List number 423657

Things that have happened since I last wrote:

1) I wrote a letter to the ex (aka Numbnuts) demanding that he bring the mortgage current, pay the $4,900, and pay his car payment. I got a notice today from the bank that he hadn't paid the car payment in 2 months. I guess he wants to play this the hard way. Damn it all. All I want is to be rid of him and his BS once and for all.

2) L and I went to Florida for Christmas. We spend Christmas with my sister and S and had a great time eating giant turkey, watching movies, opening presents, and listening to S learn chords on her new Esteban guitar. I think she will be quite the little musician if she sticks with it.

3) We went to see L's family in Tallahassee, which was also fun. We played cards and ate enough cookies to kill a horse. I also got to meet one of L's workmates, who was a very nice lady. She used to be a ballerina and a sculptor.. we had a great lunch and sometime next fall we will probably go to an FSU game together.

4) And then out of the blue, who should call me but big D. I know that he has tried to contact be before in the past 9 years, but I don't know what possible reason he could have for doing so. He rambled a bit, telling me about his daughter going to jail and himself being diagnosed as bipolar.. gee, no one saw that one coming. He was nice enough over the phone, but closed the conversation with "I'll talk to you soon." I don't know what that means or what the purpose was for the whole conversation. It freaks me out a little bit because the last thing I want right now is a stalker. Especially a 6 foot 5, bipolar stalker. And 9 years is a long time to carry either a torch or a grudge.

5) And then today while L and I were in a restaurant eating lunch, somebody wrote "chicken shit" across the back of his car with a Sharpie pen. It came off all right, but it was a little bizarre. He thinks it's a case of mistaken identity or something, or some kids being stupid. He might be right. I hope he's right.

6) And tonight we go out to celebrate a new year with good friends and good food. I am wearing the pink pants that S gave me, and L is trying to find a shirt to match the pants he bought at Gap. Those pants look really good on him.. I hope he finds something in his closet to match. :) M is coming over to bring the Monster back from his vacation. I hope Monster won't miss the Blink too much now that he is coming home. M said that he has had fun making friends.

Next post will be new year's resolutions.. or whatever passes for NYR's in my little world.

checking back

I'm back from the holiday extravaganza, worn out as ever and trying to figure out new year's plans for everyone. I'll do a complete update later.. for now I am cold and tired and need a rest after my vacation.

Tiiiiiiime Ain't on My Side

I've got too much to do. And it's freezing out and I really didn't feel like getting out of bed this morning. It is definitely a Red Bull kind of day. My arms are sore from Monday's workout, my abs are screaming, and I really wish I wasn't at work today.

But there's nothing we can do about that, now is there?

I guess I'd better get to it if I'm going to get the newsletter written, 15 proposals submitted, my own proposal written, a letter to J threatening contempt of court if he doesn't get with it, and the rest of the Christmas shopping all before Christmas. Not to mention that I have to study for the GMAT, which I am taking in less than a week.

And I hate it for me, but the GMAT is not by any means an easy test. I have to score high, too, if I want to get into the MBA program.

I think I might need a little more stress in my life this week. What do you think?

Narnia..

We went to see the first narnia movie last night, and I must say they did an absolutely outstanding job of bringing the books to life. The movie is visually stunning, and the kid that plays Lucy is adorable.

The kid who plays Edmund looks exactly like Joshua Jordan. That was a little strange. The other strange thing was the people behind us, who kept up a running commentary in a stage whisper the whole time, trying to get in some Bible study with their kids. "Awh, loook, hunny, thayut's Jeezusss!! He died fer our seeeeeeyuns!!!!!" every time Aslan came on the screen. Pretty annoying actually. But other than that, the movie was good.

L and I had a good day today.. we got up early and went to the FCA Bowden Breakfast, where I got to meet and have my picture taken with Tommy Bowden, the Clemson head coach, and his father Bobby Bowden, the head coach for FSU. The breakfast was great and we got free t-shirts. Met a really cool guy from Greece who now works at Clemson as a physicist, and will probably be joining L's FSU club.

Then we did a little shopping at Kohl's, came home and did a little cleaning, and took a long, comfortable nap. We're about to eat some brunswick stew and see what's on tv tonight. And tomorrow.. it's Survivor finale. Can't wait to see that!

Christmas List

Ok, I've promised a certain sister of mine that I would post my christmas list, so here goes:

Books are always a good choice. I read like a fiend, as you know. I like crime novels/mysteries, and pretty much novels of any kind. I loved Memoirs of a Geisha, and the Secret Life of Bees..

My office is full of kitty cat stuff, particularly tigers or those orange tabbies.. they go over well at the University. : ) So anything like that would work as well.

There's a songwriters' dictionary out that I'd like to have.. it's basically a rhyming dictionary. That would be cool.

Dean Markley guitar strings, medium weight, and med-light weight guitar picks.. I go through both like you wouldn't believe, so that's another idea.

I'm not really hard to please. : ) Ideas for L would be a little harder. He likes Dr. Seuss and Curious George.. I'd stay away from clothes; he doesn't wear certain colors and mostly sticks to neutrals. He's a little hard to buy for. He likes music.. if you know of any good jazz, etc. : ) Umm... he's a huge football fan (FSU, of course) and he also loves the TV show Smallville.. last year I bought him the season 1 DVDs, but he doesn't have any other ones.

So that's the christmas list.. now post yours!

Picture Posting Bonanza: Christmas Tree

Our Christmas tree....
This is our tree topper. No angels or stars for us, no sir! We have the Abominable Snowman!

L and I went out yesterday for a real Christmas tree.. it's the first time I've ever had a real one, and it makes the house smell deliciously pine-y. :) We're kind of spare on the ornaments, because I used to get all of mine from J's mother on loan every year, and L has always had a 2-ft mini-tree and never needed many.

We had lots of fun decorating it. We put our 6-ft Douglas Fir on top of a table in the living room so that it would be safe from dogs and cat. Worked for the dogs, not so much for the cat.

Our "NOEL" stocking hooks on the mantel read "NOLE" instead.. L is the eternal FSU fan. :)

And now it's time to decide what movie we want to watch this evening, and when we want to cook dinner...

Picture Posting Bonanza: Harvard

Here's what you see at one of the many gates to the Harvard Campus..
Sever Hall (I think)..
The main gate to Harvard University...
..And here's what you see as you're leaving..
The John Harvard statue...Everyone touches his foot when they visit; that's why it's so much shinier than the rest of the statue. S, if you're gonna go to school at Harvard, BUY SOME WARM CLOTHES!!! :) Brrr!!

Picture Posting Bonanza: Boston

Looks like even the mounted police like to stop at the donut shop's drive through window!
The city of Boston from the top of the Prudential Center.
L and his snowflake..
Here I am aboard the USS Constitution, the oldest warship (1797 or thereabouts..). It was a free tour, and very very cool. :)

I'll post more pics later.. I still have Harvard and our Christmas tree to post. :D But right now I'm going Christmas shopping.

No Christmas for the Jehovah's Witness...

http://www.harraway.com/no_christmas_for_jehovahs_witness.html

This is a new rap song about JWs and Xmas.. a must hear for any XJW. It's hilarious...

Too Fast

I'm back from Boston, and we had a great time. I'll post pics as soon as i have time to download them to my computer.

I'm getting ready to leave for Florence tomorrow to teach another class. Then it's Christmas decorating and shopping and cleaning and getting ready for the Florida trip.. I have a lot of presents to buy and not quite enough money, as usual.

God I can't wait until I am out of the hole. I keep thinking about J and how I'd really like to slug him right now for making me take his ass to court again because he's not making his house or car payments, which are in my name.

I'm a little frustrated about that situation, and the fact that I don't feel like I have had enough down time in the past two months. I feel like the creeping crud that everybody is down with is stalking me, and it's only a matter of time before it's me tossing my cookies with a 103 fever for 4 days. I just keep repeating to myself that I have to make it through these classes this week. After that I can be as sick as I need to be.

Bleh.

Back to Reality

The Rock just before the sun set... we walked all over the island, looking in the old buildings and listening to the stories of attempted (and successful) escapes. It was a great tour...
The Golden Gate Bridge in the sunset as we headed out on the Alcatraz ferry.
Yours truly, getting ready to set off by myself again.
A San Francisco Seagull.. they're the biggest gulls I have ever seen!
The view from the top... This was the v iew from our hotel room balcony.

A very romantic city... I want to go there with L and drink a lot of wine someday. : )
Back at work I am busier than a one legged man in a butt kicking contest, and T has sick children, so she doesn't have to come to work this week at all. Sigh. Oh well. I guess it comes with the territory. I'd rather process proposals than have a kid throw up on me, I guess.

Heh.

Jeez! This is un-frikkin believable!!!

9:51 pm
12:51 pm eastern
She is still in the bathroom, still talking to him, and apparently it is now an argument.
She's been in there for 2 damn hours now, and I am a little fed up. If I have to take the elevator down 42 floors to take a piss, I should at least be allowed to brush my frikkin teeth.

Grrrrrrrrrrrr...

Another day or so of this and I may have to have a little private talk at work to ensure that I don't have to do this again. I'd like to at least room separately so that I can bring someone capable of intelligent conversation with me. This is absolutely ridiculous.

Annoyance on the West Coast

So maybe I am being a beeyotch, but...
My coworker has locked herself in the bathroom with her cellphone. In fact, I think the cellphone has been surgically attached somehow to the side of her face. She has been on it nonstop since we got here. If I am to be dining, shopping, touring, and sitting in class with someone who is on a phone with someone else the entire time, I'd just as soon travel by myself.

Obviously I do not merit the respect it would take to stay off the g.d. phone for thirty minutes.. and if that guy spends more than 15 minutes without hearing from her, the world might end.

I love the city,and it's not as if we haven't done anything fun together.. it's just profoundly irritating. Profoundly.

We tried on beautiful formal dresses at macy's tonight, and saw a filming of a TV show called Monk across the street from Union Square. Could have been cool.

Anyway I am going to watch Survivor and try to ignore the muted moans of apparent phone sex from the bathroom. Bleh.

Blogging San Francisco

I wrote an entire post about last night and lost it in a computer snafu this morning.

I am hesitant to put much energy into another decent post after that, especially if I am likely to lose the whole thing again.

Suffice it to say that I am enjoying San Francisco and I am feeling sort of bovine. The two are not related. But I'm tired and my filter is not working.

So far I've done Chinatown, the three-story Ross, a city tour this morning, and tomorrow I have to go to class in the morning. We are going to do Fisherman's Wharf and Alcatraz on Saturday.

And now I am going to relax a bit.

3000 Miles

This has been a long day. Hell, it's been a long week. But this month is flying by. I don't know how I will ever get everything done that I am supposed to. For now, though, I won't worry about it.

M and I traveled to the lower part of the state to conduct training on Wednesday and Thursday. It went well, as always. I was very surprised at the lack of.. well.. anything down there. I wasn't aware of how rural most of the state is. In places, it reminded me of when I was in Africa. And when it gets dark, it gets dark. No street lights, no neon signs, nothing but stars.

Not bad, just not what I expected. I am so used to the upstate or the coast, and our economic situation is so different. I couldn't live there, though. There weren't any grocery stores to speak of, and the only restaurants seemed to be McDonald's and Pizza Hut. Bleh.

Then Friday was L's CLemson-FSU event, which went pretty well. Saturday was the football game, where we sat in the nosebleed section and got sunburned and generally had a fantastic time.

I cannot possibly explain how much I love that man.

This morning we got up at 4:40 a.m. to go to the airport. I've been traveling all day. I'm now in San Francisco. We haven't really done anything so far, except eat lunch (where a very strange lady sat next to T at the counter and had a conversation with herself), go to Walgreens, and explore the hotel a little bit.

I'm sort of jet lagged and tired... there should be more to say tomorrow. There seems to be lots to do here, as long as my deposit goes through tomorrow.

Bad Gets Worse

..continued..

So here's where things really started to become odoriferous.

We arrived at the farm at that golden hour before dusk, when everything is still beautiful, and you know that a long dark drive is ahead of you. Grandmother was sitting in her lift chair covered with a quilt and 3-4 purring cats. Grandfather was still in his Sunday pants and an undershirt (the first time I have EVER seen him wear an undershirt in front of anyone), standing down by the depleted fish pond, staring intently at nothing.

Apparently grandfather was trying to fix the pump in the fish pond to keep from killing the rest of the giant koi, and fishing the rest of the dead fish out with a net. I went down to help, unaware of exactly what I was getting myself into. There are dead koi scattered all around the pond now, so you have to watch where you step. And the smell.. we won't talk about.

Mom and Grandfather both almost fell headfirst into the pond before I told them to get out of the way and tell me what needed to be done. Basically, I had to pull the pump out (no small feat in itself). I then had to reach into the slime filled pond with a grappling hook and find the handle of an extremely slimy bucket, which was full of bricks and slimy water (and dead fish, naturally). I then had to lift said bucket over the dam and dump the water and crap out of it, and replace it in the bottom of the pond, upright.. then place the pump back inside.

Did I mention that I was wearing my favorite cordoroy pants. Yeah.

Oh, but it gets worse.

I strained my back doing all this. When we finally got back on the road, it was my turn to drive, so we set out as the sun set, mom waving from the porch with Indiana and her wagging tail beside her.

The drive was uneventful until we hit Charlotte. That's when all hell broke loose. We were cruising along at about 80 mph in the left lane, when we ran over something that looked like a piece of plastic. There was no way to avoid it, but when we hit it, we suddenly realized that we had no drivers side tires. At all.

I tried to keep control of the 4Runner and get over to the right side of the road, and we almost got creamed by a semi, but we made it.

This is what happened to one of the tires..

So here we are, in the dark, on the side of the interstate. I call Cingular Roadside Assistance, only to be informed by the idiot who answered the telephone that we'll be charged for everything they do, including sending out a towtruck, never mind that that isn't what the RA deal is at all. He then claimed that he couldn't find Charlotte, NC and were we sure we weren't in Rock Springs or Raleigh? Why didn't we just leave him alone and call the police?

I called the highway patrol, who were friendly, efficient, and obviously overworked. He recommended a tire repair shop and called a tow truck for us. I called W to see if he could come get us.

He had just smoked up and was in the zone, but he came on over. We spent the night at his house, which was fine, but we had no toothbrushes, no clean clothes, no shower. We woke up this morning profoundly miserable and feeling horrid that our doggies were home alone with no dinner or breakfast.

We called the tire place and were informed that we needed to come look at our car because.. well.. it was vandalized overnight. Someone broke the window and stole everything that wasn't nailed down, including the receipts for the arts event, which means that they had my father's credit card number. Not. Good.

I called dad and he cancelled the card. New one won't be here for 7-10 days. I have 2 business trips in that time, for which I have no spare funds. Great.

I had to miss band practice, and I feel like I've been beaten across the back with a 2x4. Tomorrow I have to get up at 5, put my luggage in the car, and go to work. After work, M and I head to Edisto, where I have to teach back to back classes, all day for 2 days, on my feet. In heels.

Our poor car. My poor back. My poor L. He's got dark circles under his eyes. He doesn't know when they'll be able to fix his window, and we were supposed to take the 4Runner to tailgate in for the Clemson-FSU game on Saturday.

So. That's how my weekend was. Thanks for asking.

*shuffles off to bed*

The Beginning of Bad

This weekend has been unbelievable. Un..be..effin..lievable.

I'll begin from the beginning. Friday of course I drove all day to get Mom. Not a big deal. Everything went smoothly. We got home to L serving up the best lasagne I have ever had in my life. He made everything from scratch and you could almost smell it when you pulled into the driveway. It was that good.

Saturday Mom and I went shopping and bought her a nice black dress with beadwork on it. It looked very nice on her and she really likes it. Best of all, it was pretty inexpensive, since we found it at Ross. We bought her new shoes and everything. Then we went and had her hair done, and when we got home, I did her nails. She got to be a princess for a day and loved every minute of it.

Now here's where it starts to go south just a little bit.

We get to the art center opening, and it's all steps, stairs, and crowds of people crammed into a space that was much to small for the number of people present. I was terrified that mom was going to fall or something. We ignored the hors d'ouvres because our tickets had specifically mentioned dinner. There was no dinner. And by the time we were informed of this fact (and I do mean our entire party of 8-9 people), most of the hors d'ouvres were gone.

Add to this the fact that Mom can't have alcohol, and there were no complimentary non-alcoholic beverages. $90 a ticket, and we have to pay for Coca Cola. Then they ran out of red wine. Then they ran out of coffee. The elevators weren't working and our table was upstairs, so we had to go get the car and drive mom around so that she could sit down, because there was no seating of any kind downstairs. There were no restrooms upstairs, a fact we discovered after we had gotten Mom to the table.

Not to say that it was a bad experience, but mainly the good part was seeing Mom's reaction to being able to be there. I'll never forget it, and I'll do whatever I can to get that look on her face again as often as possible. : )

Sunday morning L and I got up before Mom did, shockingly enough. Actually, she had been up already, but went back to sleep. When I went in to wake her up, she had evidently fallen asleep while writing in her journal. It was lying there beside her while she slept, the cap still off the pen. She had written the date, and "This is the first day of the rest of my life."

Heh. I must say that got me.

Of course she doesn't know I saw it, and I'd never tell her. I am just glad to know that she is at least thinking about making positive changes.

Unfortunately, it's all downhill from there.

L made breakfast and we left for NC around 11 am. I had made the mistake of mentioning winesap apples while talking to Mom at some point, so she suggested that we go through Asheville and pick some up. "On the way." "It's really the same distance," Mom insisted, "And we'll get to see the leaves."

She was right about the leaves, but the scenic route definitely added about an hour and a half to the drive. L and I kept a good attitude about it, though, because Mom wanted to see the leaves, and we knew she wasn't in any hurry to go home. We found a great italian restaurant to have lunch, where mom tried a brie omelet and said it tasted like a musty attic, but she ate it.

...to be continued...

Pics from Last Night

Performance Artist Brian Olsen from Denver, CO painted with his hands and a few big brushes.. It was a really cool show!
L looked good enough to eat in a tuxedo..
Me and Mom ready to go to the "ball." I think Mom felt kind of like Cinderella, with all the shopping and stuff we did. We had a great time shopping and getting ready, but I think Mom walked too much. Her legs are hurting today and her feet are swollen.

Pics from Halloween

Zeus and Aphrodite after a few drinks... Those eyelashes looked pretty cool, but they drove me insane all night.
Here we are, Aphrodite and her Roman Soldier of choice. We froze our butts off, but we had a fine time. (And Jeez does L have great legs!)

The Big Event

It's 11:30, Mom is asleep, and my feet hurt. Pictures and details tomorrow. Also explanation of why there were no non-alcoholic drinks or restrooms available at said $90-a-plate event.. oh, and no plates and no dinner either.

"Dinner" = heavy hors d'oveures that were mostly gone by the time we realized that dinner was not coming.

Mom and I had more fun shopping. And I had more fun looking at L in a tux.

Yum.