26

Workin' for The Man.


Loot from my brother.
Some of these are late Christmas gifts for Husband, but since it's my b-day I claim all incoming presents. Tomorrow he can have them. Yep, that IS Mullet Wash (and it smells atrocious, by the way) and the new Feist cd. Which I did not yet own because apparently at 26 I am an old fogy. Oh, and lil' Bro - your fatal flaw here is that your b-day falls AFTER mine. If you think you've seen the last of the squishy killer whales, you are wrong my friend, dead wrong.


Cream of Violet and Dark Cocoa Gelato from Jeni's Ice Cream. So very lovely.

More Loot! I totally got a new iPod, and Season 1 of the BBC's MI-5 (aka Spooks). Also, a gigantic wire and rock ring that's perched on my index finger. And since I'm a huge fan of ridiculously large finger apparel, (as is clear by the wooden statement on my ring finger) BBC dramas, and Husband's iPod, I am therefore a huge fan of all my gifts.

Thanks for all the gifts, cards, ecards, emails, phone calls, and early b-day shopping trips. And much thanks to all who helped me survive year 25. It was hard work, but it was necessary.
26, here we come.

Not as much fun as the Weather-Girls on Telemundo, but probably just as reliable.

The barometric pressure of the atmosphere in central Ohio is definitely changing. You know how I know? My toe that's how.

About four years ago, I broke the ring-finger toe on my left foot. Husband likes to laugh at me when I say ring-finger toe, as if I have finger-like toes, and then the brain moves on to toe-like fingers. And just so we're clear, I possess neither. But since 'ring toe' doesn't make any sense to anyone, I use ring-finger toe to describe the toe that sits to the right of the pinkie-toe on my left foot.

As I was running walking calmly up the carpeted stairs of our lovely and oh-so-safe townhouse (our personal property was only violated three times the year we lived there) I gracefully managed to place the corner of a step in between my third and fourth toes. Bumping into things with my appendages is actually one of my specialties. Hips, knees, shins, ankles, and now toes aren't safe with me. So the pain from having the stairs between my toes wasn't necessarily unfamiliar. It wasn't blinding, lightening pain. It was more a dull/thud/ache/tingly feel like when you hit your funny bone, but not as sharp. Normally that kind of pain fades after several minutes and by the time you stop shaking the affected appendage and creatively cursing, it has mostly vanished. But this time the pain didn't vanish. It kept hurting. A lot. Now I'm not one to be dramatic about slight pain - save for the creative cursing- so Husband had to pry it out of me. I hopped everywhere for the remainder of the evening and by the next day I could no longer deny it's swollen purpleness. I had officially broken my first bone. Or bones. I didn't take anatomy, but I know there are a lot of bones in the foot. As to how many make up a toe, I have no real idea.

The next couple of weeks I hobbled around not enjoying, at all, the sympathy attention I was demanding lavishly receiving. But amid all the stories I heard of others broken bones, not one person told me about what I could look forward too! Now I can plan my out-of-doors schedule DAYS in advance! Hmm...It's nice and sunny now, what will the weather bring in a few days? Most people need to check the 10 day forecast to find this info. Not me. I just check in with the toe.

The No Doi 10 Day Toecast for Central Ohio: Rain. OR summer has officially landed and it's gonna get much much warmer. Heed the Barometric Toe!

Black Hawk Down

Guess what landed at our school today?

The National Guard dropped by. The students were out-of-their-minds excited. And I thought this picture of them marching in an orderly fashion would best illustrate that. The boys hugging are actually hugging each other in glee. They started jumping up and down as soon as I snapped the shot. Do you like the well placed light post?

These two boys wanted to know where the guns were located. They were informed that this helicopter only shoots flares. He tried explaining that the flares messed up the radar systems of other planes that might be shooting at them so that they could get away. Sadly, opinion polls show that the boys interest in the National Guard has now dropped to 30%.

Another good moment: 1st grade girl standing in line waiting for her turn inside the 'copter. "Those Army guys are HOT!" Um, yeah. You're like 7. And they're like, you're dad's age.



The pilot and I were hanging out near the cockpit so that he could answer any questions that the students might have. And so we could listen in on the conversations.

"Omigosh, there are so many buttons!"

"Yeah! Find the biggest button. That's the one that drops the bombs! It's always the biggest button! And it's usually red!"

It's rare, but occasionally I question my own sanity.

Three reasons to keep jogging at my park:
1) This guy is my new jogging buddy.*
2) Baby raccoons, who's mama I'm afraid was laying by the side of the road, follow me for several minutes after thinking that I'd adopted them.**
3) I pass a woman who asks me how far I'm walking. I tell her I'm going 4 miles. She then makes a hooting noise and shakes her head implying that she thinks that is a long way. But then she says, "I'm going about 50 miles tonight! I hope!"

Just realized that Beth's b-day was a week ago today, and I totally forgot. Yep. I could list a bunch of excuses about how my life is so busy right now. But really I think it's because during the month of May, my brain just deletes any information about birthdays that is not directly related to my own birthday. I wish that I had a great pic of Beth to post here, but the most recent one I have of her is this pic of Husband sitting on one end of a couch and her sitting on the other end. She's holding her hands about ten inches apart. I cannot, for the life of me, remember what they were actually talking about, but I do remember her saying to me, "I left my hands up so you could get that picture." And this is one of the reasons that I love being her friend. She not only knew that I wanted a picture of her telling my Husband just how big it was, but she gladly played along! Happy Belated Birthday to my friend Beth. Next year, I'll try to remember to mention this on May 14th.

*Okay, so maybe "jogging buddy" does not accurately describe the relationship. He jogged past me, sans bodyguards, and smiled and said "hi" as he passed.

**When I came upon them, I was startled and said, "Babies!" aloud in a baby talk voice. They looked up from the grass and smiled and made little baby raccoon squeaks that I interpreted from their facial expressions to mean, "Oh good, you're here! We've been waiting for you!" And then they ambled up from their grassy spot and followed me. Then I asked, again in the baby voice, "Where is your mother?" They didn't answer because their baby raccoon legs couldn't keep up with mine and they were too out of breath to answer. They got tired after a minute and discovered the shrubs on the other side of the trail where they decided to hang out. (Growing up, I read a lot of books where the main characters were animals, so talking to them made total sense to me in the moment. Only afterwards did I realize that I really did talk, aloud, in public, to baby raccoons.)

***Ain't no way that lady was walking 50 consecutive miles. Tonight or ever.

My reaction to the 9th Grade Student Council Representative when she came to my office to make a delivery.

"Here's your water bottle! Um, that's just some dust on there, not like, crack or anything."

"What! No crack? That's the only reason I ordered this thing! I want my money back! You promised me a plastic water bottle dusted in a light coating of crack!"

This is all I have to give

Just spent an hour on a blog post. Tried to publish it. Blogger/the Interweb ate it up and it is gone. Don't have another hour, or even ten minutes to try to recover or rewrite.

I love technology, but not as much as you, you see...

Happy Momma's Day

Moms. I love you. Thank you for putting up with me. And loving me in the process. One of you had to put up with my piles of shoes and picky food habits as I was growing up. The other one is putting up with them now. Thank you. I love you both very much.

How I Wonder

"When it is darkest, you can see stars." Read the fortune in my fortune cookie. Lovely sentiment, I think to myself. As I am in a rather contemplative mood, this little sentence bounces around my brain for awhile. And it starts to annoy me. Because seriously, being in darkness is annoying. I know. I've been in a few dark places. And the dark is fine if you can just sit there or lay still, but often you have to keep moving in hopes of finding the light. And moving around in darkness is NOT FUN. You can like, stub your toes or trip over stuff or bruise your shins and basically get hurt! So I concluded that that fortune is stupid!

"When it is darkest, you can see stars." Even though I'd come up with a well thought out conclusion to the annoying fortune, I couldn't shake it so it continued to rattle around my skull. Stars. Hmm. Stars are nice. I like stars. As the song says, they are little and they twinkle. I love it when it's really dark outside and the whole sky is filled with....ooooohhh. Right. The stars. It's the stars. Not the darkness. I haven't seen any stars in awhile. I've been too busy shielding my shins from bruises and trying not to stub my toes.

"When it is darkest, you can see stars." Read the fortune in my fortune cookie. Lovely sentiment, I think to myself.

The Reason I Married Him

Those raspberries look hairy. They're Hairy Berries! They're rasp-hair-ies!

Sleeping the Sleep of the Sleepy

It has been a long day. A long day in a long week. I am tired in my bones. Some of it is not good tired. Like my over-crowded and over-stimulated brain reminding me of the week's events and the events of the coming days. Some of it is good tired. Like the way that my legs ache, reminding me of yesterday's run. I like the good tired aches. They remind me that I am alive, and that I'm glad to be alive. I'm glad to be making choices and working through and wrestling with the things that make me bad tired. It's exhausting work, but it's necessary work. And I'm glad to be working. I've spent a lot of time ignoring the work in my life and putting it off, and I was miserable. No longer able to ignore myself, I am now hopeful and peaceful and tired.

Tomorrow I will wake up and dive head first into the day's requirements. Learning and trusting and learning what it means to be me. But for a few moments now, I will rest.

How Wrong Is It If I Admit It Before You Call Me On It?

Just so we're clear, I did not post anything yesterday on May 9th. I only had a few minutes right after work in which to write something, and it was just not going to be constructive or creative in any way shape or form. I decided to make better use of my time and go for a run. It was necessary. I don't want to use this blog space only to vent my frustrations or inner wranglings and no one wants to read about my visit to the doctor, especially because nothing interesting happend. I went in, paid the co-payment, filled out paperwork, waited in the waiting room, was called back by the nurse, weighed, blood pressure checked, asked about symptoms, waited for doc, read the barely funny stories at the back of Parents magazine, shook hands with the doc, she checked me out, gave me the "all clear" and I left. Sometimes, even in the middle of unofficial NaBloPoMo, I just need to go for a run instead. So I did. Now, thanks to the endorphin rush, I have no problems changing the date and time on the bottom of the post to make it look like I actually posted on May 9th.

There was one wonderful thing that did happen yesterday (or today depending on which day you believe this post was written) and that is Keturah's birthday! Happy Birthday girlfriend, I totally would have helped you party if I lived in Southern California. Watch the mail. Do you still love the color orange?

Diary of a Casual Professional

Didn't even have them on for an hour and they already have a hole in them. Not ten minutes in the office and right on the top of my foot is a hole. That's nice. It definitely adds to the polished look I was going for. It was perfect timing too. Right before TWO back-to-back meetings with my boss and school administrators. I am the consummate professional. Why must I end up in jobs where they would prefer that I wear suit-y type things and iron my clothes? Pantyhose? Please. Next time I'll just wear the tattoo mustache. That way they won't notice that I'm wearing jeans.

Who knew?

Hmmm...Block-y shoulders and a bulge between the legs...Apparently, my shadow is a man.

Click at your own risk

More helpful links from Gmail:

Photofetti
Your photos turned into confetti. Unique birthday decorating idea!
www.photofetti.com
For when scissors just won't do.

The 65% Deception
It sounds like a good idea but it's a real and growing threat.
www.nea.org
I'm only 100% confused.

Girl Scout Badge
Low Price Guarantee! 12 Piece Min. Free 9 colors, Artwork, and Setup.
www.StadriEmblems.com
You can buy these?! If I had known that when I was 8, I would have used that cookie money...

Bend Over Pants Info
Get Info on Bend Over Pants from 14 Search Engines in 1
www.info.com/BendOverPants
Um...Info about pants that allow you or assist you in bending over?

Walter the Farting Dog
Free fast shipping! Huge selection. Order now and save. Low prices.
www.amazon.com
Amazon has a supplier that has a "Huge selection" of farting dogs named Walter?! No wonder they'll ship them fast and free!

Typical

Last night I went to see a documentary about fonts. Helvetica is worth seeing if it comes your way. I also bought a couple of fake tattoo mustaches. It was a fabulous night.

If My Cubical Walls Could Talk, They'd Sound Like This

When the volunteer work desk that sits on the other side of one of my cubical walls isn't covered with crock pots full of lil'smokies drowning in bbq sauce, it's usually full of middle school girls. Who are, oddly enough, also drowning in bbq sauce. Well, maybe the girls aren't in a sauce and the crock pot/little smokies thing only happened once, but after 8 hours of marinating, the air was a bit thick...Anyway, the girls are all too happy to help out the school secretary by giving graciously of their time. I can tell you, because I was one of them, that middle school girls absolutely loathe a legitimate excuse to get out of class. Overhearing their conversations is always entertaining; which more than makes up for the fact that, much like the weenie marinating, having them down here is not highly condusive to personal productivity.

Example 1
Girls labeling envelopes. Giggles. "Oh my gosh! Her dad's name is Guy!" Giggles. Giggles. "That's like the opposite of Girl!" Giggling. Giggles. "Wouldn't it be funny if someone's name was Girl!" Peals and peals of hilarious giggling giggles. "Yeah! Like, Hi. I'm Girl Smith!" Much giggling giggleness.


Example 2
Girls folding letters and stuffing them into envelopes.
Girl #1: "I think it would be so much fun to be a secretary and work in an office."
Girl #2 & #3 (in unison): "Yeah, that'd be awesome!"
Girl #1: "I can't wait! You get to photocopy things, and check the mail, and answer phones, and transfer people, and write things down, and bring people coffee."
Girl #2 & #3 (unison-do they practice?): "Ohmygoshyeah!"
Girl #2: "I'd be so scared to answer the phone!"
Girl #3: "I know! What happens if you transfer people to the wrong place?!"
Girl #1: "You'd probably get fired! But I'd never do that because I'm good at stuff like this."
Girls #2 & #3 (in unison): "Yeah...."

The above script was based on actual events. No middle school girls were harmed in the overhearing of these conversations. The weenies however, were smothered in a rich, thick sauce and enjoyed by most members of the paid office staff.

Ead-ray Ice-tway

Almost written in an email to a friend:

"Girl, I have this HUGE zit on my chin. I tell you this not because I don't think you can't see the second face I'm growing, but because I know you'd know what it's like."

Yeah. I'm not great with the self-editing all the time, but I'm really glad that I caught myself on this one. What the heck!? Honestly, in my head it didn't sound this horrible. I really just meant that huge zits are a universal issue and everyone gets one at some point or another. It's like...say...sneezing. Everyone sneezes, so it's would be safe to say something like, "You know when you sneeze so hard that your eyeballs kinda have to recover for a minute afterwards?" This sentence would not be offensive to anyone.

Maybe if I put the collective-issue statement at the beginning of the sentence instead of the end?

"I know you know what it's like to have a huge zit, so I thought I'd tell you that I had one on my chin right now."

Wow. That is actually worse.

Never mind. No zit. Ix-nay on the it-zay. (my chin wishes.)

Supremo also means "Biggie Size"

I love pasta. Especially long flat noodlely pastas drenched in thick alfredo sauce with broccoli and red peppers and chicken. Buca diBeppo calls this dish by a much shorter, though just as enticing name: Fetuccine Supremo. (Yes, I am American, therefore I automatically love eating pseudo-ethnic food at large chain restaurants, it's in our red, white, and blue blood.) Last evening, I was delighted to be eating this dish. I do not eat pasta very often. Which is a major switch for me as I used to eat it several times a week. However, I have some kind of weird food sensitivity and I've found that I feel MUCH, MUCH better when I avoid pasta not to mention the myriad of other foods I must now avoid. But since I have a whole month of blog posts ahead of me, I'll save that list for later.

Normally after eating a meal such as I did last evening (fetuccine supremo, baked ravioli, and some chocolate vesuvio - oh yeah, I did have some salad) I will be a rotten, horrible, miserable person the next day. It's not only much fun for me with all the depression and anxiety, but it's much much fun for those around me. Specifically Husband. Today, however, I am doing surprisingly well. The largest side effect has been that my facial expressions are not accurately mirroring my mood or opinion. According to Husband, today my face mostly shows signs of horror and disgust.

This, for me, is a really good step in the right direction. Since discovering the food/depression-anxiety connection, I've tried really hard to learn to tightrope walk that line between doing what I know is best for my body (and mind) and letting life happen.

Q: What if we're at a family birthday dinner and the restaurant serves the food family style? Will I have to force everyone to only get salad and lean proteins and hearty veggies?
A: No, just eat what they order, take a deep breath, and eat well tomorrow. Know that you might feel bad the next day, but that it's ok and the world will not end. Important, remember to breathe and eat snacks tomorrow.

But this time after a supremo pasta meal, I've not spent the day in a downward spiral of depression and anxiety. The deep breathing helps, because it signals my brain to take it easy, it signals my soul to stop gripping things that are out of my control so tightly and it reminds me that I am not alone in this and that I can ask for help and that help always comes. And it's kinda fun to have a face you can't trust, but only for one day.

Brain-glue, by the way, is NOT water soluble.

What is it about certain songs? You know, those certain songs that have that weird sticky brain-glue all mixed up in the chorus. The effectiveness of this brain-glue is different, some songs stick around for days or weeks and sometimes months, but rare is the song that sticks inside your subconscious for years. And why, oh why, are they likely to only pop up and rear their ugly choruses when you least expect or need them to surface. Like in church. Or during a conversation with your boss. The song that surfaces for me - at an alarmingly frequent rate - and has since the first time I ever heard it, which I think was right after the full and complete signing of the Declaration of Independence - is the song Ghetto Superstar. There is no explanation. It just happens. Sometimes a song will stick with you because something significant is happening while the song is playing. And I totally understand that because absolutely nothing has ever happened in conjunction with me and the hearing of Ghetto Superstar. There are, however, two insignificant things that do always occur in conjunction with the hearing of that song, 1) I shake my groove thing. 2) I start intertwining the lyrics from Pras Michel, ODB, and Mya's Ghetto Superstar with Dolly and Kenny's Islands in the Stream. Fabulous. The only thing I enjoy more than having a gluey song in my head is having a gluey Dolly Parton/Kenny Rogers song stuck in my head! Because we go from Dolly/Kenny swaying in polyester to Kenny and his famous Kenny Roger's Roasters to K.R. Roasters on Seinfeld when Kramer was eating all the chicken and the blinding light from the restaurant sign in is apartment...he persuades Jerry to switch apartments...and then Jerry goes crazy...oh! remember the episode where they had no water pressure in the building and Jerry and Kramer's hair was all flat and weird because they couldn't wash out all the soap...ha!...and Man-Hands!!...SO funny!!!...When she touches is face but with her giant hairy knuckles!

(Jenna huddled in corner, rocking and cackling, and humming softly to herself. Every now and then you can make out the words that she whispers, "Ghetto Superstar, that is what you are. Sail away with me to another world, we can rely on each other, uh huh, from one brotha to anotha, uh huh.")

Children, this is what happens when you huff too much brain-glue. Brain-glue can be a useful tool, like when you need to remember things. Things like whether or not your husband prefers Colgate to Crest or has he made the permanent switch to Tom's of Maine? But brain-glue is a drug. And this is Jenna's brain on brain-glue. Any questions?