Yeah! Chocolate!

Another reason to love Chocolate

Happy Fat Tuesday!

I love Catholic Holidays. I wasn't raised Catholic, or Christian, or really any form of faith. I went to Unitarian chuch from time to time. If anyone asks I always say I am a devout Unitarian with atheist tendencies. To say I really love Catholic holidays, and earnestly mean it, probably shocks at least two people in this world. Here's why I love Catholic Holidays: Good Friday, Friday the 13th, Christmas and Fat Tuesday. I know some of these aren't really Catholic but flow with me. I was born in Boston and I didn't really know there were any Christians besides Catholics until I was about 10 and learned that Episcopalians weren't a sect of Catholics. I didn't know about baptists until I was about 12, Hindus and Budhists until 15. I knew there were jews because one of my best friends growing up was Jewish but I didn't know what they believed, I just knew she didn't get to celebrate Christmas and had to eat really gross food for Passover. When we were growing up this good friend up told me gefilte fish was made from carp testicles and I believed him. To this day I still can't eat the stuff, I gag. Here's a cute story about gefilte fish. Back to Catholic holidays...
My daughter, Noodle, was born on Good Friday the 13th. She was a c-section so I was laying on my back with my arms out to the side and pinned down to an operating table on Good Friday. Great. It also happened to be the 13th, she was born on Good Friday the 13th. If you look here or here you can see that there are a few ideas behind Friday the thirteenth and it is split between Christian and Norse superstititions. I am going with the idea it comes from the bible. The CrystalLinks website says it is good luck to be born on Friday the 13th. I hope so.
Christmas is fun because you get to see family and watch children open presents. As my cousin says 'We celebrate the great god Santa.' I have been to midnight mass for Christmas a few times and it is a wonderful service, the hope of the poeple is palpable throughout the mass and the churches are beautifully decked out and everyone is so joyous. This year we also celebrated Hannukah because I really like celebrating the idea of miracles and Noodle goes to a JCC for pre-school and she asked if we could so we said sure. Everyone had to listen to me butcher Hebrew for 8 days but they seemed to have recovered now. Hubby may still have a ringing in his ear, I will have to ask. Back to the Catholic holidays.
I like Fat Tuesday because it is all about debauchery before lent, the storm before the quiet. Catholics get away with stuff like that, they get to repent after the festivities. I don't see the baptists getting to celebrate Carnivale without a whole lot of guilt. Also Fat Tuesday offers King's Cake and I love cake:
"Epiphany is also traditionally when celebrants serve King's Cake, a custom that began in France in the 12th century. Legend has it that the cakes were made in a circle to represent the circular routes that the Wise Men took to find Jesus, in order to confuse King Herod and foil his plans of killing the Christ Child. In the early days, a coin or bean was hidden inside the cake, and whoever found the item was said to have good luck in the coming year. In Louisiana, bakers now put a small baby, representing the Christ Child, in the cake; the recipient is then expected to host the next King Cake party." from the American Catholic website
Although I really like celebrating a lot of holidays in general. When I was a kid we always celebrated Beethoven's birthday with cupcakes. He was a Catholic. See, another Catholic holiday...

Cat Urine is Too Toxic To Culture Bacteria

I know, I know... it is crazy that cat urine is too toxic to culture bacteria but it is true. The smell should have been a dead give away that nothing could live in kitty pee but we had to go to the emergency room vet on Saturday night to find this out absolutely. Two weeks ago our boy cat peed on the dog's bed. We thought the cat had a bone to pick with the dog and started odor neutralizing and cleaning. Thursday morning my husband woke up to the boy cat peeing on him. We could still chalk this up to the cat having a bone to pick. Hubby and Bibi aren't the best of friends but this wasn't typical behavior for the cat. Saturday afternoon he peed on the bed again but there were some signs of blood in the urine. So, of course, I panicked, Hubby, on the other hand, started sharpening the knife he uses to skin animals and Noodle tried to sooth the cat. Here is a picture she took of bundling him up with her Funny Bunny: As you can see, the cat is pretty laid back about what the child does to him. He is a good candidate for Stuff on my Cat. That is the whole reason we got him. About a year ago we went to Superpetz to pick up dog food and they had large cages with cats who needed homes from the local 'No-Kill' shelter. There were 12 cats, 11 cats saw Noodle and tried to get as far away from her as possible. One cat saw her and rubbed up against her fingers, his name was Bibi. Turns out he was an orphan from Hurricane Ivan, one of the multiple hurricanes that decimated Biltmore Village and WNC in 2004. He's a good boy, sleeps with Noodle, loves everyone who comes near him. He doesn't typically pee outside the kitty litter box so I called our vet but it was 5 minutes after they closed (of course) so I called the local emergency vet to see if I should wait until Monday or bring him in. They said to bring him in immediately so we scurried on in. Cats don't really get UTI's, the urine is too nasty. When they get old and their kidneys stop working properly they go straight to kidney infections. The poor kitties. The irratation that causes the blood in the urine also causes crystals to form and the crystals can block the urethra and their bladders can explode. Gross. They can have this happen in as little as 72 hours so when I told them this started two weeks ago the vet got really panicky and urged us to come in. Noodle came with me and tried to reassure the cat. She knew she like to be cuddled when she had to go to the doctor so she tried to reassure him by trying to pick him up. He is a Maine Coon, he is as big as she is. Picking him up doesn't reassure the cat, it freaks him out. So now the cat was under the examing table, Noodle had jumped up on the table pretending to be a cat and I was trying to get the 2 of them to switch positions. The vet shows up at this point, I am bending over with my butt to the door he enters. Excellent. Hi Doc, here's my fat ass. I get the cat out from under the table and the child off the table and the vet proceeds to poke and prod and squeeze. It was all I could do not to fall on the floor laughing. The vet sort of squished the cat's tummy and squeezed urine into one of those kidney shaped containers you throw up in after (or during) labor. Fortunately Noodle had gotten her art out and was no longer paying attention because I am pretty sure that would have become a new activity in our house if she had noticed what he was doing. The cat was not pleased. he doesn't meow, he squeaks. So now the vet is squeezing the cat, the cat is squeaking and I am trying to keep a straight face while the vet is telling me we shouldn't give the cat antibiotics. Fortunately the cat's urethra wasn't blocked. The cat gets 2 pills a day to relax the muscles around his urethra so he isn't uncomfortable and he gets wet food. Normally cats are supposed to get kibble (and cheese I 'accidently' drop on the floor while preparing meals. This is the one time you are supposed to feed wet food to your cat. It greatly reduces the crystals. Who knew? So now, if you worry your cat is getting a UTI, just bring it to get squeezed.

Cell, a Book Report by Me

I finished Cell last night on the plane and I am afraid I didn't like it as much at the end as at the beginning. There were some major themes:
Technology & Terrorism
Child Behavior
Mind Control (this plays a lot in his books, I think he is afraid of someone reading his mind)
Marriage/Love/Relationships
Of those themes I think he could have delved deeper into the child behavior piece and had a really stunning commentary on how our children behave and how we deal with it. It was still a page turner to the last 10 pages and then I think it fizzled a little. I don't mind books that leave you hanging but this left me puttering. He did put a bold story theme out there around relationships and I do give him kudos for going out on a limb a little around the story line of mentally making hard choices about relationships.
Another book I read this week was Zodiac by, Neale Stephenson. This book also took place in Boston, it was also about technology, except it was about the pollution caused by technology and industry. The I liked the protagonist of Zodiac a lot more than the protagonist of Cell. I had a dad who was a chemist and I think part of him could have been a crazy chemist environmental savior kind of guy if he had been born ten years later. I think my empathy towards the character in Zodiac was a bit stronger than any character (especially the 'phoners') in Cell. I also like my cell phone, there have been times, especially traveling, that it has been really handy. I don't really want it to be something that is evil, as portrayed in the book.
Zodiac was quite different than, say Diamond Age, another Stephenson book which is a great Sci-Fi book. I definitely would recommend Diamond Age, it's about a computer tablet designed to grow with the child as she intellectually develops and how a few different girls develop while using the tablet. It was designed for just one of the girls but illegal copies were made so a few had them instead, really interesting story line. Zodiac seemed totally unbelievable to me even though it took place in modern Boston and the large bad companies pullotuing the Boston Harbor seemed real. Heck, we know it was real, I studied the Boston Harbor as part of an Invertebrate Zoology class in college, it was pretty gross. What was unbelieveble was the way the story moved from place to place and how convenient the protagonists connections were, a little to Dickens for me. Diamond Age, on the other hand, is totally unbelievable at this point in time but it takes place in the future, who knows what will happen then.
All told I would rate the books mentioned in the last fews days as followed:
10 being it is a book that should always be on your shelf; 5 being borrow it from someone else but go ahead and read it; 1 being use it as kindling.
Little Children by Tom Perrotta (Ok, I didn't actually mention this but I found out it is coming out as a movie this year and it is a Great book). Score: 9
Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson. Score: 8 (No moive)
Zodiac by Neal Staphenson: Score: 6 (No moive)
bCell by Stephen King. Score: 5 (No moive)
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. Score: 10 (I haven't seen the movie but I can't imagine they could get the imagery in the book right, no matter who made the movie)



Here is my conspicuous consumption of the month: I got new coffee maker. We use Amazon credit cards so we get coupons after we spend X amount so we got this little beauty:
It Makes some fine coffee and has one of those thermal urns so the coffee doesn't burn. Yummy....

Darn you, Mr King

I was waiting for the next Stephen King to go to paperback. Really, I was going to wait. But then I read the Most recent EW and the first two chapters were in the back and then I thought, this will be a good read, not deep, not meaningful, not titulating but a a page turner. Then I went to Jay (rolled J) for stuff.
Let me digress: Jay (rolled J) is Noodle's term for Target, the evolution of it went like this:
Target to Tarjay (roll the the J like Jolie, tres franch...we have franch fries. And franch dressing. And franch bread. And to drink, ta-daaa. Perrooo). Where did the Better Off Dead quote come from? My brain, my brain, oh what is rattling around up there?
Tarjay became Jay (rolled J)
Not the be confused with the J, no rolled J, which is short for the JCC, which is short for the Jewish Community Center, which is where she goes to pre-school. We're not jewish but it is a 5 star pre-school and I want her to get the best education ever.
Ok, back to the story. the Jay (rolled J) had the new Stephen King book at 30% the cover price which is darn close to a paperback price (or so I tell myself) so I got a copy. I contemplated purchasing a new copy of Their Eyes Were Watching God too, which is one of my 5 favorite books of all time. If you haven't read it yet, RUN, don't walk and pick up a copy. Zora Neale Hurston is an amazing story teller. But I decided to wait for another day on that one because I can't have 2 books that I can't put down at the same time. My brain just might explode if I did that.
I think some book club in America just permanently banned me for putting a Stephen King book and a ZNH book in the same paragraph.
I get back to the hotel room and get a frozen burrito to eat for dinner and start reading.
And I keep reading
and I keep reading
and all of a sudden it is 2 am.
I really did need more than 4 hours of sleep and I blame Mr King, certainly not myself, for this episode of sleep deprivation. I will finish the book on the plane tonight but I really needed the sleep last night. This project is now in full swing and I have to work and need to be a little coherent.
BTW -Don't let the tagline of the book deter you from reading it, it is better than that. But it does have quite a bit of gratuitous violence in it so don't read it if you can't handle that. I don't want anyone emailing me that I told them about a book that gave them nightmares for weeks from the imagery.
After reading this blog I realize today may be a big challenge.

80's Alter Ego

Chag, over at Cynical Dad, did the 80's alter ego and it was so fun I couldn't resist.
Here is what I wished I was. That's right, Kelly McGinnis in Top Gun. I was in Harvard Square one night wearing a black hat and a leather jacket and someone said I looked like Charlotte from Top Gun. Oh, I wish. I haven't actually seen the movie yet but the girl I was with agreed.

But I probably looked a more like Heather Matarrazzo from Welcome to the Dollhouse.









I want to see what other people's are, please tell me if you do one.

Synapses Aren't Quite Firing Correctly This Morning

I popped a Tylenol Simply Sleep at 9:30 last night (consider it the perfect red wine chaser). I still didn't fall asleep until 11:00...Big Deal, you ask? You wake up at 3:30 to get all dolled up (shower, make-up, hair product and hair dryer) for a work day 600 miles away, further by plane since you have to go to Atlanta or Charlotte or Cincinnatti first. I don't think I was actually awake for the dolling up this morning, I certainly don't really remember it. I do know the long sleeved shirt I put on under my sweater is on backwards. I wonder what else I did backwards, incorrectly, etc...
According to Time magazine "42 million: Sleeping-pill prescriptions filled in the U.S. last year, up nearly 60% since 2000" and "$298 million: Amount drugmakers spent in the first 11 months of 2005 to convince consumers that sleep aids are safe and effective--four times as much as they spent in 2004." I sort of understand both figures because I would love to fall asleep at 7:15 with my daughter on Sunday nights (but I never do) but I am really scared of becoming
1. addicted to sleeping pills
2. psychotic from sleeping pills
3. psychotic and addicted to sleeping pills
I know this is nothing to the complete sleep deprivation caused by a newborn. I went through that and can barely remember it. Seriously, I think it is one of the reasons I want another child, I can't remember the first 3 months all that well. I sort of remember the end of the newborn stages when I had gone back to work and would come home on Fridays and need to nurse and would have to ask Hubby to starve the baby so she could nurse as soon as I got off the plane because my boobs were rock hard from plane delays and not being able to pump. That was some fairly major pain. I pumped until she was 6 months old, I started traveling when she was 10 weeks old. That wasn't really fun but I am sure she is healthier from it (or at least I told myself that fairly regularly). It isn't like she only had milk, I couldn't produce enough milk after the second week of traveling and she was eating 50% milk and 50% formula at 12 weeks (if she only gets B's in school I hope I don't blame myself for not putting out more for her). I am the queen of transporting frozen milk, the right hotels to stay at, the best pump, etc...I consider it a niche talent in the consulting industry. Anyway, I am really tired on Monday mornings. I can't really talk to people beyond mono-syllabic grunts, people ask me questions and I look at them like a cow staring at a new fence. I get to the client and can't really answer questions until about 2 pm. I just write down the question and and keep going back to it until I can make enough sense to answer it. And I am not supposed to drink caffeine because after I was done nursing I developed mastitis and it is the only thing that keeps my boobs from really hurting (my one big addiction derailed, now I will have to move on to heroin). I think the mastitis thing is reason #2 for another child, the doctor assures me the mastitis will go away with pregnancy. I can't have caffeine but my boobs won't hurt as much...ok skip reason #2, my boobs will hurt while pregnant. And, although it is easier if I fly out the night before I really like that extra night of sleeping next to a snorting rhinocerous, I mean Hubby. I like my own bed and the cuddle monster who sleeps there. While others have lofty goals, my goal in 5 years is to no longer be traveling or at least not nearly as much. I am not sure what I will do or how but I don't want to travel. One friend thinks I should project manage Hubby's renovation business, which would mean we would live and work together...ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, we need a lot more therapy to get that to rolling. So this morning, when my client started talking about ODBC and DBMS and things like that I nodded, I heard blah blah blah ODBC blah blah blah DBMS blah, wrote some notes down and am now trying to figure out what she was talking about. I am not sure she knows but my notes don't make sense either. I can't wait until 7 when I can take off and crash at the hotel.
I am soooooo tired right now.

The email is titled: Annual Performance Management Process & Personal Time Balances

Raises, promotions and vacation payouts are final and where is my manager? Incommunicado.
That mother trucker...

Quick Wins

In corporate America there is a term called 'quick wins.' There isn't a good definition that I could find, only examples of them but it basically means that you assess the issues a client is having, triage them and quickly fix the ones you can while planning on how to figure out the bigger issues. In consulting if you aren't part of the solution there's good money to be made prolonging the problem. So I am in Norfolk these days, missing NYC like it's noone's business. I am back toa schedule of: get up, go to work, work until 7 or 8, go back to the room, microwave some soup (or order thai), play yahoo towers, read, sleep (if I am lucky). I feel sort of like a little kid, I realize I need to wear myself out a little more if I want to fall asleep before 1 am (I get up at 6). I must exercise. Fortunately, the woman I am working with, my 'super user', has lost 60 lbs in the last year through Weight Watchers and Curves. This is not a hot bed of chocolate like in Dallas (where I gained 10 pounds in 5 months, ugh, but it was so good). At the end of the month Curves has a membership drive that if you donate canned goods to Curves (for needy families) they waive the $150 joining fee. Consider me in, 30 minute work out a few times a week. I can do that, I am sure. She also felt that if all I do is work out I should get toned up a bit, she doesn't consider me fat (I love this woman). Anyway, back to the quick wins, the low hanging, fruit, the things I did that have already raised my to the status of minor deity, uber-consultant:
1. I showed them three things that halfed their work time, it took about 30 minutes to show them and they all love me.
2. I am teaching them how to use their ad-hoc reporting system which is very easy to use and they love it (as Wheezy would say on Dragon Tales ' LOVE IT!')
3. I showed the super user how to control her out of control, maniacal purchasing staff so that they stop making all these issues that they insist are the fault of the ERP system we are using when they are really user errors.
And for these 3 easy things I think they are building me a shrine in the next room. Goddess Arwen accepts donations.
The rest starts getting tough but that brings me to the next thing they love about me: I tell them no. OK, it isn't that I say "no, I am not going to do that". It's that I say "No, you don't want to do that, here's why: blah blah blah" and they think that's great. If they feel they still need to do these things I tell them I will help them do it on their own but take no ownership of what they are trying to do. Easy (do you hear me wiping me hands of all potentially messy situations? Oh yes, I am).
So all in all, this will be a great project for me.
Norfolk is a bit quirky though. First, there are a lot of men in sailor outfits. Oh, be still my beating heart. Sailors are hot. I am not sure why I feel this way but I do. If Hubby showed up in a sailor outfit I would laugh my ass off but the real deal is quite sexy. One of my friend's up in Mass. has a thing for paramedics and I think I have a soft spot for sailors, not that I would ever act upon it or anything. Hubby has a thing for Angelina Jolie and I am pretty sure he would act on it if she showed up at our front door (which is why I trained our dog to attack anyone with the name angelina or jolie, just to be on the safe side).
Norfolk also has some of the worst drivers ever. This is coming from a woman who learned to drive on the south east expressway in Boston. It's a scary dangerous place to drive. I will be merging onto a higway with no break down lane, just guardrails, and there will be a sweet spot to merge into and the person in the lane already will accelerate into that spot making me either have to slam on the brakes or crash into them. This has happened about 8 times since I have been here. Also, half the cars have special vanity license plates with cute sayings like 'OTOMUCH' and 'BLLPLYR'. I can't stand these, all of Hubby's family has them and they are all nuts. I can give you MIL stories that will leave you sucking your thumb in fetal position, no joke, I start balling up just thinking about her. I have seen incrdibly bad driving and, low and behold, a lot of car accidents. My commute should be 5 minutes and it hasn't been less than 20 yet. There is always an accident. Craziness.All in alll, I think if I could have this project in Newark I would be the happiest camper around.

Goofy Looking Rufus

Rufus, not Andy, won the dog show last night.
Andy is on the left. Look at how cute that dog is. Rufus is on the right, to me, that look is an acquired taste (nice way to say freaky looking). Left: adorable. Right: Here is what the bullterrier.com says about these guys:
"Bull terriers were bred for companionship and the sport of conformation, not for fighting....the creator of this breed created bull terriers for the purpose of selling a dog to the general public that was beautiful to the eye." Phew, the dogs wasn't created for fighting, I am relieved. Is that a nose that is 'beautiful to the eye"? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I guess. I still like Andy more. My only comment about the show (besides my dog lost) is that I think the Westminster show would do better if they dubbed the announcers with the dog show commentary from 'Best in Show.'

Perks of Traveling

One of the perks of traveling (one of the only perks of traveling for work):
Tonight I get to watch the West Highland Dog Show and I don't have Hubby flipping through channels whenever I blink. Let's face it, gorgeous dogs are gorgeous dogs and these dogs are gorgeous (except for the one with dreads, they are weird looking - I think they are called Pouli). So I get to sit and watch, currently I am rooting for the Golden Retriever, she's an attractive dog.
My favorite dogs could all live at the Fuzzy Animal Farm: Great Pyrenese, Newfoundland, German Shepherd, Border Collie, Otter Hound (pictured to the right, is that dog not the cutest?), Bernese Mountain dogs, Golden Retriever, Labs, Papillons (I know, one of these dogs is not like the others but when a papillon bounces around I giggle and they are a smart little dog), and mutts, I love mutts.
These dogs I Could live with: Rhodesian Ridgebacks, Rotweillers, Bassett Hounds, Cocker Spaniesl, Irish Wolfhounds, Corgis
Not my favorite (like, please never give me one of these dogs because I may never ever forgive you): German Short Haired Pointer, Shetland Sheepdog .
Here is a picture of or dear sweet dog, aka our other child, aka our princess:
She is another perk about traveling. She always is so excited to see me when I get home, if it is one night or 2 weeks she is crazy happy to see me. I know I am missed when I walk in the door with Jenise in our home. When I am home working (or playing computer games) she lays at my feet eventhough it isn't very comfortable for her just so she can be near me.
It turns out Hubby is actually allergic to her (and probably all dogs but this is a 100 lbs of fur, it is more obvious with this dog and her fur). I doubt we will ever have more than 1 dog due to the allergies, Claritin can only help so much. We figured out Hubby is allergic to cats and dogs recently and my response was 'sounds like you need a good allergy medicine' because I am not living without critters. I would rather get daily root canals then live without pets (and no, I wouldn't say I would rather get rid of Hubby than the pets...usually).

Oh, Jeez

Ok, Mineta came out with a statement demonizing Ms Spears and her driving antics. In his statement he unveiled a new initiative to enhance booster seat usage to a tune of 25 million dollars.
1. I applaud children in the correct restraint system because it good, children should not have to suffer because adults are really bad drivers.
2. Why should that take 25 million dollars ??????? Make it a law and make sure anyone who wants to renew a license or registers a car or registers to vote knows about the new law (now, in NC, that is only probably 50% of the adults but it is a start - everyone in NC seems to drive without a license or registration and less than 50% vote). Would this process cost 25 million dollars? Really, what is the cost of putting xeroxed signs up in DMVs?
3. Baby Spears is 4 months old, he will need a booster seat in 2 years. Let's hope the freak of his mother doesn't kill him by then.
4. Instead on Mineta 'chiding' Ms Spears, why doesn't he have her ARRESTED since there is proof it occured and it was very illegal.

Sad Songs and Chocolate

Appropriate for Valentine's: Sad, Crazy and Depressing Love Songs

1. Crazy by Patsy Cline (of course, there are a few others we could add)
2. Martha by Tom Waits (or anything on Closing time or Heart of Saturday Night)
3. Love Letter by Allison Krauss (of course, all non-religious music of hers could be added too)
4. Train in Vain by The Clash (in some ways the perfect break up song from one of the best albums ever)
5. Love's Recovery by Indigo Girls - "Meanwhile our friends we thought were so togetherThey've all gone and left each other in search of fairer weather" - yep, depressing chick music)
6. Jane Says by Jane's Addicition - Proof that chicks are crazy, even those originally male
7. Exile in Guyville by Liz Phair - Angst, angst, angst
8. Why Do I Lie? by Lucious Jackson - More proof chicks are crazy
9. I've been Loving You Too Long by Otis Redding - Sometimes I hear this song and just start crying
10 When Love Breaks Down - Prefab Sprout "When love breaks down, The things you doTo stop the truth from hurting you" This song idn't effect me until I started travelling and for the last 5 years it has made me cry on Wednesday nights, but then again, lots of things make me cry on Wednesday nights.
11. Listening Wind by Talking Heads - Ok, not really a love song but but really depressing and ethereal

PS -I always eat chocloate on Valentine's Day so I had to add it to the title
wait...
I eat chocolate every day

High Fidelity Love Song List

Ok, My 10 favorite romantic type songs:
1. Pale Blue Eyes - Velvet Undergrouund: This song reminds me of someone, it's very romantic in my mind (although the lyrics say things like: Sometimes I feel so happy, sometimes I feel so sad, sometimes I feel so happy, but mostly you just make me mad)
2. Ring of Fire - Johnny Cash: This is my favorite Johnny Cash song and its about really make hard decisions when you realize you love someone.
3. We Belong Together - Ricki Lee Jones: teenage angst love in a nutshell
4. I WIll Die 4 U - Prince: Super cheesy. I love being in love and listening to this song in the radio cranked up loud.
5. Try a Little Tenderness - Otis Redding: I first heard otis Redding through the movie 'Pretty in Pink' when Ducky sang this song. It started a love affair between me and Mr Redding's music (which then moved to many other Motown singers).
6. Temperature Rising - Les Nubians: New fresh hot sexy love. Hubby and I dance feverishly to this in the kitchen when we have it on.
7. Spinning Away - Brian Eno & John Cale: Ethereal and dreamy 80's syntho pop. Eno and Cale together are pretty cool.
8. Crash - Dave matthews: Tied up and twisted.
9. Cinnamon Girl - Neil Young: A few old sweethearts put this song on mixes for me. I don't think I am the cinnamon girl but I never asked.
10. Suba: Tributo - Just about the entire album. You know Enigma was great S E X music in the day? Skip that, this album is super hot (with the exception of one or 2 songs that are weird and cool).

and my bonus
Elvis song: Can't Help Falling in Love

Tomorrow: break up / crazy love / depressing love music

What are your fav's for either love or sad love music?

Oh, Britney...

The theory of Darwinism is only strengthened by pictures like this.

What a stupid, stupid girl. At least LA is investigating what she did. But she won't be arrested because she has enough money to buy her way out of this. And her body guard next to her is a dumbass too for not insisting she put young Sean in the car seat, or, heavens, drive while she sits in the back getting her baby in his seat. Is it all that amazing that the paparrazzi knew where she was? The media knows they just need to hang out at a Starbucks and she will she eventually show. She seems to always be at a starbucks (at least it isn't always a bar).

I volunteered in an emergency room for 3 years when I first moved to my dear sweet hamlet and I have seen what happens when parents don't strap their kids in. You can't explain the amount of guilt a mother has when she brings her daughter into a emergency room becuase they were in a car accident and the daughter flew from the back seat through the windshield and will have permanent facial scars (in the worst accident I saw the mother had her seat belt buckled in the front seat but didn't think her SEVEN year old needed to be buckled in the back seat).

Just arrest her, make the probation be madatory parenting classes, since they can't teach intelligence.

Where is my mother when I need her????

A few nights ago I looked at Hubby very seriously and asked: Do you think my mom would respond to us if we asked her questions on a Ouija board? Maybe we should to try to summon her? Ok, I am going to think really hard about her and hopefully she will answer my questions in my dreams.
The only dream I had was that one of my crazier cousins had an all girls' school that was located at Disney. Not what I was hoping for at all.
I need my mom to help pick the perfect school for our 4 year old. This was her thing, education, and I am not sure which school to pick. We have a magnet school program where you choose what school you want your schild to get into and hope and pray they are accepted. Each school has a different theme, arts & humanities, ecology and human diversity, science, core knowledge or 'open'. So my husband and I have been visiting schools, asking probing questions, review curriculum, and scratching our heads wondering which school is the perfect kindergarten that will get our dear sweet Noodle into MIT (or Brown or something). Asheville also has charter schools and private schools but we believe our public school system is pretty good. And although my dear friends north and west of the Mason Dixon line are sure that North Carolina has horrible public schools, I will disagree in regards to our fair hamlet. In the city I live we have a great superintendent of schools and public school program. Every school has cool things going on and interesting teachers and can deal with all sorts of kids. So good we can't figure out where to send our dear sweet daughter and I really want my mom to help me out here...
but she is dead which makes it hard to communicate with her...
and she doesn't really make guest appearances as a ghost (although I do think she had and ethereal effect on the Red Sox winning the world series and all the school board in Dover, PA being voted out). Those are two subjects she would have effected from the grave if she could. The second because she was an educator and smaht...she had degrees (plural) from Hahvahd. She would be able to tell me where the Noodle should be placed for school. I decided go through a little 'WWMD' role playing, you know, what would mom do? Mom sent us to public school and chose a town with a good public school education. Before Noodle started pre-school and mom was still alive she mentioned that she thught Montessori wouldn't be the best placement for the baby, so we decided on our local Jewish Community Center (I love her pre-school, I wish it went to 8th grade). So I called the Buffalo and emailed her all the data I had and she said she would talk with me about it but I had to talk with her about extra-sensory coital devices while she was waiting for baby buffalo at gymnastics (BTW - I totally understand retracting that post although the conversation was really funny). She is also an educator and knows Noodle and knows me really well, and since my mom wasn't going to give me any inciteful knowledge I figure I should ask the next really smaht educator I know. She was impressed with the stuff I sent (which is a relief since she is in the know about education) and helped a little further on the path to getting to pick the school. Now we are taking her advice and going back to the schools when it isn't open house.
Why is this so hard? Oh, I know, because my child is the most important thing in my life and I want her to only have the best and I want her to LOVE school and I want to love her school and she has already had such a good pre-school that it needs to be as good or better from here on out and this is really the first major thing we have had to decide outside our home. Inside home decisions (no spanking, limit TV and coffee until she is six, etc...) have been sort of easy but she is going to be out in the big huge world without us, learning stuff. And we all know, the wrong choice of kindergarten could probably decide whether she gets into MIT or not.

Not a SAHM, but playing one on TV

This week I get to 'work' from home. My next project in Norfolk hasn't started and so I get to decompress from my home office. I have 5 tidying projects (should take 1-2 hours each) and I am going to paint the living room. Noodle goes to pre-school and I can't just pull her from school, it messes up her schedule too much and havoc ensues when I go back to work so I have to wait until at least 3 everyday to go get her. So I get up with hubby and Noodle, help her get out the door to school and then do stuff. This morning I am reconciling the expenses of my last project and reading blogs. This afternoon I am sanding the walls of the living room and reading blogs. Tonight I am making grouper tempura and seaweed salad for dinner. The four year old loves seaweed salad and all things sushi so I am going to try it out.
I am also walking to the local Staples and geting hanging file folders to organize our finances. My new year's resolution was to understand our finances so I bought the book Smart Women Finish Rich. I figure I am smart so I should be able to do this. So far I am on step 4 so I have to organize before I can proceed. So far it is all common sense so I am not sure why I haven't done it before...maybe a lack of common sense??? What Mr Bach has repeatedly said is that it isn't how much you make but how much you save. If you cut out that $4 double mochachino from Fourbucks then you can save $1460 a year. So then I have to decide which $4 items I want to get rid off. I can't get rid of the $4 a pint respberries, they are chock full of anti-oxidants and it is one thing I know noodle will chow down on. We mostly eat at home for dinner and I eat out sometimes for lunch, maybe I could eat out less. I could cancel my membership to the Y but that works against the second new year's resolution to be able to wear my clothes again. Hmmm, decisions, decisions. This weekend Noodle and I went to the Western North Carolina Nature Center. We love this place. Here we are with the goats: She took one picture and I took the other. That is the deal we have, I take one, she takes one. The goat, Shanel (pronounced like the perfume) tried to climb on my head and shoulders. If I could quit my job and do anything, it would be owning my own fuzzy animal farm: nigerian dwarf goats, llamas, galloway cows, chinchillas, bernese mountain dogs and newfoundlands. Also, I would have cow cats and Main Coon cats. The cow cats would match the galloways so there would be a cohesion throughout the farm. I pretty much like all things cute and fuzzy and I am open to suggestions for other cute and fuzzy animals. I am not sure what I would actually do with these and I grew up in Braintree, MA, not a hot bed for 4-H or anything so I don't know how to actually care for any of these animals, except the dogs and cats who are easy. Really it is a pipe dream. I would have a big farm house and a greenhouse too. I think it would be fun. It is a far cry from implementing ERP software.
Speaking of which, time to get back to expense reconciliation...

Kids, Can You Just Behave?

Factions here have taken sides, lots of he-said / he-said shenanigans are going on, tamptrums are running rampant....I am not on the play ground, I am in a corporate office in Newark with a bunch of middle aged men (or two year olds...they look like like men but act like toddlers...actually, toddlers can be put in time out and listen to you eventually or at least say sorry and give you a hug). And how do I handle this? I get scheduled to go to a different project. Oh yes, my time in Newark is near an end, I am going to Norfolk, VA soon. But back to the boys. Group 1, who I will call the Hunters, are trying to get group 2, whom I will call the Guarders, to do work, but aren't telling the guarders what the details of the work are. The hunters are also not getting important prelimary pieces of the work to the guarders in a timely manner. The hunters are also requesting the work to be done in an impossible time frame. The guarders, instead of trying to communicate their issues, are being snarky behind the hunters' backs. Now I don't think anyone will kill a pig or eachother but I keep thinking about The Lord of the Flies while I watch this little drama play out. The groups are showing the ugly side of human nature. It doesn't even matter what the issue is about, I am just amazed that these people are acting the way they are. I even asked one of the directors on this project to have a CTJM (Come to Jesus meeting) to settle the petty-tantrum-throwing antics that are going on but it was only marginally successful. At our house we make the kids seperate and then talk with eachother about the issues, I don't think that is going to happen here.
They did add another woman to the project, of course I roll off next week so it will be back to 1 woman soon. Oh well.

I just read My horizontal Life by Chelsea Handler. Very funny. This is one of the women on Girls behaving Badly, which, as a show, doesn't do much for me but the book is hilarious. Warning, do not read if you don't like raunch. This is an R rated book.
Next on my List is Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Michael O'Conner. Trying to get started but a memoir about meeting up with your alcoholic bum of a father in a Boston homeless shelter seems a little depressing (and maybe it hits a little too close to home???? hmmmm). I am also reading Everything and More by David Foster Wallace. It is really interesting but really heady so I seem to have a narcoleptic fit every 10 pages or so.

Noodle, my beloved, gorgeous, perfect, brilliant, cunning child is four and a half. Noodle starts kindergarten in August. I have to go to the open house next Wednesday to find out about her schooling options (must get her into the right kindergarten, afterall, it leads to the right college). Asheville has a lottery for the school she will go to. All schools are magnet schools. She would go to Claxton if she went to her neighborhood school but we have to pick our top three and keep our fingers crossed (we only like two schools and I am a public school advocate so we haven't really even looked at the private schools). In the forms we got they have a transportation request form too. Like she will ever ride a bus. My husband didn't really let anyone hold Noodle for the first 2 weeks of her life (except me, to nurse, and my mom because maternal grandmas trump dads in the 'hold the baby' pecking order in our house). He will never let her ride a bus...ever.ever.ever.

Project Wrap Up and Lessons Learned

I scurried to the airport to catch a plane home...yes I have left Newark. Like every other project I have been on I am happy and sad, looking forward to my next project (in Norfolk, VA) yet sad (I will miss my friends here in the NYC metro area). So a new concept to introduce is the project wrap-up. There are all sorts of things to do to terminate the project but this project isn't ending, I am just rolling off of it. I will get a review from the project manager on this project, review the lessons learned from the project, and call it quits. I like IT, I like implementing ERP systems and I like telling people how they can streamline their processes so that everyone's life is easy, or at least easier. That is what I am going to, I have been reviewing other people's documentation involving month end close and something called a stub close...yucky....I did learn some valuable lessons:
1. I have the energy to hang out with friends for 4 hours after work just about every night so I should be able to find 45 minutes to get on a freaking treadmill so I can stop complaining about my fat ass. Now I just need the resolve to do it.
1.5. NYC on an expense account is really fun.
2. I don't like accounting or auditing so I need to avoid those in the future.
3. I can make business men on planes really uncomfortable. I read Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn yesterday on the planes I took home. My commute home last night was 9 hours long so I had the time. This is a really depressing book unto itself. Couple that with the fact that my mother lived in Scituate, MA, at the end of her life which is where half the story took place. My father was an alcoholic and at the end of his life he was basically indigent, as was the author's. I also did a lot more drugs in college than I should which the author did too. These painful similarities left me very emotional...on a plane...next to business men. There were some differences between the author and me - I had the pleasure (sarcasm) to identify my father's corpse on my 25th birth (I still thank the Cape Buffalos for being there, boy, that was a tough weekend) and my dad drank gin and his dad drank vodka (sick humor) but I definitly had some empathy with Nick Flynn. So there were times when I cried on the plane next to businessmen and that made them really uncomfortable. I wasn't crying loud, but I couldn't stop for a few minutes at a time, quiet tears running down my face. And, honestly, I didn't want to stop, I want to be honest with my emotions. If I am not honest I tend to blow up at my dear hubby later and that isn't really fair to him (unless he is the instigator, of course). The reaction from the men next to me was to physically squirm away in their very small seats. It was classic. I am not sure what I would do if someone next to me was quietly crying next to me.
No wait, I would offer them a tissue.
So now, in the future, if someone tries to talk to me on the plane and I don't feel like talking (which is most of the time) I just need to tear up a little and I think they might leave me alone. Excellent. I add this to the arsenal of putting on my iPOD and not making eye contact to avoid talking on the plane. There is something about single serving friends that leaves me feeling a little empty.
So I get to be home for a week before the next project, I am definitely looking forward to that. That is the one of the perks of the traveling, some times I 'work' from home between projects. I think I will read Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood next. I wonder if it will make me cry...If I cry at home I know Hubby will hand me a tissue or at least ask if I need one.
Oh, and in my last blog I said he, hubby, would never let Noodle ride the bus and about an hour later he emailed me this, what a tragedy. When I mentioned that all the children in the car, not the bus, were killed his response was 'they weren't in a Volvo.' We have an old Volvo station wagon.

Hey Lady, You Smell!

This was my greeting to Newark today but I will get to that in a sec... First - who vacations on a Monday morning? Who actually thinks it is a good idea to get on a 6 am flight for vacation? I woke up this morning 10 minutes before my alarm went off, that would be 3:30 AM EST to get ready to catch the 6 am flight. This flight is a puddle jumper, it holds roughly 74 people, 2 flight attendents and 2 pilots. Normally this flight has about 70 business travelers (because, to live in Paradise, aka Asheville, NC you have to travel somewhere else to make a decent living). This morning, however, about half of the flight were tourists AND THEY DON'T KNOW HOW TO TRAVEL. Now, I know I sound callous but think of it this way: the Monday morning business traveler can get through security like it is noone's business, we manage it like a well oiled machine. Throw a wrench or some sand into that and everything slows down and gets ugly. For example: 2 bags are two bags...like a backpack and a roller board. It is not a roller board, a tote bag, a purse and another bag of 'breakables.' 2 is 2, not 4. My four year old knows this, I expect the 50 year in fron of me to know this too. Secondly, even in a little airport, like Asheville, you need to give yourself a bit of time to go through security because shit happens. So a half hour to go through security and a half hour to board means you get to the airport 1 hour before your flight to make sure everything is fine, then you can watch CNN until you board (or play computer games, my personal favorite). If you have to check in and check some of those 4 bags (since two is the limit), you should get there a little earlier, especially on a Monday morning. If your flight is at 5:50 then you should be at the airport at (anyone? anyone? Buehler? Buehler?) - that's right, 4:50. Getting to the airport at 5:30 for a 5:50 flight and then say you didn't think the security line would be so long secures you a place in the 'You are an idiot traveler' hall of fame. Now, imagine that instead of a few people doing this, half the people on the flight are like this. I can understand vehicle issues on the route to the airport, and I feel for people in that position, but I doubt 30 people can all claim this issue. So that was my first flight. Rainy weather caused some stomach wrenching turbulence (which is always fun with people who don't like turboprops). I ended up being delayed to Newark though because they couldn't uncouple the lavatory dump from the plane. In my mind, that's a funny technical issue.
I get to Newark and I am walking to the office from the hotel where I dumped my rollerbag when a guy walks up to me says 'Hey lady, you smell, but I have this lotion I could sell you for $10 which will fix that.' It is a little bottle of lotion that is at the bottom of his clear trash bag which contains his life's possessions. Now, I don't walk alone in Newark since my co-workers have asked me not to and the first time I do walk alone I have this traveling salesman try to sell me his lotion. I don't think this guy understands his sales ploy doesn't quite work for me. First I know I don't smell because I showered this morning and used Bliss body butter and second, I know the lotion he has can be purchased from the travel section of Duane Reade for about $1. So I ignore him, I would have just given him money if he had asked although I wonder if I should reward him for showing entrepenaurely spirit...
I get to the office and log onto my computer (the one that worked great at the airport earlier today) just to have it get really bitchy on me (that's the technical term). Now, I still don't have a ton of work to do so I I really only planned on reading email and reading blogs all day but I can't. If I reply to an email I get a stripey screen of death and have to shut down the laptop. If I try to open up a web page and scroll down I also get a stripey screen of death. it appears I have a video card issue. My MIS department hasn't called me back but the guy next to me told me he had the same problem and they swapped out his shell (so at least I can keep my hard drive which has all my work). So I can read blogs but only the first screen. what does this mean to me? It means that I know Friday Playdate went on a date but I am not sure how it ended (and yes, I was wondering, dates are hard to come by and worth every dollar shelled out). I also have to thank Kristin because she has many links right at the top of her blog...of course I could only read a limited amount of those too. To the left is picture of my laptop screen taken on my new RAZR, I love it and I never thought I would say that about a cell phone. Super easy to figure out and sleek and sexy to boot.
So I am still waiting for my MIS department to call back, we are going on 4 hours, and I am afraid to do any work because I am afraid I will get the stripey screen of death and lose everything. But really what I have been wondering is: if my traveling salesman with the lotion had thrown in a set of Ginsu knives , would I have thought that was a good deal?
PS - I cannot preview all of my post (because it requires me to scroll down the web page) and that is how I edit my blog. If there are a lot of typos and stuff at the end of the page it is becuase I can't get past the line that reads: 'anyone? anyone? Buehler? Buehler?'