30 posts tagged “pointless pontifications”

...said Weather Person just sent an invite to friend her on Facebook.

I cannot help but acknowledge that this is weird.

I feel stupid for not letting something go that has been festering for the better part of 20 years.

Kale is the redheaded, bastard stepchild of the modern garden. People claim to eat it but very few do, and I've discovered that I rather like it. Plus, it has all sorts of health benefits: nature's broom, and all that.

However, my kale recipes are of limited application: saute some garlic, onions, olive oil in a wide saucepan, add kale, and cook as collard greens. Oh, you can mix it up and use some of that Costco sausage -- the chicken spicy stuff, it's too salty on its own for my taste -- but that's about the only thing, minus "traditional salad", that I know that kale works with and/or in.

Off to Google I go.

You see, Ms. Lisa will be harvesting, and purportedly selling, kale. And I will be one of her bigger consumers: while I fully intend to ramp up a small veggie garden, it isn't going to be ready until next year, and will not include kale (onions, tomatoes, carrots, leeks, garlic, chives, corn, bell pepper, zucchini, eggplant, and pumpkin are on the list). Ms Lisa will continue to be my kale dealer, and more likely my occasional kohlrabi dealer (dealress?).

I digress (as a habit!)....

Most of the kale recipes I've found online are mastery of masking kale: enough feta cheese, for example, to start your own Greek restaurant. I'd rather appreciate the strong, almost mustardy flavor if I can. Hey, it puts hair on your chest. Since I have a Lucy this is no real problem for me :) But my quest continues, and if you have ideas, do let me know.

Which segues not at all subtly to my next posit: as much as I think web 2.0 does for the introvert and the populace as a whole, I think this era of facile connectivity has rendered some awkward social circumstances. To wit: one of the people I didn't really altogether like that much in high school has "friended" me on Facebook.

I went to Jr. High and High school with this gal. She was a bit snotty, and I remember one or two particularly acidic barbs, but on the scale of what I was dished out those five years -- and yes, the dish continued to the bitter end -- it was maybe a ph of 5. She is now officially a coworker, in a different department, and was all "lets do lunch" when we ran into each other in the hallway. I.... was at a loss.

I have zero warm feelings for this person and my high school memory factor has all of the warmth of a holiday fruit basket with a preprinted card: what incentive, short of "can't we all get along?", was there for me to say yes and "friend" this person. This person is not a "friend". Why oh why did I do it?

Things are rarely as simple as you envision them. I believe I envisioned adding her, and then ignoring her, "punching the clock" so to speak. But then a certain amount of schadenfreude entered and I started perving on her profile. The friend of hers from high school that became a local Weather celebrity (she was actually nicer), the guy who had fantastic camera talent and was permanently nice (and wouldn't remember me with an annual and detailed notes), six or seven others I didn't even realize I graduated with but apparently did. Web 2.0 has allowed me to know what happend to whom in a list of people I would have, and could have (were I my parents generation) gladly forgotten.  Like Humpty Dumpty, I cannot go home and put the shell back; I see the limited profiles of people I hated (yes, I know that's a strong word: wake up every morning for 2 years crying and you will know what it means, too) and people I was at best benign toward, and wonder what happend to them and are they the same and do they remember how mean they were? Probably not.

I have my share of moxie -- and my bitch streak, which I suppose I should thank them for -- and so it surprises even me that I just stood there and made pleasant commentary, and that I clicked the "accept" to the friend request. I don't have any illusions that I will have any further responsibility -- lunch has failed to manifest itself in the subsequent period, for which I am grateful -- but I wonder if I'm somehow letting down the little girl who cried.

I do not mean to diss Web 2.0 -- it's just an eventuality I was unprepared for. Case in point: I never used to "text" -- up until about 2 years ago I firmly believed "text" was solely a noun and would've argued against adding it, like Nero Wolfe arguing "contact". But "text" I do, now, and it has made some things in my life much simpler. I have an entire blog in which to spout my neuroses and offer them up for commentary, and if that isn't an invitation from Web 2.0 to come in for coffee then I don't know what is. I send "evites", I facebook, I blog, I scour other blogs and webzines and forums for content (be it recipes, howto, or again that sweet schadenfreude); I suspect were I to look for a job outside of BTCo I would fully use the different social networks established online. I'm just saying the yin to this particular yang is a bit more awkward than I would have ever thought.

As much as I lust after things (a Mac, a Smart Car, Docs, cocktail rings with Frida Kahlo on them, GH, a 1967 Mustang, a Kindle, Le Creuset, Louboutins, etc. ad nauseam) I only own two of those (well, the Docs, of course, and then there's GH, who isn't really owned but is more of a lease-with-option-to-buy thing).

This morning on KUOW -- my 2nd station for NPR, because I'm a flaming pinko liberal -- on "Weekday" they had Rob Walker, who writes for the NYT and also used to write for Slate, specifically with respect to ads andmarketing and how we're suckers for the shiny. How very few of us will actually run the spreadsheet, go to consumer reports, etc.; we'll go ahead and buy the Viking Range even though we don't really cook or realize it's not the best (and actually one of the least well rated) out there.

I started thinking about my suceptibility to marketing. I am HUGELY suceptible to marketing, and I'm the worst sort because I do not think I am. My proof? After at least five declarations in blosphere in the last 2 years, I still buy coffee. Granted, not nearly as often, and I'm making it consistently at home (decaf only now... more about that later), but I literally have to have a conversation with myself some mornings as I drive past the Starbucks. I'm aware of it, though, and I rationalize my self to or away as necessary.

But I don't own an iPod -- the mp3 player I do have was purchased for me and it suits me fine -- I still drive the same car I've been driving for the last 7 years, I didn't buy that cocktail ring, and the project car is on hold until my savings recovers from the deck project and my inability to stop myself from traveling. (I'm thinking chickens will help with that last). I own not one piece of Le Creuset, my most expensive pair of shoes was purchased for me by my mom (black 20 eye docs, see my logo), I don't intend to purchase a Mac or a Kindle anytime soon -- my 2 year old Gateway (thanks to Zen Ken's suggestions on my power options) is going to last a bit longer, I hope. As to the Louboutins, I don't follow the Sak's guy's advice of skipping my mortgage.

Why has Starbucks succeeded, I wonder, where these others have failed? Largely I suspect with incremental price tag: one latte, about $3.50, one pair of Louboutins, about $2000 (oh, but they were beautiful). The brain can stomach a series of $3.50 charges, it cannot handle a single lump sum of $2000. Not my brain, anyway. One latte purchased every day for 2 years would buy me a set of Louboutins with $500 in spare change; that math may yet help me.

My selective hearing (or suceptibility) is also alive and well with regard to my own health. That little incident last July left zero impression on me, except maybe to punish my GERD by loading up on all of the things (in the ensuing year) that I was supposed to avoid back then: chocolate, alcohol, citrus (including tomatoes), caffeine, fried foods,onions, and large meals. I am Italian, people. I figured well last time I got chest pain it was because I had ice cream late at night: ok, so avoid ice cream late at night. But must I give up citrus? chocolate? alcohol?  

The last week or so has found me feeling on occasion like I have one of those little alien chest-bursters from the movie "Alien(s)". Like any minute this *thing* is going to punch out from my ribcage, smack from the middle (which makes no sense, that would be the hardest way out) and explain all of the weird pressure and burning and general ickyness. It's also happening at night, at morning, whether or not I've eaten, etc. I'm not sure if it's psychosomatic or not that chocolate, alcohol, and caffeine seem to irritate the hell out of it. It has woken me up out of a dead sleep the last 3 nights. Off to the doctor I went, tail between my legs. How sad is it that I was hoping she'd say it was something other than GERD?

I am apparently the proud owner of an esophageal ulcer, yay for me. This is what happens when you do not listen to the doctor. (I actually *do* listen to the doctor, and then I completely ignore all suggestions when I go home). I'm also being put on something called AXID. Which I did NOT ignore, really... I just... left the prescription with the pharmacist yesterday.

But I'm going right over to pick it up after work, really I am...

BMW has a semi-snarky, but still edgy-german-cleanliness-feel ad out, about how most of their models get more than 28 miles to the gallon. The semi-snark is courtesy of the ad showing petrol (gasoline, for us Yanks) for about 6+ EUR, which is about $8 USD. We aren't quite there yet, even in Washington where we're above the national average for gas prices (we're at about $4.45 a gallon, as low as $4.30 in some stations), but we're headed there. The days of $2 gas are long gone. (When I got my first car, I could fill the tank -- on a 1981 Volvo 240 DL, about 15 gallons -- for about $10. Oh, the times they are a-changin').

As of this time last year, my monthly biweekly gas budget was $75. That was extravagant and I usually came in about $10 less than that unless I did some sort of road trip weekend or had a lot of extra back and forth. Now I've had to bump it to $100 and I suspect it will soon be more.

I pulled out my old spreadsheet back when I really wanted (still potentially want, too) a Smart Car. Thanks to changes in how the EPA rates mileage for cars, the Smart Car's mileage went down from 45/40 (2007 standards) to 40/33. I plugged in the new figures, plus the new cost of gasoline, and essentially once gas hits $19 I'd break even for the cost of the car (since I'm not trading in the Rav, and Kumster and Thumper will not fit into a Smart Car even without me in it).  I'm back to romancing the Shame Train, which has its perks (work pays for it) and its downfalls (being stuck at work or at the mercy of a bus schedule).

I am trying to remember where I saw this article discussing how consumer spending habits would change if (when) gas were to go to $10/gallon. We'll see an explosion (no pun intended) in biodiesel, I think that's a given. I think we'll see more people moving closer to work (or moving work closer to home). The article then went a little farther than I would, though, suggesting people would start growing their own fruit and veg (it didn't go so far as to suggest local cattle communes, though...) and curbing their spending habits. Truth be told, most people assume because there's space on the card (or because they've been making payments on the card regularly) they can continue using the card, without much thought to the balance. Pessimist that I am, I don't see this changing without the credit card companies making it harder to get (and keep) credit, and I don't see that as part of a viable business plan (for them).

I digress... Travel will get more expensive, ergo people will be sticking closer to home. Costco should be seeing green, and Whole Foods should hope it's built a really loyal customer base by now; I don't know that I go there as often as I used to and I do know that it's only an occasional thing. I'm still considering raising chickens for eggs but that is probably a next-year thing. I don't know that I'll be growing all that many veg and fruit (aside from that which I've been growing), but I doubt my neighbors would start.   

 The article seemed to think the hike in gas prices would bring us to a kindler, gentler something: a sort of rosy utopia where people would walk to work (obesity would go down) and go back to keeping a real pantry store (no more processed foods as the main portion of a diet) and spend less (getting the nation back on track). While I do think that the hike will fuel change (pun intended), I don't know if I can be that optimistic about it.

I am trying in vain to remember who used this word with me the other day... Here's what Merriam Webster has to say about foible:

foi·ble

Which is altogether interesting because most instances of this word seem to indicate that the minor character flaw is nothing really to worry about, but something to note; like the friend who gets a little too drunk and becomes the life of the party or the friend who never reads the book club book (guilty); the friend who is perpetually 15 minutes early (or late). The idea is that the foible is minor and harmless, a cute cliche to connect to your companion, as it were. (I heart alliteration).

So why is it synonymous with fault? Fault, to me at least, is something to note and be concerned or prepared to deal with; it seems heavier than a foible.

Is it ironic that more often than not you will put significance and concerns to your friends' foibles or faults than those of an acquaintance or stranger? And most often to your significant other? (Assuming you have a significant other and that they have a fault or foible -- GH has neither, naturally) Why is that? Why is it we are less patient or more judgemental with those close to us than we are with complete strangers? I can give a few cases in point but I think everyone here (?) can -- you don't mind the random coworker who has to go out every half hour to smoke because, short of meetings with him/her, you don't smell it or deal with it. But the friend who goes out and smokes you worry: you worry about their health. You don't worry about that guy who comes to your bus stop and sits alone crying to himself, maybe he's depressed or weird or crying happy. You worry about a friend who cries, though, even when it's at something like a Hallmark commercial.

Or maybe you don't, and that's my foible... or fault :) 

"Why would anyone care if she did her laundry?"

-GH's mom, when hearing about my blog.

To be fair, or at least explanatory, my blog was described to her as my diary (which it is), public (which it is), where I divulge the most inane eccentricities of my life (which I do).

I live in the whitebread suburbia, edgy my life isn't.

About as edgy as it gets is if the Starbucks gal (or guy) gives me unwarranted 'tude, or if the Sammamish police elect to go back to Tully's (they used to haunt there), or if Mr. Wilkerson of 224th street discovered $10 of chewing gum missing from his house (I kid you not, aside from the street number and name, which are not so much to protect the innocent as my inability to remember stupid details, are EXACTLY what appeared in the police blotter.  Yes, someone reported chewing gum theft.)

I live in vanillaville.

I didn't want to. When I was growing up I yearned to be an Egyptologist or an Archaeologist or an Entymologist. I was going to have a doctorate, goddamit, and I was going to starve. Three years into college I had one of those epiphanies which are so self-satisfying and guilt inducing: I didn't want to go live on a fishing boat (my major, at the time, was gearing me toward marine biology) and if I did I would be most likely passed around as a bag of Oreos, attitude or not.

I married a Marine and discovered what vanillaville was: uniform houses, uniform outfits, uniform lives. But I didn't fit in by any stretch: I worked, I didn't want kids right away, I kept Jackson's Chamaelions, I knew how to cook and I knew how to drink. Social pariah, check. But I don't regret it to this day: the same gals who looked down their nose at me for not having kids and for working and for wanting (and actually)  to live off base were the ones who crowded the bar the day after, if not the day of, their husband shipping out. No, thank you.

So imagine my surprise finding, Doc Martens, jeans, spyderco and all, that I am living in virginal, innocent suburbia at 34 (nearly 35). I plan to be on the PTA, and while I will not be the only single mom (Oh, I hope not!) I guarantee you I'm the only one with no victim complex and with a fair collection of boots. I live somewhere where people report TO THE POLICE about their $10 chewing gum theft. Holy Shit, folks. On the scale of life, 1 to 10, as far as personal disaster, this rates about a -18 x10 to the 23rd. Though my life be cushy I recognize this. I also recognize that I am still in vanillaville -- a more Doc Martens friendly one, granted -- and I still don't fit in. Never have, never will, so far as I can see.

Still, I do blog about the mose basic of things. I cleaned bathrooms today, for example. I did a mountain of grocery shopping, thank you Safeway for pointing out that though I spent many times more than that I did in fact save $34. I blog about my laundry, not because I expect it to make any great ends to anyone reading this (but me). My laundry, and its state, do not concern you, do they? Do you need to know that I have been running without fabric softener for the last 2 loads, or that I have (indeed!) a system for my 3 baskets? No, you don't.

But *I* do. For the last 2-3 years (depending on which blog you're operating from) I've chronicled the most base and most acid of my life: the laundry and the dirty laundry, as it were. I go back and re-read, like my own personal Salon of Shame, that which I thought was so important back-when, and laugh (and cry) at myself. I marvel at the persistence of insecurities, the petty habits I try to break (and can't), the florid language and consitent type-os. I wonder at my recurring Vegas trips, like a lemming to the cliffs. I also worry (with slight alarm) at my continual use of analogy and how warped it is.

I'm not a scrap-booker -- I tried, I really tried -- and I'm not a journalist. I don't do composite photo frames (my stepmom does, so that's sorted as far as responsibility), I don't do keepsake ornaments; the only things I have of ongoing trust and preservation that are worth noting is a 150 year old German bible (oh, the irony) and a book of recipes which is the subject of its own paragraph in my will.

So yes, I blog about my laundry. I blog about how often I clean my toilets (honest, it's more often than I mention), my neuroses, my insecurities (well, most), my defeats, my successes, my irks, and my encounters. It's not edited, it's not polished, and it's not (really) for mass consumption, although it's offered therein. I am not seeking validation, a book deal, or even advice, although any and all -- minus the book deal -- are welcome. I blog for cheap therapy, I blog for my own needs, and I blog because it suits my sense of impishness.

And, because I really need someone to give me the lowdown on adding fabric softener to a 10 year old Maytag top loader. 

GH commented that he appeared nowhere in my self-imposed rosary of terror for takeoff and landing, and so herein I now note that I should add that someone needs to take over being his girlfriend should I die in a fiery (or otherwise fatal) crash. Make it so. If it means getting him 3 or 4 girls to do individual things then that's fine, but he'll need a chief wife or something to ride herd on them.

Jest aside, I was listening to NPR this morning and they were talking to Richard Preston who had written a biography about one of the main Ebola Virus researchers. (Well, he wrote about quite a few things but the book is called Panic in Level 4 -- I want to buy it and I want to buy a Kindle and I think I'll be good instead -- and one of the substories is about two of the Ebola Virus researchers). Apparently once they figured out just how nasty Ebola could be, and after they started studying it in big protective suits and all that jazz, one of the researchers managed to get splashed with blood -- and via an opening in the suit got blood *in her suit*. Normally this would be very bad but what made it worse was that she had a cut on her hand.

Now, I imagine these suits are much like the dive gear I wear only moreso, so there are 'cutoffs' at your wrists and neck where you seal your hood and gloves. Much like showering in a drysuit, once you get out of containment you have to shower in your lil' space suit, and so she is spending the entire shower watching the blood rinse away from the outside of her suit, knowing full well there is blood on the *inside* of her suit, and knowing full well she has a cut on her hand from cooking dinner for her kids the night before. (After the shower she was able to remove the suit and remove the glove and discovered that none of the infected blood had made it into the glove).

The author actually spoke to the researcher in question -- yes, she's alive -- and asked her what was going through her head at that moment. She replied she was worried because she hadn't made it to the bank that day and who was going to pay the babysitter who was watching her kids? Her husband was on a business trip. Who was going to let him know what happened? Could he make it back in time? How was it going to be for the kids to grow up without a mom?

And there it hit me: although I've never been in such dire circumstances and I hardly think the turbulence of landing into Las Vegas rates, that's exactly the sort of panic and terror you get once you are responsible for someone else. You don't think about how it will feel as your bones shatter or as your organs melt or as the crash twists and mangles your body -- in most cases you're dead fairly quickly which is why the only actual death act I fear is drowning or torture -- it's the "what happens to everyone else" worries. My panic rosary is the same -- who will get all the things done that I get done, that need to be done? Obviously I'll be dead so I won't be able to worry about it *then*, so let's worry about it now, in my purported final moments.

It's this sort of rampant irrational thinking that gets me wondering about the inefficiencies of the human mind, and also why are we all built with different ideas of what's important? For example, it irritates the high holy shit out of me to be late -- ME, not other people. I can smile and laugh and enjoy and be happy as long as I am not late. Everyone else can be late -- but I cannot. It weirds me out and I'm not really sure why; but it really hit me on this last trip. We're in our room getting ready and my adrenaline is hiking up because I have like 4 minutes to get ready and meet everyone at the taxi stand and Alixito is like "hey it's ok if we're like 5 minutes late" and the first thing that went through my head was (and I think I even said it) "No, it's ok if YOU'RE 5 minutes late. I can't be late."

I must be pretty hot shit, to think that the world waiting on me for 5 minutes is tragedy to be unborne.

It's very weird. I know now and knew then that yes, I could be 5 or 10 or even 15 minutes (as we ended up being) late. The show went on, the restaurant was still there, the night was still had. But like a glass thermometer with mercury, I could feel the acid rising with each minute just knowing I was *going to be late*. The rational side of my brain takes a vacation in those instances.

As I get older this is getting worse and it's not helping that the body has decided to follow the brain's pursuit. I've managed to get anxious enough that people are *noticing* when my hands go grey, I've actually started having anxiety attacks where I start thinking "Ok, if I die in my sleep, who will notice quickly enough and have the presence to tell the SC his mommy is just sleeping? Will the dogs keep him out of the room? Will he be like those kids you see on TV who call 911? In short, how badly would that f*ck him up?" Again -- totally irrational, I have no heart troubles to speak of and work out regularly (even if in turn I eat and drink regularly which seems to balance out these days -- I gained a pound in Vegas). My last time diving I had a panic attack at 90 feet and it did not help to know that I can do a 60 foot CESA-- but not 90. I haven't dove since and I'm frankly scared to, but Q has promised to go puddle-paddling with me when I do.  

The theory of evolution is that characteristics are exacerbated and attuned over time because they either do not harm or in fact help the success of the species at large (not necessarily the individual). What use, then, to have anxiety to these levels? None of those situations is fight-or-flight, I lead a fairly cushy life. I know -- I *know* -- I've laid things out such that if I were to go bonk in the night, as it were, the SC is well taken care of both fiscally and socially. There is no use for this, and I simply hate waste.  

I have a bruise on my left arm about 2" wide and 1" long, and it's that deep greeny purple. I didn't notice it in the shower, I didn't notice it getting dressed (short sleeve shirt), I didn't notice it until someone at work said "Jeeesus what did you do?"

There are many problems with this. First, and not the least, I am not Jesus. I mean, yes I have long brown hair and yes I am known to expound words of wisdom and yes I think the water to wine thing is a fantastic party trick, but then I'd suffer from not believing in me so I am not Jesus.

Second, in order for me to bruise myself in that particular spot I would have had to run headlong into something, which requires intention, and I am not stupid. Oh, I act stupid all the time -- it gets me out of 'real' work -- but I am not actually stupid. Somewhere I have a piece of paper that tells me so.

Third, the fact that I didn't notice this while bathing, dressing, or running around... and that almost certainly my son's teachers, assorted other parents, etc. saw me sporting said shiner ... is disturbing. On the level of my obtuseness and then on the whole level of "what if I was an abused person and this was my cry for help and..." Oh who am I kidding, I am 5'10" and weigh more than the average male my size, and pack the attitude of a small man. So I don't think I have to worry about the "cry for help".

However, I did get tired of answering, "I don't know, it just arrived there, it looks a lot worse than it is" and started telling people that it's how I know my bf loves me. At least the people I know will take it in the spirit its intended. If GH gets arrested today it will piss me off.

I shouldn't have bet on the weather as yesterday it rained and rained and rained. 26 each 5 year olds plus 2 teachers plus assorted parentage plus one Woodland Park Zoo = damp goodness had by all. We ate in front of the monkeys, which was only a little odd.

Last night we celebrated P-Ade's bday at my house, complete with 28 candles on a brownie ('twas a big brownie). At any minute the fire alarm was going to go off in my house. The SC chided me for calling P-Ade old, but then agreed that he was much older than me (for the record, I'm 34 and P-Ade is 28, so I am all for him appearing older than me). That took away like 50 ma'ams right there. I think I'll go roll a 20 sided dice as a multiplier, even.

And as of today I'm just wagering things all over the place. I have a private bet with P-Ade, which is one of those win-win things because either way we're going out, and then I have a bet again with A and B and now K over... First Solar, Inc. (FSLR). It's two stage, $20 for end of June and $20 for end of July:

• A: betting July only, says end of July it will be between $230 and 240
• B: betting end of June $230.01-$240.01, end of July $210-220
• K: (K picked the stock and he's a bear) betting end of June $290, end of July $319
• and the Divine Divorcee, Minor Diety in Training picked $220-230 end of June, $190-200 end of July.

I am clearly the most bearish and intend to be, in the news FSLR's top chiefs have been selling off their shares like nobody's business. I don't care how good the pre-IPO was, you don't sell if you have any sort of confidence. I actually think it will be less than my figures. But, worst case scenario I'm out $40, best I'm up $120.

With that sort of wager on the table I think I shall keep my blackjack time in Vegas this weekend to a minimum (yes, V-land: CC is having her 'chette party and I am going to make sure the bride returns from Vegas. Tomorrow I pack my hoochie mama sandals and the corset.)

Let the games begin...

Here I am at work, back to the grind, blissfully not in Dallas. Sure, there's a pile of to-do's for Monday, although not as bad as one would think. All of this plus the fact that I am only working 3 days this week :)

My semi-scientific study on Facebook has entered the realm of combinations now -- I was first Single, and then nothing, then I was Interested, and now I'm Single and Interested. We shall see if the choads come out. Or perhaps my pic is not choad-bait, so I may put up one of my dominatrix ones.

Speaking of the black corset, I may have more than one occasion to wear it coming up soon! First, I'm going to Vegas. Yes, again. Look, I end up going 2 or 3 times a year so this isn't news to anyone, but this time it's for a bachelorette party and I seriously suspect there will be at least one evening of pleasant debauchery. However, the corset requires someone to tuck and yank and squish for me, as it straps in the back, so we shall see. The second occasion will be for the Seattle local bachelorette party, which will be at a bulesque show in West Seattle. The dress code is "lingere, pyjamas, or to the 9's". I will have to seriously regulate my alcohol intake that evening, though, because I am diving with Q the next morning. First time diving since September of last year, so it's kinda a big deal. I think we'll start small with Cove 2 and if I get more adventurous we can plan a Keystone trip.

But meanwhile I sit here, running code and planning an agenda for a meeting on Wednesday -- for tomorrow I'm going to be mommy at the Zoo :) I am so glad to be home...