It's the obvious thing to post about, right? Despite what I said in my last post, there really are things that I'm thankful for... the holiday specials on the Food Network.... four consecutive days off from work, paid, at the end of the year, when all of the vacation time is used up... the anticipation of eating pie later today at my in-laws place without giving a hoot what my blood sugar level is...

The beautiful little boy sleeping in my bed right now (laying in the opposite direction as mommy & daddy, mind you), who's been there since he woke up crying at 2:30 this morning...

The very unexpected birthday present I got from my husband (yes, today's my birthday, too!)... a gift certificate from my favorite hair salon to get a cut, style and manicure... the most thoughtful gift he's ever gotten me...

Having a job, that I enjoy sometimes, when so many others don't...

The surprise mini-windfall of cash that allowed us to get new tires put on my car, which were desperately needed...

Friends that love me and try so hard to make me understand that I'm not really alone...

Have a wonderful holiday with your family and friends. Happy Thanksgiving.

Perfect Moments

I was driving home from work this afternoon... it was a perfect late-fall afternoon. The sky was milky-blue... the sun bright, almost blinding at times, but not warm... clear and crisp as far as you could see. I turned the radio on at the exact moment that what is perhaps the best song of all-time started to play....

The screen door slams
Mary's dress waves
Like a vision she dances across the porch
As the radio plays

I've got this on several CD's and can listen to it anytime I want, but just happening upon it like that was like receiving an unexpected gift from an old friend. It was kismet... serendipity...something...

Roy Orbison singing for the lonely
Hey that's me and I want you only
Don't turn me home again
I just can't face myself alone again

All the crap just fell away.

Don't run back inside
darling you know just what I'm here for
So you're scared and you're thinking
That maybe you ain't that young anymore

The holidays are upon us, and I hate the holidays. They've always been a letdown for me, because they were never picture-perfect gatherings of family and friends, laughing and enjoying each other. I'm hard-wired to always long for what I don't have, rather than to be thankful for the blessings that I'm surrounded by everyday, and I don't know if I'll ever be able to change that.

Show a little faith, there's magic in the night
You ain't a beauty but hey you're alright
Oh and that's alright with me

You can hide 'neath your covers
And study your pain
Make crosses from your lovers
Throw roses in the rain

I miss my parents. It stabs like a blade. The day my father died sometimes plays in my head like a looped video... over and over and over... the phone on my desk at work rang... it was one of the nurses at the hospital... the doctor needed to speak to me. My dad was in cardiac arrest. They'd used the paddles on him three times, but he wasn't responding. The doctor needed to know if I wanted them to keep trying. Then the doctor on the line, saying the same things, saying it didn't look good. I told him my dad had a DNR in place. The doctor knew that, he said, but procedure was to call the next of kin for a decision once they'd shocked the person three times and gotten no response. Did I want them to keep trying?

No. He wouldn't have wanted that. He was ready to go. He'd told me that just two days before. I know it was the right thing, but that conversation will haunt me always, as nothing else ever will.

Waste your summer praying in vain
For a savior to rise from these streets
Well now I'm no hero
That's understood
All the redemption I can offer, girl
Is beneath this dirty hood
With a chance to make it good somehow
Hey what else can we do now
Except roll down the window
And let the wind blow back your hair
Well the night's busting open
These two lanes will take us anywhere
We got one last chance to make it real
To trade in these wings on some wheels

I hate to say it, but right now I'm honestly not sure if my marriage is going to survive my husband being in school. It's not money - we're fine financially. Sure, it's tight living on just my income and the pittance he gets from unemployment, but we're making it. We have what we need. I'd be lying, though, if I didn't say that being the bread-winner, the main source of family support and the only source of family health insurance wasn't weighing me down. The husband seems to think that's the fact that he's out of a job and in school is only stressful on him, because he has to be home all day with the boy, the go out for the evening to go to class or study. We've had so many arguments about all this... laundry and dirty dishes everywhere, bathrooms not cleaned, blah, blah, blah. I don't have the energy to argue about it. I'm not even sure if I want my marriage to last beyond his graduating from school. I have a year and three months to decide... I told him he has a year and three months to show me what reason there is to stay...

Climb in back
Heaven's waiting on down the tracks
Oh oh come take my hand
Riding out tonight to case the promised land
Oh oh Thunder Road, oh Thunder Road
oh Thunder Road
Lying out there like a killer in the sun
Hey I know it's late we can make it if we run
Oh Thunder Road, sit tight take hold
Thunder Road

Well I got this guitar
And I learned how to make it talk
And my car's out back
If you're ready to take that long walk
From your front porch to my front seat
The door's open but the ride it ain't free
And I know you're lonely
For words that I ain't spoken
But tonight we'll be free
All the promises'll be broken
There were ghosts in the eyes
Of all the boys you sent away
They haunt this dusty beach road
In the skeleton frames of burned out Chevrolets

They scream your name at night in the street
Your graduation gown lies in rags at their feet
And in the lonely cool before dawn
You hear their engines roaring on
But when you get to the porch they're gone
On the wind, so Mary climb in
It's a town full of losers
And I'm pulling out of here to win.

For 4 minutes and 49 seconds, life disappeared, and I flew down the road, and belted out those lyrics that I've known now for as long as I can remember it seems. I couldn't turn my radio up loud enough. Nothing else mattered. It felt so good, even for a short while, to just be.

Humidifier... Pedia-Care Gentle Vapors mentholated vapor plug-in unit... Puff's plus with lotion (not that he'll let you get anywhere near his nose)... Vick's Vapo Rub (for old-times' sake more than anything else)... Pedia-Care cough medicine... butterscotch pudding cups...

Yes, you guessed it, my son has a cold. At least I think that's what it is. About a week ago he woke up with the gross nose, which was gone the next day, but then the cough started. The doctor always says 'It takes anywhere from 7-10 days for a child to get over a cold', and he hasn't been running a fever, so we haven't called back yet. If the cough isn't gone by Friday or Monday, Daddy will be taking him to the doctor. Better him than me, because the child throws a monumental tantrum when you walk into the examining room.

My husband is also in the midst of taking his final exams for this quarter of school - thank God, I can't wait until these classes are over. Him being off work and going to school for two years is going to kill me.

I have much blogging that is waiting to spill out of me, but it will have to wait until the upcoming long weekend. Right now, I must be off to bed, because that upcoming long weekend means I have to be into work early the next two days.

DONA NOBIS PACEM (a day early, but it's always the right time to spread Peace)

Thanks to Twyla and Mimi for this great idea...

Hit the link for Mimi's place above to get your own globe... spread the word...

FAVE FOTO FRIDAY!

My dear friend Mou has his picture up on his blog, so I certainly hope he doesn't mind me posting one here. This picture of us was taken at the wedding of my brother and sister-in-law back in 1987. A few years after that, I went back to the photographer who'd taken the picture and had two copies made. I gave one to Mou for Christmas that year, and the other has been displayed prominently ever since in whatever place I've called home. Contrary to what everyone thinks upon seeing the picture, I WAS NOT touching his backside when the photo was snapped, I'd slapped him on the back, not the a$$!!!

Did I mention that I've been called for Jury Duty? I report Nov 13. Since the Employee Handbook for the Casa de Insurance clearly states that they have to pay me my full salary for any days that I'm off, and since I'm down to one vacation day for the remainder of the year, I'm hoping to get picked for a juicy trial that lasts 2-3 weeks. If that happens, I'd also get $20/day from the courts - SCORE!

Keep your fingers crossed!

I am a catalog freak, just ask my husband. While I don't normally buy a lot through the mail (because we're broke), I do love looking.

I saw this




in the holiday edition of the Oriental Trading Company, Inc catalog, and I have 2 things to say...

1) Is this sacrilegious?

2) There are only 30 shopping days until my birthday. They're not available online, only in the catalog, so contact me if you need the ordering info!

What you've been waiting for since the last post...

Update 0ct 23, 2006... this was posted last week, yet when I logged in just now, it was saved in my drafts... hmmm.....

1. I’m 5’3 ½” tall, exactly 1 foot shorter than my husband.
2. My hair is naturally curly.
3. My favorite color is green.
4. My eyes are a light golden-brown with hints of green around the pupil.
5. My favorite movie is “The Godfather”.
6. And speaking of movies, I hate “The Wizard of Oz”.
7. Deep, deep down, I’m still in love with my first love.
8. I like ketchup on my macaroni & cheese.
9. My ears are pierced a total of 9 times.
10. I have 3 tattoos: the Chinese character for ‘courage’, a peace sign, and the Celtic-version of my parents’ zodiac signs.
11. My favorite memory from childhood is going to the library with my mother.
12. I have never read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
13. Roller coasters scare the crap out of me, but I love them (as long as they don’t go upside-down).
14. I’m still angry at my father for giving up on life after his stroke.
15. My paternal grandparents were Presbyterian missionaries in the Cameroon’s, in West Africa, for 41 years.
16. The pinky finger of my right hand is crooked.
17. I’ve played the flute since I was 10 years old.
18. The sound of people eating popcorn at the movies drives me crazy.
19. Pat Conroy is my favorite author.
20. My teeth are almost perfectly straight (naturally), yet I wanted braces as a child because all my friends had them.
21. I am constantly terrified that something terrible will happen to my son.
22. I love peppermint stick ice cream topped with hot fudge sauce.
23. Sometimes I resent my husband for getting me pregnant.
24. Daisies are my favorite flower.
25. I’d rather have strawberry jam than grape jelly on my peanut butter sandwiches.
26. I think most of the people I work with are idiots.
27. I don’t think there’s anything beautiful about the childbirth experience, other than the baby that you get to take home from the hospital with you.
28. The perfume I wear comes from Ireland.
29. I took 3 years of Latin in high school (Veni, Vidi, Veggie translated means “I came, I saw, I had a salad”)
30. I have an unnatural fear of dead fish.
31. My favorite song is ‘Jungleland’ by Bruce Springsteen.
32. I slept through most of the 3rd ‘Lord of the Rings’ movie… in my defense, I was 8 ½ months pregnant at the time.

My guilty pleasures are…
33. 7th Heaven
34. Julie Garwood books
35. Potato salad (carbs are not a friend of the diabetic)
36. Selected songs by artists (and I use the term loosely) such as The Backstreet Boys, Vanessa Carlton, Jesse McCartney and Sixpence None the Richer.
37. Good shampoo that you can only buy at the salon
38. Opi nail products
39. Good chocolate (although I will never turn down a Snicker's bar)

40. I was adopted when I was 2 months old.
41. I’ve never broken a bone.
42. I’ve been to two concerts: Bruce Springsteen and the Dave Matthews Band.
43. I start my Christmas shopping in July (seriously... and yes, I know it's sick).
44. My date to the Senior Prom flew to Ohio just for the occasion.
45. On Thanksgiving Day (this year) I will be 37 years old.
46. I fessed-up to my parents both the first time I got drunk and the first time I had sex, because I was afraid they’d find out from someone else and be twice as mad.
47. I used to get tonsillitis 3-4 times a year when I was little, but I’ve never had my tonsils out.
48. I can name all of the state capitals.
49. I’m sorry I didn’t have the opportunity to know my mother-in-law better.
50. I’m hooked on Burt’s Bees Beeswax Lip Balm.
51. I’ve never had a cavity.
52. I prefer driving a stick shift over an automatic transmission.
53. I love opera.
54. My pizza toppings of choice are green olives, onions and bacon.
55. I listen to National Public Radio.
56. I am still mostly afraid of the dark.
57. I can’t sleep unless I’m facing the doorway of the bedroom.
58. I can’t (literally) go through haunted houses – I get so scared that I turn around and walk out before I get through the first room.
59. I’ve always been fascinated by the Mafia.
60. The ringtone on my cell phone is the theme from ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’.
61. Sometimes I like to just read the dictionary.
62. I have tendonitis in my right shoulder.
63. I can only wear earrings that have genuine gold posts (otherwise, my ears get infected… was that too much information?).
64. My favorite book as a child was Amelia Bedelia.
65. I rarely iron my clothes.
66. I’ve worn my mother’s wedding rings on my right hand since she died 8 ½ years ago.
67. I have a freckle on the bottom of my right foot.
68. I’ve seen every episode of M*A*S*H
69. Sometimes I don’t think I believe in God
70. Apples are my favorite fruit
71. When “Pretty Woman” first came out on video, I watched it so many times I had the dialogue memorized.
72. I genuinely like rhubarb pie.
73. I only buy Crest toothpaste.
74. My first car was a 1985 Chevy Nova… I loved that car…
75. I like making jam.
76. I screen my phone calls 90% of the time.
77. I don’t like the taste of alcohol (although I did drink quite a bit in my early 20’s).
78. When I grow up, I’d love to be a photographer… or own my own book shop… or coffee shop.
79. I have a collection of the pens that drug company reps give the doctors’ offices.
80. I’ve traveled as far north as the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, west to Missouri, and south to Florida and east to Washington D.C.
81. The first album (yes, vinyl!) was the soundtrack to ‘Footloose’.
82. I still have a scar under my chin from a bicycle accident when I was 8.
83. I don’t understand basketball, the game of Bridge, or calculus.
84. I was once in the same hotel lobby with Lou Ferrigno, but I didn’t take advantage of the opportunity to meet him.
85. I prefer diet Coke over diet Pepsi, and like a squeeze of lemon in it, too (real lemon, not that fake-already-in-the-diet-Coke stuff they tried to market a while back).
86. I have never been able to do a cartwheel.
87. I was in my high school’s marching band, and loved every minute of it.
88. I’m usually in bed by 8:30 – 9:00 pm.
89. I wish my in-laws would move to Florida, now that they’re retired.
90. Sometimes, I still sleep with a stuffed animal.
91. I could not stay sane at my job without my iPod.
92. I have unbelievable stage fright (I threw up both before and after both recitals I had to give as a music major in college).
93. Sometimes I can be conceited.
94. Sometimes I get bored when my husband is talking to me.
95. I will always feel guilty for not pushing my mother more to see a different doctor before she died.
96. Most people are surprised to learn that I wear a size 10 shoe, because my feet really don’t look that big.
97. I refuse to buy cheap toilet paper.
98. I’m scared to make out a will, because I think it will make my mortality that much more real to me.
99. I wish my older brother and I were as close now as we were when we were younger.
100. After listing all these things about myself, I’m not sure I’m any closer to knowing who I am than I was when I started.

"One of the things that started me on the path artistically that I've been on was because I was adopted I had no real identity. It's something I still struggle with because it's taken me a long, long time, much longer than most people I know, to actually find my own identity, because I can't really look to biology and I can't really look to ancestry and I can't look to a context I think unconsciously I wanted to fit in. My mother likes to say I was a practically perfect child, getting great grades and trying to be good all the time and being nice and cute and sweet and all that kind of stuff, and I think it just built up in me, and there was this huge sense of a disconnect between the role I was playing and how I really felt inside."

Liz Phair iTunes Original "Adopting My Own Identity"

Who'd have thought Liz Phair could sum up so well what I've been feeling lately? Go figure.

When my dad died, I felt as if I'd been flung out into space, completely on my own. It's a weird sense of not lonliness, but aloneness, once that second parent dies. It's strong... almost overpowering, and I think the fact that I was adopted made it even stronger. It was as if, somehow, what validated me as a person was suddenly gone. And this has left me, for th e last year and a half, wondering, guessing, pondering, contemplating, obsessing over who I really am. I hate that because it sounds like pop-culture psycho-babble cliche to me, but there's really no other way to say it. And I hate the fact that at 36 years old, I don't have a better sense of myself, but there you have it.

It's exhausting.

It's not an original idea, but I've been putting together my list of '100 Things About Me'. I've seen it on several other blogs, and decided it was time to put together a list of my own. Some things are interesting, some maybe not. We'll see...

Conversations with a 2 1/2 year old...

Early Saturday morning, somewhere in the MidWest...

Boy: "OH NO! My pancakes!!"

Me: "What pancakes? We don't have any pancakes."

Boy: "My pancakes!!"

Me: "The last time we got pancakes, you wouldn't eat them."

Boy: "Oh noooooooo!!! My pancakes!!!"

Me: "We don't have any pancakes. How 'bout a banana?"

Boy: "Okay, I have pancakes." (as he lifts his shirt and walks out of the room)

FAVE FOTO FRIDAY!

The boy, disovering that you can pull the grass out of the ground in the backyard, taken 09/09/06.

I'm often awestruck when I look at him, because even after almost 3 years, I find it hard to believe that I'm a part of something so amazing...

Movie of your life

Not surprising, really...

The Movie Of Your Life Is A Cult Classic

Quirky, offbeat, and even a little campy - your life appeals to a select few.But if someone's obsessed with you, look out! Your fans are downright freaky. Your best movie matches: Office Space, Showgirls, The Big Lebowski

If Your Life Was a Movie, What Genre Would It Be?

I actually pushed past my fear of being attacked (I say that so it comes across jokingly, but I'm not kidding... I rarely take him to the park on my own because I'm afraid someone will jump us and try to take off with him, and I won't be strong enough to stop them... how sad is that...) and took the boy to the park tonight after the husband left for school. It was an absolutely gorgeous day here in Ohio. One of those perfect days - temperature in the low 70's with a breeze, crystal blue sky dotted with fluffy clouds, like the opening shots from 'The Simpsons'. Just wonderful.




For some reason, his tongue is constantly out right now, pressed against his upper lip. It's cute, don't get me wrong, but I'm worried that his little lips are horribly chapped by this, and when I try to put some Burt's Bee's lip balm on him, all he wants to do is lick the tube... yuck.




We met a little girl and her father there. Kelli ("WITH A I, NOT A Y!!" Kelli talked like she were speaking in all capital letters.)was about a year older than the boy, and spoke of herself in the third person. "COME HERE LITTLE BOY, KELLI WANTS TO GO DOWN THE SLIDE WITH YOU!" It was a little odd.



He didn't seem to mind the fact that KELLI WITH A I was bossing him around, until she started poking him. When that started, he stared at her for a second, then said 'Nope!' and went down the slide. That's my boy!



Now we're home to have pizza for supper, because that's what he said he wanted. He's going through a little thing right now - there are times when he'll go for 3-4 days without eating hardly a thing, yet it doesn't seem to affect him. We're in the middle of one of those spells right now, so if pizza is something he'll actually eat, then by all means, pizza it is.

Fave Foto Friday

I am late to the game today, because I'm just now getting home from having dinner and hanging out with a friend after work. I LOVE Pax's idea of Fave Foto Friday and had to participate in this one!!

My favorite is a picture of my best friend and me, from our Senior year in high school. I'm on the left. In one click, the photographer managed to capture the essence of our friendship.

Wow... I think my brain actually hurts... not just a headache, but my actual brain feels fatigued. I've been working on a proposal for my job, that I'll be presenting to our management team sometime in the next few weeks. If it's successful, we'll all be issued laptop computers between now and the first quarter of next year that will enable us to work from home more often. If it's successful, these redneck yahoos I work with need to worship me like a goddess, because not one single one of them has done jack-diddly to help with this.

Lazy bastards.

Could it be? Who knows...

This just may be the magic key we've been looking for to get the potty training ball rolling. What did parent do before Elmo, I ask you? And what makes it even better is the fact that the potty they show Elmo using is EXACTLY the same potty that the boy has. HALLELUJAH!!! We watched this for the first time yesterday afternoon, Mommy, Daddy and the boy all in the living room together, in front of the tv, as a family. I even brought his potty into the room with us. After seeing Elmo on the potty, the boy ran to his, lifted the lid, and sat down (pants still on, but it's a start). He stayed there through the entire 45 minute show. He got up when it was over, and he was totally soaked, so hey, maybe he's starting to get the idea.

I both love and hate the fact that my life right now seems to be evolving around something like this. That I'm so excited by the fact that he just ran in the room and said to me 'Elmo has a potty! He goes pee pee!'... I just don't know how to feel about that.

A little... Eww, who likes to talk about pee and poo?

A little sad, because he's growing up so quickly... which leads into

... irritated, because I'm missing so much of it, because I have to drag myself everyday into a job that I just CANNOT stand right now, while the husband stays home and does seemingly very little around here (Were it not for the fact that the husband has put NO EFFORT WHATSOEVER into trying to potty train the boy, we'd probably be through it by now. But don't get me started on that. Yes, I'll be the first to admit that I'm completely jealous of the fact that he's home everyday with the boy, and experiencing all these wonderful things with him, and believe-you-me he knows I feel this way...).

Who in the world would've ever thought that all that would come from a simple DVD on potty training?

Here's a new one for you, Mou!

WELL BUTTER MY BUTT AND CALL ME A BISCUIT!

Show of hands, how many of us have been wanting to say the same thing for a while now?

Thanks to Pax for sharing this. It is so good, I had to post it here as well. The video is about 8 minutes long, but worth every second.

Mou, this one's for you...

While on vacation last week, I caught the 1996 made-for-tv movie version of Shirley Jackson's incredible short-story, 'The Lottery'. I still vividly remember reading this story for the first time in my sophomore-year English class. What a punch that story packs! As you can imagine, when I read that this movie version starred Dan Cortese and Keri Russell, I was a little skeptical, but I watched anyway.

In the interest of stretching the story into a 2-hour movie (including frequent commercial breaks, mind-you), they beefed up the plot some. Dan Cortese returns the the small town that is the home of the lottery, to bury the ashes of his recently-deceased father at the grave of his mother who is buried there. As he checks-in at the local bed-n-breakfast, in walks Keri Russell, whose parents run the place. One look at each other and the Davey Jones-esque stars start sparkling in their eyes. Love at first sight, except for one small problem. Well, two small problems. The local deputy sheriff also has his eyes on the fair-Keri, and Dan, being no dummy, has figured out quickly that there's something not quite right about this place. When the deputy gets wind of the blossoming romance between Dan and the fair-Keri, it's obvious that he needs to run this troublemaker out of town as quickly as possible. As Dan and the deputy square off in one very exciting, testosterone-driven scene (mind you, the deputy has just set Dan's car on fire, so Dan is a little peeved), Dan puffs out his chest and says to the deputy...

"I'M ABOUT TO STOMP A MUD HOLE IN YOU!"

Canada Geese 1 - Father-in-law 0

We paid the obligatory weekend visit to the in-laws yesterday. They're leaving at the end of this week for a month's stay at one of their time-share places in Florida, a welcome break for all involved.

I don't know about other places, but here in an around Dayton, OH, we are invaded every year by hoards of Canada geese. They're beautiful creatures... from a distance. Up close, they're nothing but a pain in the ass, hissing and spitting if you get too close to their nest, and pooping ALL OVER the place. The complex of condos where the in-laws live includes a small pond, which the geese love. Over the years, my father-in-law has made every effort to get rid of the geese... a series of ropes strung back-and-forth across the pond to create a kind of web that would stop the geese from landing there... a plastic alligator head, weighted just-so so that it would float menacingly around the pond with just its eyes and snout poking up from the surface of the water... a remote-control speed boat to chase the geese from the pond... and this year (my favorite, by-far, because of its simplicity!), two boards that he bangs together while he runs at the pond, yelling at the top of his lungs.

Did I also mention that he's the president of the condo association?

So yesterday, the father-in-law, the husband, and my precious little son go out for a walk. My mother-in-law and I sat on their patio, enjoying the nice day and talking. I think we're bonding in a strange way, but that's for another post. We heard the men return from their constitutional, and went inside to greet them. Only my husband was in the room. As I looked around for my son, I noticed an odd-looking trail of footprints on my in-law's pale beige carpet. Small, dark footprints that went this way and that.

Yes, lo-and-behold, the small one had, unbeknownst to anyone, tracked something in on the bottom of one of his shoes.

Upon further inspection, I discovered that, yes, it was in fact a big old goose turd. I was mortified, yet overwhelmingly amused at the same time. I managed not to laugh, though, until my husband said 'Ah, the geese are FINALLY getting their revenge on you!'

I don't think my father-in-law appreciated the humor of the situation.