nobody really wants to be called out in public. So I pointedly say, "Hey there, Spiderman." Zack seems temporarily pleased with himself, but it's at this point that his very smug eight-year-old sister looks at me and rolls her eyes. "You know his name's not really Spiderman, silly. It's Zack."
May God bless the parents of those three.

The Anti-June

Do you remember June Cleaver? She wore her little apron, with her perfect hair pulled back neatly, makeup always just right so that you know it's there but you can't really tell where it is, a tiny little sparkle always reflecting off of her ever-present, bright white smile. She was awake before her children, Wally and the Beave, and she always had breakfast waiting and lunches ready and labeled so that she could nonchalantly hand them out as her children walked out the door. Ahh, the good ole days...
Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm the Anti-June. I just had this epiphany today. I've never really thought of myself as domestic, but as I looked around today, I noticed that my plants have died, it's been a week since I last cooked a meal (I slightly burned that one), and I have to give myself a pep talk before I can convince myself to pull out an iron. I do keep my house clean and I do the laundry, but beyond that I'm the Anti-June.
For example, today I decided that I would try this Downy wrinkle releaser in lieu of ironing my favorite work shirt. I justified this by telling myself that cutting down on ironing time is good time management. But this is where my problem began, because although the Downy did fulfill it's promise of a "light freshness" smell, it did nothing for the wrinkles.
So after ten squirts of the wrinkle releaser with no results, I started the ironing pep talk. "It'll only be ten minutes, and you'll look really nice at work tomorrow. Plus, you can iron as you watch TV, so as to maximize your productivity." (The pep talk was short today.) Unfortunately, this is where the plot thickens because evidently Downy and iron heat just don't mesh very well. It started out alright, but I must have hit a spot on the shirt that had a concentrated area of wrinkle releaser, because the shirt started smoking heavily, the material got very stiff, and suddenly a hole about the size of a fifty-cent piece appeared in my very favorite work shirt. Now, even the least domestic person can recognize that this isn't how ironing is supposed to go. Needless to say, I won't be wearing that shirt tomorrow.
Things like this never happened to June Cleaver.
And also, Downy should really put some sort of label on their wrinkle releaser. "Warning: Beyond it's light freshness scent, this product does not work. You'll waste your money and then when you try ironing as a last resort, your clothes will be burned to a crisp."

29 Hours and Counting...

It's now been approximately 29 hours since I've set foot outside the confines of my home, due to this nagging cough/cold/sore throat, and I've pretty much spent the entire day laying on the couch and watching Sex and the City (SATC), compliments of my husband, who made a special trip to Best Buy this morning to purchase SATC Season Six Part Two for my viewing pleasure.
I can't believe I get so wrapped up in this fictional television show. But I can't lie, I've spent the last hour pleading with Carrie to leave Paris and go back to her life in New York. It's pathetic, I know.
I do think the show had a positive message though, in that you can search for life and/or love in extravagant places, and you can measure self worth in the value of your material items, but the important things in life are most often the people who have been there for you all along and the experiences that have shaped you along the way.

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On a much more somber note, CNN Headline News just confirmed that more than 155,000 people have died in the tsunami tragedy. One Hundred and Fifty Five Thousand. I can't even fathom that number. The ironic thing is that the total destruction and loss of life occurred there while we were busy here playing in the snow.
It makes me wonder about the victims - who they were prior to December 26th and the kind of impact they might have made if this event had not occurred. These people were just living their lives one minute, and then with no warning whatsoever, they were fighting to stay alive or to save their loved ones the next.
It's scary to think about what little control we actually have in life.

Ode to the Duck Tail

I'm sick, bored and banned from ever leaving this house again, so as not to spread my germs. I would, however, like to take this opportunity to thank the lady that came in to my office on Thursday and coughed on me. Good move, passing on disease. Haven't you ever heard of a telephone??? Just call me next time! So anyway, as I was saying, being that I'm ever so bored, I've decided that today will be story day. One time in a land far far away...no just kidding.
When Kevin and I first got married, we lived in a remote little town called Angleton. Angleton is literally about 50 miles from Houston, and the only thing between Angleton and civilization is a long stretch of highway. Not very exciting. It was not often that Kevin and I ventured in to Houston because it was such a pain to get there, but this posed a problem for me, because my hair was growing longer and more straggly, and the only place nearby that did hair was a Supercuts that was notorious for botching haircuts. I risked it.
At first, everything seemed to be going well. The lady who cut my hair was really nice and she didn't cut a chunk out of my scalp or anything, so I was thinking that the Supercuts trip was a success...that was until I got home and noticed that, though my hair was well below my neck line, the lady had unnecessarily cut a duck tail in to the back of my hair. WHY?!? Why would you do that? Sure it was no big deal as long as my hair was down, but the minute I pulled my hair in to a pony tail, (thus exposing my duck tail) I could feel the people staring at me, wondering why it was that I had opted for such an unnecessary addition to my shoulder-length hair. I was a freak :)
Months went by and my duck tail had finally grown out to a normal length, and I decided again that Supercuts was a better option than having straggly hair. So again I went to the local Supercuts, and - lucky me - I ended up with duck tail cutter again. The same woman sat me down in the same chair as I had sat in two months before, but this time I made sure to tell her that I wanted a simple trim and nothing more. No fancy stuff. And as she began to part my hair, she noticed the patch of hair that was shorter than the rest, and she said, "Oh have I cut your hair before?" It was so odd. So my mind was racing at this point. Had she recognized the duck tail and realized that she had already marked me as her own? Was this the painless hair cutting equivalent of branding me with a branding iron? Was I her livestock? I felt so cheap and used. All that time I had thought that she just sucked at cutting hair. I had not realized that there was a method behind the madness! I decided I would not submit to her game, so the rebel in me spoke up, "No, this is my first time to come in here. I just moved to the area." It was my hope that her mind would race now as she wondered who it was that had copied her idea to brand customers. Take that, duck-tail woman! I'm nobody's livestock...

New Year, New Blog

I'm so glad 2004 is finally over - not a good year for the world I must say, taking in to consideration all of the violence and death that resulted from the escalating war in Iraq and the realization that the war is not going to be the easy victory that we were hoping for, the loss of life and personal property caused by the hurricanes in Florida, and the total devastation of those countries that were hit by the tsunami. What a horrible end to an already abysmal year.
You know what makes it even worse is that Monday morning, three of my co-workers were actually talking about the fact that the U.S. simply can not afford to contribute money to the countries affected by the tsunami. One of the ladies, who will remain nameless, actually said the words, "we have a war to fight and we can't be throwing our money out at every country that needs help" and then in the same breath she went on to say, "we just can't be the world police." Does anybody else see the irony in the positioning of those two statements??? I know she's entitled to her opinion, but at the same time, it's so disappointing to hear somebody that I work with and respect say something like that. I'm just glad that the U.S. has now pledged ongoing support to those countries affected by the tragedy. Let's pray that 2005 will be a much better year.