Sweet Someone

Wow!

Here's the High School Meme which I have borrowed from LL

1. Who was your best friend (in high school)? Judy, until senior year when the group I decided I wasn't cool and then she moved out of our locker without telling me.

2. What sports did you play? LOL!!! I played intramural floor hockey and soccer to get out of the second credit I needed for the gym requirement. I'm not athletic.

3. What kind of car did you drive? None, I didn't get my license until I was a month shy of my 20th b-day. I wasn't comfortable driving a car and if you had driven with the Former Father (FF), you wouldn't have been either.

4. It’s Friday night, where were you? Either working or studying, unless it was the weekend of the school play, then I was at school where I was head usher (ooohh, aren't you all impressed) sophomore through senior year.

5. Were you a party animal? Um, no.

6. Were you in the “In Crowd”? Ha ha! Nothing like revisiting the days of hell that were high school. Um no, I was part of the cool egghead crowd until two of the guys decided they didn't like me and that was the end of it. Nobody in the group ever talked to me again.

7. Ever skip school? Heavens no, it was a Catholic school and they took attendance and called your parents if you weren't there. Not that I would have anyway since the FF would have killed me. I never even skipped a class.

8. Ever smoke? Nope, I tried it in college once or twice, but I didn't get the attraction.

9. Were you a nerd? I don't think so, but what do I know.

10. Did you get suspended/expelled? I'm still alive today which is a clear indication that I was not ever expelled or suspended from school.

11. Can you sing the alma mater? I don't think we had a school song, other than the fight song.

12. Who was your favorite teacher? Sister Carmen, she taught Spanish and she was a freaking riot.

13. Favorite class? Spanish, of course, but I also loved Mythology with Mr. Grewe.

14. What was your school’s full name? Bishop Borgess High School

15. School mascot? We were the Spartans, the mighty, mighty Spartans.

16. Did you go to Prom? Yes, my older sister felt I had to, so she found me a date, a dress and I think paid for the ticket. Otherwise, I would not have gone. Girls didn't go to the prom in a group back then.

17. If you could go back and do it over, would you? Hell no! What am I? A glutton for punishment? It was HELL!

18. What do you remember most about graduation? The people I went with (parents were driving down later) were running late and I remember getting dropped off in the middle of Jefferson Avenue and running for Ford Auditorium with a few other people. I think I dropped my tassel, but recovered it w/o getting run over it.

19. Favorite memory of your Senior Year? Senior Year sucked the worst, so I have to say there is no favorite memory of that year.

20. Were you ever posted up on the senior wall? Um, what?

21. Did you have a job your senior year? And junior year and sophomore year and freshman year.

22. Who did you date? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Good one! (I totally stole LL's response for this.)

23. Where did you go most often for lunch? We weren't allowed to leave "campus" (read: school building) except in our senior year and I didn't have time, I had solid classes. Hell, my lunches usually consisted of a Milkshake candy bar eaten in the five minutes I had for lunch.

24. Have you gained weight since then? As if thinking about high school wasn't painful enough, they now ask if I've gained poundage in the intervening 25 years. What the hell do you think? And unlike LL, I'm not telling you how much I've gained, thank you very much!

25. What did you do after graduation? Went to college and even though it was a commuter campus, I somehow managed to practically live there. I'd leave home by 7:30 every morning and wouldn't get home until after the library closed at 11:00. I was NEVER home.

I think if I did this for college, it would have been a tad more interesting.

Armageddon Days Are Here (Again)

I started an entry last week, but got sidetracked with God only knows what. And of course, just when I started this, the access to some data for which I have been waiting was finally granted. I need to get cranking on the assignment because I'm calling my doctor in a few minutes and making an appt. I'm sick again and I've decided not to wait it out this time since it simply came back two weeks later.

Well, that was fun. I got to play with numbers and did what I could. I think I'm supposed to do more, but I've asked for clarification. I got a dr.'s appt. for 3:00 this afternoon. I'm highly annoyed because this was going to be my opportunity to go to the gym five days a week since Maureen is on vacation. Instead I'm going to the doctor and yesterday I went home as I was just exhausted.

I am loving my iPod Nano, except for the fact that it only holds 1,321 songs. Last weekend, I took some off and put others on. I don't remember what I deleted, but I know I added The Stooges, The Thompson Twins, and Tones on Tail. The thing is there are so many more songs I want to put on, but can't without taking something off. I can see a few ABBA songs going, but I like having completely different stuff on there. I need a 30-gig iPod at least. ARGH!!! I want to go from Sammy Davis, Jr. to the Sex Pistols to Elvis Costello to Diana Krall (his wife) to Joy Division to Ultravox to ABBA to Culture Club to Nick Cave or whatever order the iPod chooses. Instead I seem to get a lot of Joy Division and Nick Cave whom I love, but I need a little more variety. I'm thinking I need to take some off, but I just don't see me taking off any Joy Division. I already culled out duplicate songs from different albums/different mixes and that about killed me.

Last Sunday a friend from the University invited a core group of us over for a tea party. I had to bail out of Mass at 11:20 (for the record Mass started at 10:00, we are NOT Baptist, thank you very much, 2 hour masses are not necessary) and we were only at the Sign of Peace. Mom probably wasn't happy, but for heaven's sake, this is getting ridiculous! The tea party was to start at noon and I hate being late. I arrived on time and it was a very lovely day. We had our choice of teas (caffeine and herbal) and plenty of food. I had cucumber sandwiches of which I'm quite fond, but there were also chicken cashew salad sandwiches, mini frittatas with bacon, scones with clotted cream, pumpkin cookies (I'm sure they were delicious, if you like pumpkin), etc. After tea, we headed for the basement and the big mother TV where we watched a movie I could have lived without ever seeing – The Devil's Advocate. Egads, Al Pacino is just icky in that movie!!! *shudder*

This past Sunday I bailed on Mass because I spent the weekend with a 99.5F temp and just didn't feel like dealing with another 2 hour Mass. I called Mom to tell her, because otherwise she worries when I'm not there, which is kind of annoying at my age to have to check with your Mom. I know she wasn't pleased about me not going, but crap, if I'm going to hell because I missed Mass this past Sunday I'm already in big trouble from the years (1990-1994, 1996-2000) when I didn't go.

The past two Saturdays I went to reiki sessions. My friend Soyon had told us about her reiki sessions at the last knitting night and it sounded interesting. She described it as a healing "thing" (for lack of a better term) and I figured it couldn't hurt, so I made my first appt. Soyon told us that she saw lights during her session which I didn't see. I'm wondering if you have to buy into it fully for it to really work and although I'm open-minded, I'm not sure I could be described as being completely into it. Although, at one point on the first Saturday, I was lying on my back (this happens fully-clothed) and the reiki therapist was doing her thing and laid her hands on my right arm. I felt off-balance and tipped toward the right at about a 45-degree angle, even though I verified that both my shoulder blades were flat on the massage table. The same thing happened when she had made her way to my left side and laid her hands on my left arm. I thought it was interesting, but didn't say anything. When the session was up, she told me that I was off-balance (anybody who knows me, I'm thinking this isn't a shock) and described how she was being knocked off balance herself. I would have scoffed if I hadn't felt it myself. She said to carry hematite with me as it's supposed to balance/center a person. I have a boatload of hematite beads at home, so I made myself a hematite bracelet and this past Saturday, the tipping sensation was very mild – maybe 5-degrees. Who knows if it works/is working? But I figure that it's harmless, and if it works, what the heck.

Today is Paczki (PUEN-chki) Day here in Detroit. When I was in Catholic school it was either called Fat Tuesday or Shrove Tuesday (no clue what "shrove" means), but due to the heavy Polish influence here, it is now called Paczki Day and it's covered by all the news outlets. Here is what the Freep had to say. There were people up at 3:30 this morning – actually, not just up, but already at the friggin' bakery in Hamtramck. I had my one at 7:00 this morning thanks to a colleague, and I still feel nauseous from all the fat and calories.

I haven't decided what I'm doing for Lent yet this year. Usually, I give up all manner of indulgences, but I'm not feeling the need this year. I think I'll try to stop swearing, which shouldn't be too hard as I have been pretty good lately. And I'm definitely giving up junk food (for the record, this does not include good chocolate or desserts at TJ's or birthday cake and ice cream (the nieces' and one nephew's b-days always fall during Lent and I've decided not to be my mother and play martyr and sigh heavily while declining the said cake and ice cream). I also want to give up going to Mass, but everybody tells me that kind of flies in the face of what Lent's about. Ah well.

I wrote most of the preceding last week and this past Tuesday, but I didn't have time to post before heading to the doctor's office and I stayed home sick yesterday so it didn't get posted until today. I trust you can all handle its disjointed crazy mixed-upedness..

Big Shot

For Valentine's Day Loopy listed the first 10 songs that her iPod played that had the word Love in them. Well, I've been listening to my iPod since 6:00 a.m. (except for the 2 hours and 45 minutes I had to go to another building for a meeting) and my iPod has only played four songs that even came close to having that particular word in them and one of them I'm pretty sure doesn't count because "the word" is only implied in the title and another doesn't count because it's in the band's name. The first two songs were played yesterday. Anyway, this is what I have so far:

Let Me Love You – Peter Murphy
A Lover Sings – Billy Bragg
We Care A Lot – Faith No More (I obviously took massive liberties on this one)
The Purest Blue – Love & Rockets
Unlovable – The Smiths (probably not in keeping with the overall feeling of the assignment, but as you can see, I'm desperate)
Being In Love – Tijuana Strip Club
Welcome Tomorrow – Love & Rockets
No Big Deal – Love & Rockets (Thank God for Love & Rockets)

After I posted this yesterday, I waited for one last song before shutting down and heading to the gym and got

Such Unlikely Lovers - Elvis Costello with Burt Bacharach

That's it. Perhaps my iPod says something about me??? ;-)

Update on the work cafeteria: They have not ruined their streak of chili con carne yet. And last night I dreamt about the cafeteria at my old building, something I wouldn't have bet money on ever happening. When I tell people at work about it, they all look askance and say, "That's really sad, because it wasn't good."

Tale of Two Cities (this is funny as this is the book I'm reading right now)

I've been tagged yet again by the Heather.

I'm supposed to list 6 weird things about me, and then tag 6 other people. I'm sure I'm plenty weird, but I'm not sure I want to broadcast my weirdness to the blogging world.

1) I don't do this as much as I used to, but I've been known to "air-type." I can hear something that just makes my fingers want to type and so I will "type" in the air. I don't play the air guitar or the air drums, so this is my version, I guess.

2) I don't think this is all that weird, but Heather listed it, so I'm going to go with it. I believe in Reincarnation. I don't have any kick-ass examples of fortune-tellers telling me I was an elephant in a former life or anything, but I have such an affinity/love for Mexico/Aztecs and Ancient Egyptians that I like to think I was one in former lives. I think it explains it as well as anything.

3) I do things for my cats that I wouldn't do for me. Example: My doctor back in SF recommended I get a Hepa filter because I'm allergic to the kids. I never bothered (she also suggested I lock the kids out of my bedroom, but that was never going to happen, not in a million years.) because I didn't care that much. But the second the vet told me that Tikal was allergic to something in the house and that a filter might be a good idea, I bought one.

4) Another one Heather listed was a love of office supplies. Again, I don't think it's weird, but since I'm having trouble coming up with stuff, I'm stealing it as well. Along with swooning in the pen aisle at Staples, and having trouble making a decision (mostly because the ones I want are medium point and I'm a fine point girl all the way), I also have a thing for blank books. I have more than I'll ever need, but I'm always tempted to buy more. I particularly love gel pens. I also have black, dark purple and dark blue post-it notes which I never use since I have nobody at home for whom to leave notes. The cats aren't very good readers.

5) I never give up books (unless I absolutely hated it – waving Hi to The Red Tent which I couldn't get rid of fast enough), which means I'm in desperate need right now for more bookshelves. I do re-read books and sometimes more than twice. I've read every Dick Francis at least three times. They're nice, quick easy reads when I feel like reading something but don't want to get involved in something too deep. Or if I just got done reading something really deep. I'm pretty sure after I finished Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose I read every Dick Francis book I had as that book almost killed me.

6) I hate the grocery store and will do everything I can to avoid going there. Sadly, I've reached the point where I'm pretty sure I'll be heading there this week. Again, I'll go w/o food, but if the kids are out, I'll be at PetSmart faster than Superman or Batgirl on her kick-ass motorcycle.

Whew, done! I'm not going to tag anyone, but if you want to do it, go for it!

Forever After

Wow, I don't feel like I'm dying which is nice and for the first time in about two weeks. I spent all weekend inside and ended up blowing Jesse off for the symphony again. I left work on Friday shortly after 10:00 after getting there by 5:45. I couldn't keep my eyes open and pretty much felt death-like. This after sleeping most of Thursday (stayed home) and going to bed at 8:00 on Tuesday and Wednesday. I couldn't find anybody to use the symphony tix so they went to waste. Dang it. That's the problem with deciding you're too sick to go a few hours beforehand. Anyway, I went home early and slept for over 3 hours in the middle of the day which is generally a clear indication that I'm not well. I love sleep but I find that I can't sleep my life away like I used to.

I did do laundry on Saturday, so I ran up and down the stairs doing six loads of laundry! Two loads of sheets, one load of towels, then delicates, darks and lights. It was a relief to get it all done. Now to make myself put the last of the clothes away. The laundry basket is sitting in my room reproaching me every time I walk in there. (I wrote this on Monday and guess what? Yup, laundry basket is still sitting there.)

I realise that I haven't listed the Books Read and Movies Watched in January yet. I only finished one book, although I did get halfway through another one. The problem was that because I didn't feel well, I didn't go to the gym which means that I didn't do a lot of reading. I did a lot of knitting though, half of which is boxed up and addressed and ready for the post office. (I made it to the post office on Tuesday.)

Zapata Lives! by Gary Keller was the book and I have to say that I was not as enamoured of it as I had planned on being. In fact, I was kind of hating it, but again that damn elliptical machine kept me reading. I'm glad I finished it, because I hate not finishing books (books I've never finished: The Trial by Kafka, Crime & Punishment by Dostoyevsky, and Moll Flanders by Daniel Dafoe), but I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it to anyone.

The second book I was reading in January I was ripping through when I would get to the gym, but didn't finish it since I was sick and not going to the gym, and I was doing a whole lot of sleeping. I'll tell you about it next month since it's officially a February book, but I will give you the title and a link The City of Falling Angels by John Berendt, author of Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil.

Movies

1/1 - Monsters, Inc. (K), Wallace & Gromit: 3 Adventures (K), Lady & the Tramp (K - VHS) – I think these probably speak for themselves. I was in a G-Rated Movie mood.

1/4 - An Inconvenient Truth (PPV) – I watched this with Ursamajor on OOMA's Big Ass TV and I have to say that I want one. The movie itself was incredible and I highly recommend it.

1/6 – Eddie Izzard: Definite Article (K) – If you have never seen Eddie Izzard, then you are very sad, indeed. He's bloody hilarious.

Ivan the Terrible, Parts 1 & 2 (K) – This is the boxset I have and it's fabulous…if you like black-and-white old Russian movies.

1/7 - Inherit the Wind (TCM) – Yes, I know I just watched this last year, but it was on TCM and I wanted to see it again. Spencer Tracy was fabulous as the Clarence Darrow character and Fredric March was crazy good as the William Jennings Bryant character. 12 Angry Men (TCM) – What can I say. It came on right after Inherit the Wind and as I had been wanting to see it, I just stuck with TCM and enjoyed my 32nd viewing of this movie. (That might be a slight exaggeration.)

1/8 - Pretty Woman (K - VHS) – As you can probably tell since I watched it on VHS, I've owned this movie a very long time, but hadn't watched it in many a moon, mostly because it was on VHS, but I was really in the mood for a romantic comedy that day so I dragged it out. I still love it. Sometimes I like chick flicks, what can I say.

1/9 - Eddie Izzard: Dressed to Kill (K) – Eddie starts this one with a bit about San Francisco as that's where it was filmed and I was crying I was laughing so hard. It's funny even if you've never lived there, but it's downright hysterical, if you do or did.

1/28 - Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (N) – If you noticed this is my only Netflix movie of the month. I was luring them into a false of security. I'm hitting them up bigtime this month! Anyway, I enjoyed this movie, but might need to watch it again to see if I liked it as much as the first. There were bits of it that were a "tad icky," so I wouldn't take young children (or extremely squeamish adults), but I got over the ickiness and was able to enjoy it. You just can't go wrong with Johnny Depp as the very fey (more so than the first movie, I thought) Captain Jack Sparrow.

At Home He's a Tourist

If you aren't reading Blue Meany, you are very sad, because she's freaking hilarious. Unless, of course, swearing offends you, then you might want to give her a miss, but believe me, she's darn funny.

I am, at long last, listening to my iPod Nano at work. I need to see if the AC charger (or is it DC?) works before I give everything back to him, so I had to wear down the battery on the ol' iPod. It's kind of nice to listen to different music, as I've been listening to the same stuff for a while now (except yesterday when I listened to my new Strip Club CD, Cold Comfort, but since I listened to that all day, I went for the iPod. I'm listening to the playlists I created for my friend Sal's CDs. When I get my lazy butt to the post office, he'll be receiving FOUR CDs of my choice of music. I hope at least some of it is new for him and that he likes most of it.

Let's see, what else is up with me? The coffee room is still broken, and the cafeteria here doesn't open until 7:00 which caused for an agonizing hour. Actually we went there around 6:45, so I was able to get hot water for my tea, and even though the woman was standing right there, she ignored us as Jim wanted to pay for his coffee. He finally just left the dollar next to the cash register and we walked out. The old building's cafeteria opened at 6:30 and of course, there were coffee rooms in every section, so this wasn't an issue.

I was too sick last night to care about taking pictures of yarn and coats like I said, so you'll have to wait another day or so for that excitement. I'm tired of fighting this darn bronchitis. I'm half ready to declare a truce and let it win. At least, then I'd know it would be over shortly. I just know that it's going to take a proper hold of my lungs on Friday when I'm supposed to take Marianne's son, Jesse to the symphony. Tonight I'm going to try the wasabi cure of all that ails you when I go for sushi with Ursamajor. Yum, asparagus tempura sushi!

Dang, it's 10:05, so no hot water for tea as the cafeteria is closed until 11:00. I don't think I've mentioned how much I hate this FUCKING building lately, have I?

Monday (at least that's when I read it), the Lovely Loopster had a great post ranting about things she hates. She did such an incredible job I decided to emulate her and list things that piss me off and why.

1) Drivers who drive the speed limit in the left lane – I've decided there are two classes of people who do this: a) the self-righteous twits who say "The speed limit is the same in every lane." And feel they're doing their part to help maintain proper speeds on the freeways; and, b) the selfish assholes who just don't give a shit that s/he's backing people up behind her/him because s/he's comfortable. The only time either of these two types gets their sorry asses out the left lane is when their exit is coming up. I hate them.

2) The new set up of Washington (Street? Avenue?) in Royal Oak. Yes, I understand more parking spaces were needed, but the first light you come to heading north from 696 has a right turn only lane and a left turn/going straight lane. I can't tell you how many times I get stuck behind someone wanting to turn left there and wanting desperately to pass them in the right lane, but can't (and won't because with my luck an RO cop would be sitting there just waiting to bust me). So frustrating.

3) The new building – I won't reiterate.

4) amazon.com – I used to love amazon.com but I think they've gotten too big for their britches. I remember when I would order something and they would put it in the mail that day. Now it's weeks later and they don't even send a "We've shipped your order" e-mail anymore. For DVDs, I'm patronizing www.dvdempire.com and for books www.alibris.com. Check them out. For DVDs, there is also www.dvdplanet.com.

Did you know that the Scientology leader has declared Tom Cruise to be the next Christ?