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 |  Chaos is that voice at the end of the day that says, "Bet you didn't see that coming." |
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** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** "It turns out that an eerie type of chaos can lurk just behind a facade of order - and yet, deep inside the chaos lurks an even eerier type of order" ~Douglas Hostadter I imagine that chaos and order are like those Russian nesting dolls, and they fit together to some infinitesimally minute level at which we must just give up ever grasping what lies at the core. Still . . . if I had to bet, my money would be on chaos. "Our real discoveries come from chaos, from going to the place that looks wrong and stupid and foolish." ~Chuck Palahniuk I know that place well . . . every wrong, stupid, and foolish acre of it! I used to think it was a dead end, or worse, a complete navigational failure, but sometimes that place was exactly were I needed to be. So what does any of this have to do with me, my blog, or the entries that will follow? I don't know, but pull up a chair. I'll invite some chaos, and we'll see what happens. "It's a cruel and random world, but the chaos is all so beautiful." — Hiromu Arakawa |
| I was thinking about my NaNo novel while I was driving to the grocery store this evening. Somehow I lost track of where I was going and ended up about 6 miles out of my way. I guess I learned my lesson. Don't think and drive. |
| Those of you who've been reading this blog for awhile might remember that Halloween is a big holiday for us at work. I work in an office complex that houses several county human services agencies including Drug and Alcohol, Aging, Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities, and the Office of Child Protective Services. For Halloween, we all dress up and parade around the office park together. Sounds silly right? It is, but its also a lot of fun, and it is about the only time during the year that all the office interact. Anyway, there is competition involved. My department has a longstanding tradition of trouncing the competition in part because of our overwhelming level of participation, but also because of our clever albeit contrived themes. We basically pick something very loose and then figure out a way to make everyone's costume ideas fit that theme. Our original theme for this year was going to be "People your parents warned you about," however, that became a potentially divisive theme when someone pitched the idea of coming as a priest. Lest we offend, we changed our theme to "What I wanted to be when I grew-up." Suddenly the priest costume isn't offensive. It's all in the way things are framed.  Well, in my typically half-hearted and backwards way, I took an inventory of available costume elements I already have. I have a pirate hat, cowboy hat, and straw gardening hat I have white feather boas I have a black graduation gown I have pig ears, snout and tail Hmmm. . . what else? Well, there is my son's costume. Did I mention what my son is going as? He is going to be Super Weenie Boy! He has a hot dog costume and a super hero cape. He wanted to add vampire teeth too, but I thought that might confuse people. I guess I'm a purist. In any case, there is a hot dog costume. Needless to say, I'm going to borrow the hotdog costume. Why? Because it is the last thing they'll expect. No really. . . Why? Well, when I was little, I wished I was an Oscar Mayer wiener (or at least sang the song claiming I did), so I guess it fits with our theme. Anyway, there your back story. Now, on Saturday I was putting laundry away in Zack's room and I saw the costume laying there. I figured I needed to try it on in order to find out (1) how ridiculous it would look and (2) whether it would fit. Zack and Tony were watching a scary movie out in the living room. Katie and her boyfriend were in the kitchen making Mac & Cheese, so I quickly slipped into the hot dog costume and decided that I would pick up a couple cans of yellow silly string to go with it (mustard cannons  ). I walked across the hall and into my daughters room so I could get a good look at myself in her full length mirror.I walked right over to the mirror. I've gotta say that the costume kind of limited my field of vision, and I guess that's why I didn't realize the room wasn't empty. Max and Katie were there eating Mac and Cheese. At least they had been eating it, but at that exact second, they'd stopped. They were kind of frozen with a mixture of hilarity, bewilderment, and probably at least a tad bit of horror. "I thought you were still out in the kitchen," I said. "Mom . . . Is there a reason you're dressed like a giant hotdog?" And I thought my kids had inspired ME to say some strange things over the years! |
| This has been a short week for me. I had off on Monday for Columbus Day. It was a gorgeous day, and Tony and I decided to hike up the mountain. The fall foliage was lovely and the creeks were tumbling over and around rocks with renewed vigor after all the rain we've had (more of which is falling as I type). It was thoroughly enjoyable. After the hike I needed to make a quick stop at the grocery store. Due to my general disorganization as of late, I haven't done a full scale shopping trip in sometime and instead I've just been running off to the store when I run out of staples. In this case, I was out of Diet Coke. I asked Tony to run into the store since the hike on muddy trails had not left me as fresh and clean as the mountain stream. I waited in the car. Since I'd noticed that morning that one of my rear signal lights had burned out, I dug the owner's manuel out to find out how to replace the bulb. When Tony came back out, he attempted to pull out of the parking lot. I say "attempted" because while he was approaching the intersection, the car stuttered a couple times and then died. He flipped on the hazard lights, but since I had a rear tail light out, it wasn't especially effective at signaling the other drivers as to our predicament. I had to jump out of the car to wave cars around. Tony put the car into reverse and rolled it back into the parking lot. He came to a stop in the fire lane in front of the store. Since we couldn't leave it there, I steered while he pushed and we managed somehow to get the car into a parking space. Having acquired a new found appreciation of power steering, we began to work through the standard disabled vehicle checklist. 1. Attempt to restart the car until satisfied that such efforts are futile. 2. Check gas gauge to make sure we aren't just out of gas. 3. Turn off the AC, and the radio. Shift the car into gear and then to neutral and try starting the car again. 4. Pump the gas pedal a couple times and try once again to start the car. 5. Pop the hood. Why? I don't know. Neither of us has any knowledge of cars, but it is somehow reassuring to take a peek just to verify that yep, the engine is still there. 6. Pull out the dip stick and look at the tip of it. Why? Again, I have no idea. I think maybe it is just something to do while the hood is up. 7. Working under the assumption that pumping the gas pedal may have flooded the engine and caused the previous attempt to fail, try once more to start the car. 8. Take inventory of available resources. We have Diet Coke in the trunk, and we both have cell phones although my charge is kind of low. 9. Calculate the distance home. Only about 2 miles. Hell, that's not far. One of us could walk home, get the other car and come back for the diet coke and me (because you know who I'm picking to walk home. Not that I'm lazy, but I just hiked up a damn mountain) 10. Wait until Tony is out of sight. Take the keys out of the ignition. Reinsert keys and then try starting the car again. Bingo! Damned if it didn't turn over that time. So what did I do, I shut the engine off and swore and craned my neck to see if I could spot Tony. I pulled out my cell phone and tried calling him but got his voicemail. Damn. What to do? Should I try to drive home? What if it stalled out again? Who would push it back into a parking space? Where would I drive to? Should I take the car home or take it to the closest garage? By default, I decided to sit and wait. That lasted about 7 minutes before I got bored and impatient. Fuck it. I turned the car over and listened to it idle smoothly. I wasn't sure I trusted the car, so I thought maybe I'd take just a couple laps around the parking lot to see how she ran. On the third lap, I decided to pull out of the parking lot and head home. On the way, I pulled over to pick up Tony who'd opted to run at least part of the way and was therefore nearly home. My car still has fewer than 50,000 miles on it, and hasn't been giving me any trouble, so I'm thinking the problem might be spark plugs. Maybe some corrosion that might cause an intermittent sort of problem. In any case, since Tony was off on Tuesday as well, I left my car with him and drove his car to work. When I got home that evening he told me "I fixed your car." "Was it the spark plugs like I thought?" "Oh" he said looking mildly alarmed. "Well, I changed the bulb anyway. The signal light works now." "Ah. Well thank you for restoring my peace of mind. It's good to know that when it dies again and strands me in the middle of an intersection, I'll be able to use the hazards effectively and signal everyone to go around me."  But the car has run fine ever since. Maybe it just wanted a little attention. And now I must go check the laundry which is what I was really referring to when I titled my entry. |
| Tony's new uniforms require a good bit of sewing to affix the various dohickys and whatnots. I am somewhat shy of passable with a needle and thread and did not volunteer for help. I was the Mom who bought fabric bonding adhesive to attach my daughter's Girl Scout badges to her sash. My backstitch is not up to Navy standards. Tony began trying to sew them on today, but was clearly frustrated. I suggested that maybe he should ask his Mom for help. "I hadn't thought of that," he said. "She'd probably do that." His mother has a lifetime of cross stitch, needlepoint and embroidery experience. She is very handy with a needle. "Of course she would. She's very proud of you. She'd probably enjoy doing that for you." "You think?" "Sure. Of course, she'd tell everyone about how she has to do it because your wife is inept, and generally lacking in the domestic skills needed to properly care for a husband." "Okay then," Tony said, "I won't ask her." "Why not?" "Well it would obviously bother you." "Nah. I'm not bothered by it at all. Besides, it'll make it that much more enjoyable for her." My Dad was career Army and Mom took her duties very seriously. She did all the sewing on, and then re-sewed when Dad pointed out something wasn't entirely straight. She always teased him that if he ever felt the need to have an affair, she'd consider it a kindness if he'd consider a seamstress for his mistress.  |
| It seems the trick is to first discover what you don't want and don't like, and don't wish to be. Back when I started college I made a fearless and searching inventory of the course catalog and came up with the short list of course I never, ever in a million years wanted to take. I eliminated all majors that required any course on my short list, and from what remained, I eventually narrowed it down to studying psychology. I function, to a large extent, by process of elimination. I am the queen of default. I'm not suggesting this is a bad thing as I know the truth and key in this is that I do function. The difficulty for me is that once I've eliminated the distasteful, I have an immobilizing need to cling to all of the remaining possibilities. I don't really know where I was going with that, but the possibilities are endless. Changing tack, I have made some decisions about my NaNo novel. 1. I'm going to attempt to write one. And really, you can stop reading there if you'd like because that's the biggie. 2. It will be a sequel to my first NaNo novel. This wasn't my original idea at all, but I'm hoping it will reconnect me to characters I enjoy writing about, and allow me to further explore them in ways that will help me with the first novel. 3. My working title is going to be "The Mushroom Treatment" it is a phrase I've been encountering a lot recently. It refers to keeping people in the dark and feeding them loads of shit. Since the book is going to be about a shady land developer who turns up missing, and his wife who eventually hires a PI to look for him rather than file a police report that would undoubtedly uncover her affair with a narcotics detective who also happens to be her best friend's brother, I anticipate a lot of deception and bullshit. Hence the title. 4. I will probably never do anything with my original idea because there would need to be religious elements woven into the story and in doing some preliminary research, I've discovered just how little I know about the different religions. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. My mother was raised very strictly Catholic. She even went to school at a convent for a year before the Mother Superior decided she was far to interested in boys to every cut it as a nun and sent her home. In any case, I can't even claim to have been raised Catholic. We didn't even manage to be C & E Catholics (as in Christmas and Easter). I was probably 12 or 13 before I even realized that Catholics fell under the larger umbrella of Christians. Most of my understanding of Christianity came from a Jewish friend who used the contrast method of explaining Judaism to me in much the same way that Spanish class taught me the grammar lessons I'd failed to learn in English class. So as not to belabor the point, religion will remain a taboo topic in my writing because I'm too ignorant to give it the respectful, considered treatment it deserves. 5. I'm really glad my math class will be over before NaNo starts. I'm in week 5 of the 8 week course. Amazingly I have a 94% so far. A lot of the grade is homework and participation, so just doing the required work counts for a lot. I think I'm gonna pass. Okay, so number 5 doesn't have a lot to do with NaNo, but rules are meant to be broken. Once I finish the math class I won't start the next class until January, and I'm looking forward to the break. Hopefully when I post this entry, it won't poof off into space like yesterday's entry. I guess it would help if I paid better attention. When I try to post I get an error message saying my account doesn't have access to this book. What the hell? I guess I didn't notice that yesterday and assumed my entry was added. Well lets see if I can figure this out or I'll be quite miffed to have taken the time to compose an entry I can't post! |
| I've pretty well talked myself into NaNo. Yes, it will likely mean another unfinished book haunting in the foreseeable future, but I'm okay with that. Writing is a process, and I learn from that process. It doesn't have to be about the results. Unfortunately, I started to question the premise of my novel. It is just too serious. I don't know if I can maintain any kind of momentum with something so serious. It is too much a part of my nature to be irreverent and silly. Looking a where the story would need to go, I can't help thinking this will be a problem. But then, I had another thought . . . if I shift the POV from frazzled mother to ambivalent teenage daughter, I solve most of my problems. Teens, by nature tend to be snarkish and to view things in a way that highlights the absurdities of the world around them. I went over to my Mom's tonight because my sister-in-law was there with her kids. I wanted to see the baby who is now all of 3 weeks old. Anyway, I got my baby fix and while I was there, I tried to explain my prospective NaNo premise to my mother. She started talking about how I should write a book about her dating experiences. Does this happen to everyone else too? It seems like my friends and family are forever dictating to me the book I should write. They get kind of annoyed when I very politely let them know it isn't something I could see myself writing. I've tried to explain that for me, writing is very personal and I can't just take any idea and run with it. It has to mean something to me. Anyway, I told my mother she should write her own book. I even suggested NaNo to her. She seemed interested, and I bookmarked the NaNoWriMo site on her computer so she could check it out at her leisure. We'll see if anything comes out of that. |
| I can no longer claim that I never win anything. In the past month, I've won two things. First, I won a $20 t-shirt for having the funniest t-shirt in a contest at work. Then today, I won a really big stuffed AFLAC duck that was raffled off by an AFLAC rep at a meeting I attended. I don't know what I'm going to do with the duck, but I think I might be on a roll, so tomorrow I'll get myself a lottery ticket just in case. The winning t-shirt, in case you are interested was this gem: http://www.threadless.com/product/428/Everyone_Poops It is my all time favorite t-shirt from my all time favorite t-shirt seller. Things are moving right along. Tony will report for his first drill weekend the first weekend in November. The funny thing is that since that is the weekend before Veteran's Day, he will be marching, along with his unit, in the Veteran's Day parade. So, hopefully he'll get off on the right foot. What else? I'm contemplating another NaNo attempt. I'm trying to firm up an idea that I've been kicking around for a couple years. The thing is, I think the idea has good story potential, but the subject matter is outside my area of knowledge and therefore would need a good bit of research to properly flesh it out. The dilemma is this... Do I write it anyway and improvise on the details knowing I can add thoughtful research in the next draft, or do I save that idea for another time and try to come up with something that'll give me a more of a solid footing for NaNo? I've already named an entire families worth of characters. Creating characters is my favorite part of the process. |
| Earlier today, my husband had his swearing in. He is now an officer in the Navy Reserves. The local unit he will be attached to drills on the first weekend of the month, but that doesn't leave enough time for in-processing between now and Friday, so he will officially report for duty the first weekend in November. Tony's Mom and Step-father drove up for the commissioning and my mother came as well. We did the whole thing in the upstairs room of an Irish pub in town, and then we went downstairs and had lunch. It's always an interesting time when all the parentals gather together, but it this was another goal attained, so it was all good. I told the Recruiter that my goal was to end up stationed in Naples, Italy and he said there was a good likelihood of that happening if we pursued it. So there you have it. And thus the saga ends. |
| [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] As you may have guessed, we got some good news today. Tony called me on his way home from work to tell me that he'd heard from the recruiter. The board approved him. His commissioning will most likely be completed before the end of the month. We are beside ourselves just trying to absorb the news that this is finally coming together. |
| What made today a full day? 1. It was the first day of school. For my son that meant returning to the same building as last year, but my daughter has moved up to the Senior High School. This promises to be a crazy year since the Senior High is undergoing massive renovations. Students were warned today that classes are likely to be moved to different rooms as the construction projects progress. Wings, hallways, or staircases may be closed off on any given day (that can't possibly be a fire hazard, can it?) requiring students to find alternate routes between classes, and although it will be virtually impossible to navigate the building in the allotted time, they are expected to do the impossible and arrive in each classroom before the late bell or face detention. Renovations on the school are scheduled to be completed the fall after she graduates. 2. I completed my first college course in . . . 18? . . . 17?. . . well, in a whole lot of years. I had to really force myself to write the final paper. I had to deny myself any pleasure reading, or recreational computer time until I finished my work. I still procrastinated in order to draw out and savor the pain for as long as possible. I could insert another eye roll here, but I think already hit the daily quota so my eye rolls feel kind of superfluous. My next course doesn't start til next Monday, so I went to the library today and borrowed two novels. The first one is quite funny. It is the sort that requires me to keep reading passages aloud to curios family members who ask "what?" every time I laugh. 3. I walked the two miles to work this morning. I didn't do it because I'm virtuous or anything, I did it because I didn't have a car. My car was at the garage for it's annual state inspection (it passed), and Tony is teaching an 8 AM intro to psych course, three mornings a week at the local community college, so I decided to hike it. As I was walking I started to wonder why I don't walk it every morning. Really, it was a great way to start the day. If I could get Tony to pick me up at and bring me home for lunch every day so I could take the car back to work and not have to walk home at the end of the day, I would definitely consider making it a regular thing. However, since afternoon temps are going to be in the 90s this week, I doubt I'll make a habit of this anytime soon. 4. I filled out and signed a zillion different pieces of paper for each child to return to school tomorrow. There's an annual ritual I doubt I'll miss when my kids are grown. What a pain in the ass! And yet I survived. 5. Tony received confirmation today that his packet has been submitted to the Navy Review Board. It is actually happening. He is really under review. The guy who did the final check before okaying it to go to boards said it looked like a "slam dunk" to him. We've been at this for so long that I'm not even sure I can work up that mixture of anticipation/trepidation to properly suit the occasion, but I'm obviously hoping for a favorable outcome . . . preferably soon. In other news, I had gotten my daughter the book Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith by Deborah Heiligman for her birthday because I thought it looked interesting. Well, she finished it today at school, and said it was really good. She is very intrigued by Darwin now and wants to read his autobiography now. So I'm very pleased (not to mention proud) that the book sparked an interest that she wants to pursue with further reading. Learning is cool as long as there aren't any research papers involved.  Okay, the research part of the paper was interesting. My paper was on the effects of humor on learning. No big surprise, but the use of humor as a teaching/training tool results in improved learning outcomes. Not exactly groundbreaking stuff, but it was interesting to explore the how and why behind that. Unfortunately, for this assignment, I wasn't really supposed to delve into the how and why. I had to focus on research findings, and research findings in social science and education are notoriously correlative and never really answer the questions of how or why. That's were theorists come in, and that is why theories can't be proven; only disproven. And that, in the nutshell is why I hate academic writing. Why the hell did I sign up for this crap? I'm already contemplating a change of majors. Well, I need to cap off the full day with a full nights sleep, so I will leave it at that for this evening. We shall see what Tuesday brings. |
| Okay, so the kids voted for Dorney Park over Hershey Park. As much as I love Hershey, I'm glad we stayed closer to home. It was a good day for it. It was cool and overcast, and that seemed to really keep the crowds down. The only time I had to wait in line all day was when I was buying lunch. I dosed Zack up with motion sickness medication before we left the house this morning. The last time we took him to Dorney, he got car sick and threw up in the parking lot on the way IN to the park. Well, I learned my lesson. Zack doesn't like any rides that drop him down. He wouldn't even go on the mini-coasters, but he loves the spinning rides that I can't tolerate. We aren't very compatible in an amusement park. Normally Katie is my roller coaster accomplice, but she brought along her boyfriend who is afraid of heights (and apparently is also afraid of being alone with my husband without the buffer of my darling daughter). Since he wouldn't ride, and didn't want to be left alone, she wasn't such a good accomplice. I got her on two coasters, but they were more about the loops, twists and speed, and I wanted the big hill. I wanted Steel Force. Now, according to the Dorney website, "From the Dorney Park website "Steel Force is the first roller coaster in the East to break the 200-foot barrier. With a 205-foot drop, two tunnels, steep banks and speeds reaching 75 miles per hour, this mega-coaster is recognized as one of the world's best steel roller coasters." I couldn't go to Dorney without riding it. Especially when there were NO LINES! I figured that maybe Katie could watch her husband and Tony and I could go on it together. I was kind of surprised by his resounding, "Hell No!" Fine. I'd ride it by myself. Except then my daughter stepped up and didn't want me to have to go alone. She and the boyfriend walked most of the way across the park to get to the ride before he managed to wheedle her into abandoning me in favor of him. That boy has separation issues that rival my dog's (although in fairness, he's probably never pooped on anyone's bed in retaliation for being left home alone). I digress . . . I didn't ride alone. I rode with a young teenage boy who was part of an odd numbered group. It was a lot fun, and it made me really glad that I'm independent enough to go it alone if there is something I want to do. In any case, a day of fun was exactly what I needed to offset Tuesday's day of frustration. My desktop crashed. This was especially frustrating because I'd been to Best Buy over the weekend shopping for computers. I had every intention of replacing the machine, but the asshole salesperson was so irksome that I left the store empty handed. I figured I'd come home and order what I wanted off the website rather than risk him earning any commission from my purchase. Unfortunately, I procrastinated. And that's when my computer crashed. I had planned to transfer the content of my hard drive to the new computer, but that isn't going to happen now. Okay, I haven't had the problem fully diagnosed yet, and it may be possible to recover something off the hard drive, but I'm not, by nature, optimistic about such things. Fortunately I'd just uploaded all my pictures, so I didn't lose them entirely even if the drive is kaput. I'm most frustrated about the loss of my music files, and a class assignment that I'd intended to upload that morning, but didn't have time to take care of and will now have to recreate. Anyway, I ended up back at Best Buy knowing exactly what computer I wanted to buy. You might think that would make things easy, but you'd be mistaken. 1. I had to find someone on the floor who worked in computers to assist me. 2. They had to look up the computer I wanted since it wasn't on display and determine whether they had it in stock (Ridiculous as this was since it was an advertised special!) 3. I had to wait an additional period of time while they retrieved the computer from the stock room. 4. I had to wait an unreasonable period of time at the checkout because apparently all of the computer sales had to rung by the salesperson on a designated register, and someone else was already in the middle of a transacting a sale to the most indecisive man in the world. Seriously! I was standing in the store with a box and a credit card and three cashiers who were twiddling their thumbs and it was turning into a freakin' hostage situation. I threatened to leave, go home, order it on line with store pick up, but Tony wouldn't let me. 5. It's worth noting that in Pennsylvania, there is not a mandatory waiting period for the purchase of a handgun. I probably could have bought one of those with less fuss and paperwork than the computer buying experience seemed to require. And how is the new computer you ask? Well, I'm not excited about Windows 7 (things keep disappearing on me), the keyboard doesn't work at all (I'm using my old keyboard), and I don't like the way the drive opens vertically instead of horizontally. In spite of all that, the computer was a good deal, and the slim compact tower will will not be conducive to the cat sleeping on top of it which will probably a good thing. |
| In the end, I worked a full day. The school never got back to us about getting Zack in to take the tour, so there wasn't much point to skipping out on work no matter how tempting it might have been on a gorgeous Friday afternoon. I'm glad I didn't squander the time because Tony and I are looking at taking the kid's to an amusement park one day next week as a final summer blow out. We were debating whether to go to Dorney Park in Allentown, or whether to make the longer trip down to Hershey Park. It looks like Hershey Park is the front-runner since Zack has never been there. He's only recently become a fan of amusement parks and rides. They terrify him, but in a good way. I went shopping this evening and it turns out one of my preferred stores is closing. I'm not positive if they are closing for good, or if this is an inventory reduction thing while they move or renovate. In any case, I took advantage and bought a dress, a cardigan, and a pair of earrings for $30 and change. Can't really beat that even if I will need new shoes to wear with the dress. My daughter is out at a concert tonight. She went with the boyfriend and his parents. I'm basically blogging to keep myself awake while I wait up for her to return. It's nearly midnight, so I may be turning into a pumpkin soon. She has plans to be out late again tomorrow because the boyfriend's band is performing down at Crocodile Rock in Allentown. They've been getting pretty steady gigs and are playing more original stuff. This summer will probably always endure in Katie's memory as the summer of Forbidden Dreams. Now there's a writing prompt! The summer of forbidden dreams . . . It screams erotica.  Anyway the girl-child has been busy with band stuff all summer. Designing and selling band t-shirts, designing the cover art for their demo, and taking all kinds of photos and video for their website. She is very wrapped up in it, and in the larger world of music. She's home now, safe and sound, so I'm headed off to bed.  |
| Tomorrow I am going to take some time off work and get Zack over to the school so he can scope things out. He got a letter in the mail yesterday letting him know who his homeroom teacher is, and now he is overly anxious to know his entire schedule, his teachers, and most importantly, which period he'll have lunch. His First day will be on August 30th. In truth, Tony could take him over. I just want an excuse to take some time off work tomorrow. Not that it has been a bad week at work. I've been involved in a project, and I'm always at my best when I'm involved in a project. We are working to put together a handbook for staff. It has been a week long scavenger hunt trying to find and pull together all of the relevant information. I've had to write up a couple sections, but for the most part, the information is out there, it is just too scattered around to be easily accessed. The mandatory trainings for the job are spread across at least five different websites, and it is hard to remember which site has what info. Tonight, Tony told me he'd be home and he'd make dinner this evening. When I got home from work, I got out of my car, and was hit by this delicious smell. Someone was grilling. At that point, I really hoped I was smelling my dinner. I wasn't disappointed. Tony made salmon fillets grilled on a cedar plank. The plank was soaked overnight, but still managed to catch on fire just as Tony was taking the fish off. While the cedar plank got pretty charred, the salmon was perfection.  Oh! I almost forgot. Tony heard from his Navy recruiter today, and was told that the Board is scheduled to begin reviewing his packet on August 30th. They have started asking for various updated paperwork (a necessary evil given how long we've been at this), but they are saying the paperwork is not necessary for the Board, but is just to ensure their won't be any hold-ups with the commissioning. Everyone seems very positive, and yet so damn reluctant to be positive in light of what's already happened. Who the hell knows? |
| One final entry in the series of entries about stuff I don't know. I've made it to 100! Here is the final batch: 81. I don’t know how to access my bank account on-line. I hate to admit that, which is why probably why this didn’t come up until I hit the 80’s. Suddenly this is true confessions time. I pay some bills on-line, but I still write a lot of checks. 82. I don’t know what the bird is that sings “Cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheese,” in the morning (at least, that’s what it sounds like to me.) I don’t know bird calls at all with the exception of the cardinal. I learned to recognize the cardinal’s song when my daughter had to do a report in 3rd grade. It has three different calls. 83. I don’t know all three of the cardinal’s songs. I just realized I can only recall two of them. 84. Speaking of cardinals . . . I don’t know the Seven Cardinal Virtues . . . or the Seven Deadly Sins, but I’m pretty confident I can name the Seven Dwarfs. 85. I don’t know all 10 commandments. I guess I’m more of a Golden Rule kinda girl. 86. I don’t know why I keep socks that have lost their mates. I guess hope springs eternal. 87. I don’t how to use a gas range. I’ve never cooked in a kitchen that had one. 88. I also don’t know how to start the gas grill. 89. I don’t know where my overdue library book is, or how much I will owe in late fees by the time I find it. 90. I don’t know how to hold a grudge. 91. I don’t know how to pick up men. This is probably has worked to Tony’s advantage. 92. I don’t know how swim in a straight line while doing the backstroke. 93. I don’t know how to do the butterfly at all. 94. I don’t know how to turn a cartwheel. I’ve tried and tried, but I’ve never been able to do one. 95. I don’t know what “sophisticated counting” is. LOL! This is sad, but the next course I’m signed up to take is “Math for Liberal Art Majors.” I thought it would be less painful than College Algebra, but in the course description it says I will learn “sophisticated counting” and I can only guess what that is! 96. I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up. Did I say that already? I’m starting to lose track, but it’s true. I know at some point I’m going to have to find a new job, and I don’t have any idea what I want to do. I want to write, but I also want to earn a paycheck, and I don’t know how to make that happen or if I would even enjoy writing if my income hinged upon it. 97. I don’t know how to properly fold a flag. 98. I don’t know why I can’t just get angry without becoming “upset.” Life would be easier if I could just yell at someone and forego the tears. 99. I don’t know why I sort my M&M’s by color and always eat them in order of Brown, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, when they all taste exactly alike. 100. I don’t know if there has been a point to any of this . . . but like my mother always used to say, "at least it keeps me off the streets." So there it is, and if nothing else, I managed to make five blog entries I wouldn't have made otherwise. A lot of the knowledge gaps that came to mind are kitchen-centric because I've been trying once again to expand my cooking skills. Last night I made eggplant parmigiana for the first time ever, and it went pretty well. My daughter had requested the meal, so she was very willing to help. I asked her to peel the eggplant. She stood staring into the open fridge, "What does an eggplant look like?" "I already took it out. It's in the bag on the counter." "This purple thing?" she asked looking the eggplant over skeptically, "This looks nothing like an egg." It's hard to argue with that. Well, later in the evening I was talking with my Mom on the phone and I told her I'd made eggplant parm for dinner (mostly because I was feeling really positive about Katie eating a vegetable. Is it a vegetable?) and she told me she was really impressed with how much I'd learned about cooking in the past year. She told me that I didn't look awkward in the kitchen at all anymore. "I guess you just had to keep at it in order to learn." Well yeah, I guess that helps. I've been getting pushed aside in the kitchen all of my life because I was too slow and "just in the way." Tony still does that to me. He comes in and takes over because I "make things harder than they need to be." Hello! I'm learning! Anyway, after talking to my Mom, I told Tony what she had said. I was feeling pretty good about it and maybe I was mistakenly fishing for additional strokes from Tony. Instead, his response was, "Well that was nice of her to say." Yeah, that left me feeling a bit deflated. Tonight I tried a new recipe. Black bean and mango quesadillas. They were quite good, and I plan on making a chutney out of the leftover mango to go with grilled salmon tomorrow night. I've always been fascinated by people who know in the morning what they will be making for dinner. I usually don't think about dinner until I've been home from work for about 10 minutes and realize I don't have anything thawed to work with. This whole meal planning and cooking thing is a novelty. It makes me feel like a grown-up. |
| 71. I don't know whether using cut resistant gloves in the kitchen would save my fingers or whether they'd make me even more clumsy to where I'd drop the knife and sever a toe. 72. I don't know if anyone has considered cut resistant socks. 73. I don't know, and have never attempted to learn, any line-dance. Possibly this is another example of willful ignorance, but I'd rather not Chicken Dance on any account. 74. I don't know why the State of Pennsylvania won't let me buy a bottle of wine or a case of beer in a grocery store. 75. I don't know metric conversions. This may be an example of willful ignorance on a national level. 76. I don't know how many died from the flu last year. I saw on the news today that the H1N1 pandemic is official over. It has run its course. I believe they said 19,000 died worldwide from H1N1. How many people worldwide die from the flu in any given year? What percentage of the flu deaths last year were H1N1? 77. I don't know who will leave next at work. We've has a lot of turn over. Some resignations, two going out on extended medical leave, and one reservist who is leaving on a 9 month deployment. A lot of new characters have been joining the ever changing cast, and it doesn't seem like the dust has settled yet. 78. I don't know much about Bamboo tablets, but I know enough that I'm wondering if I should get my daughter one for Christmas. She is very creative/artistic. She draws a lot, and frequently scans her drawings onto the computer and then has to "clean them up." 79. I don't know what my daughter will ask for this Christmas aside from books . . . books are a given. 80. I don't know if I will be forgiven for mentioning the "C-word" in August. |
| This will be my third entry this week. I'm on fire here! I'm hoping to finish out the list of 100 things I don't know before I completely lose interest/motivation. alfred booth, wanbli ska  commented on my lack of lawn mowing know how, and I responded to him that it is, according to my husband, willful ignorance on my part. There are probably a lot of gaps in my knowledge that could be chalked up to "willful ignorance."61. I don't know why my daughter forms emotional attachments to her clothes. We're trying to take stock of clothing and such for back to school and get bedrooms neat and organized for a smooth start to the new year. I made the girl-child clean out her t-shirt drawer. It was painful. Every shirt is a memory. 62. I don't know how Tony, Zack and I will manage our mornings once school starts again and we're all trying to get out of the house at the same time three days/week. I imagine there will be a period of adjustment. 63. It's becoming very apparent that I don't know how to grow vegetables. 64. I don't know how to use a knife safely and efficiently in the kitchen. My efforts are awkward and the results are frequently bloody. 65. I don't know how to train my dog to do any of the clever tricks I think he's capable of doing. I'd like to teach him to retrieve the socks and other bits of laundry that I invariably drop on my way up or down the stairs. It would be very helpful and since he's right there shadowing my every move, it ought to be doable. 66. I don't know if I would like an electronic reader. I might be overly attached to the tactile experiences of reading. 67. I don't know how I could have forgotten to get chocolate when I was at the store earlier today. I forgot paper towels too, but that is a less immediate concern. 68. I don't know more than a few words in any language except English. 69. I don't know how to work with yeast. I make wonderful quick breads, but I can't manage anything that involves yeast or letting the dough rise. 70. I don't know what my dog is growling at. I guess I'd better go check on that last one. I may or may not finish this later. |
| I'm going to try adding to yesterdays list of stuff I don't know. Really, it isn't that hard to think of things I don't know. The hard part is coming up with a list of 100 things I don't know, am willing to admit I don't know, and are interesting enough to me that I've pondered the not knowing. Onward. 51. I don't know when I "lost" the birthmark on my right forearm. I didn't think birthmarks went away like that, but mine did. I liked that birthmark. It helped me learn my right from my left. 52. I don't know of a good and manageable recipe for eggplant parm, but I'd like to find one that my picky daughter will eat. She claims to have enjoyed eggplant parm at her boyfriends, and since her consumption of vegetables is negligible at best, I try not to miss any opportunities. Which reminds me . . . 53. I don't know why she didn't like the zucchini bread I made. I will have to find a better recipe and make it as muffins rather than bread for easier, portion controlled snacking. 54. I don't know why the baggers at the grocery store fill my resusable grocery bags so full that I strain to lift them, but will put only a few items in a plastic bag so they use 3x more of them than necessary. 55. I don't know how many times I have planned Tony's funeral in my head. "Tony should be home by now. He's really late. Maybe there's been an accident. I wonder what I'll wear for his services. I'll probably need new shoes. 56. I don't know if it is normal to be so morbid. 57. I don't know why I have so many power adapters, cords and chargers in my house. I found one the other day that I'm pretty sure used to belong to a baby monitor and my son is 11. Most of the time though, I have no idea what they go to, so I hang on to them "just in case." 58. I don't know which book to read next. I just finished Body Surfing by Anita Shreve this evening. It was okay. Quickly read and soon forgotten. I still have a stack of books from the library book sale. I think I need to read something by a male author next. Women start to annoy me after a while. 59. I don't know when the last time I went to a movie theater was, or what I saw. I'm afraid it may have been The Cat in the Hat <shudder> . . . which could explain why I haven't been back. 60. I don't know what the hell this thing is . . . ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** We found it at low tide on a trip to the beach several years ago, and I've been trying unsuccessfully to identify it ever since. Ten is sufficient for this evening. |
** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** I've been reading about learning and curiosity, and I came across an exercise that is intended to spark curiosity which fuels our desire to learn. It sounded good to me at the time, so I decided to give it a try. It's a simple exercise really, just make a list of 100 things you don't know. I doubt I'll make it through a list of 100 tonight. I'm more of a list of five kinda gal, but I might be able to manage several smaller lists that will ultimately add up to 100. That said, lets get this list started. 1. I don't know any magic tricks. I think I used to know one or two that only impressed very young children, but I don't know them anymore. 2. I don't know the correct words to "Margaritaville" as my husband likes to point out, but this doesn't keep me from singing along. 3. I don't know how to use a slide rule. I know it's a math thing though. 4. I don't know how to throw a baseball correctly. I throw like a girl. I wanted my Dad to teach me when I was about 10, but he told me "that's how girls are supposed to throw." 5. I don't know how to steer a canoe. Maybe I'd do better at kayaking. 6. I don't know anything about kayaking. 7. I don't know how to cut up a chicken. I buy mine in parts. 8. I don't know how to start a lawn mower or mow the grass. 9. I don't know where I keep getting into poison ivy. 10. I don't know how to fold fitted sheets like my mom. She folds them so neatly that you can't tell them from the flat sheets without unfolding them. 11. I don't know how to skip a stone on water. 12. I don't know what happened to the external drive for the computer. It has to be somewhere? 13. I also don't know where I put 2 of the 3 pairs of sunglasses I've bought this summer. 14. I don't know how people can still believe that the thimerosal in vaccines like the MMR is a direct cause of autism. 15. I don't know the atomic weight of any elements except hydrogen and helium. 16. I don't know why there were two guys in coordinating pink tank swimsuits and pink polka-dotted floaties jogging along the beach last week, but I'm guessing they lost a bet. 17. I don't know what I encountered in the ocean water that felt like someone coming up and resting a hand on my hip. There was no one around that I could see. Was it a hand or a toothless shark gumming me? 18. I don't know if my son packed swim trunks to take to Grandma's house. I hope he did. It's going to be hot tomorrow and he's going to want to go swimming. 19. I don't know if my hydrangeas are going to survive the hot dry weather we've been having. 20. I don't know how to write satisfying endings, but I've been reading a lot this year and I've decided that not many people do. 21. I don't know if Tony will ever serve in the military (still waiting). 22. I don't know how to perform CPR. 23. I don't know how to play any card game that involves trump cards. 24. I don't why my list is so heavy on the "don't know how" items. 25. I don't know where I want to live when Tony and I finally move. 26. I don't know if I should put my dog on Prozac to see if it helps him with his separation anxiety. 27. I don't know what happens after we die. 28. I don't know what movies Netflix will send me next. I think the kids were playing around with the queue. 29. I don't know why little people, and huge families mean big ratings on TV. 30. I don't know how to figure out square roots, and honestly, I'm not sure why it matters. 31. I don't know how to organize the digital photos I uploaded onto Picasa. Now, I really wish I'd organized them before I uploaded them. 32. I don't know why I didn't just load them on Flickr instead. 33. I don't know the pick up schedule for curb-side recycling. I really should find this out so I don't have to keep taking my stuff to the recycling center. 34. I don't know what to do with the insulin syringes we still have from our diabetic dog. How do you safely dispose of syringes? 35. I don't know why no one has invented a hand scrubber for the end of a garden hose so that you can wash the mud and dirt off your hand while holding the hose in the other hand. 36. Speaking of inventions, I don't know why someone hasn't marketed a one time use printer. Printers are so cheap compared to the ink, so why not just make a printer that you can exchange for a new one when it runs out of ink. 37. I don't know how to implement any of my ideas and actually make or invent anything. 38. I don't know how anyone could have abandoned a dog as sweet and wonderful as my Riley. 39. I don't know what woman I would vote for in a presidential election (but I know at least two I would vote against.) 40. I don't know what I would do if I hit the Powerball jackpot, or if the money would make me any happier overall, but I'd really like to put it to the test. 41. I don't know how to construct clothing from a sewing pattern. I don't know the terms or techniques. I still have illusions that if I had step by step instructions I could follow them, but the directions always seem to say something "lay out the pattern on the bias," and I'm helpless to follow them. 42. I don't know how to embroider, knit, or crochet. I tried to learn to crochet from my left-handed grandmother, but since I'm not left-handed myself, it didn't take. 43. I don't know why I found a pair of panties in the pocket of my daughter's shorts. My first thought was that she had to put her clothes back on in a hurry, and that was a very uncomfortable idea. Now I think she was wearing a swimsuit under her clothes and the panties were for after the swim, but then it rained and she didn't get to swim after all. 44. I don't know how much of #43 is wishful thinking on my part. 45. I don't know how I will manage if Tony does get into the military and ends up being deployed somewhere for months at a time. I'm sure I'd manage, It's just difficult to imagine. 46. I don't know what my children will remember about there childhoods 20 years from now. I often wonder what will stand out. I hope they remember the laughter, but somehow the strongest memories tend to be unpleasant. 47. I don't know what I've forgot about my own childhood. I wonder about the missing memories and the accuracy of what I think I do remember. 48. I don't know how to pitch a tent, clean a fish, or cook over a campfire. But, thanks to shows like Survivorman, I know that it's possible to start a fire using a soda can and some chocolate. 49. I don't know why the inspiration to write waxes and wanes the way it does. 50. I don't know what I'll write about if I do NaNoWriMo again this year. Alright, that's 50. I guess that's a solid start. So far I've even managed to avoid "I don't know if I'll be able to make it to 100," or "I don't really know what the point of this is." I'm not sure a list of what I don't know is really the thing to spark creativity. Maybe I'm going about this wrong, because this is starting to feel like a list of shortcomings. Maybe it would be more inspiring to write 100 "I wonder" items instead. Hmmmm . . . |
| Alright, I'm sure I'll adjust to the changes, but right away, I miss the links at the top of the page that took me right to the blog page and right to my blog. It took some wandering around to find my way here today. It was kind of fun checking things out though and really, "not all who wander are lost." Today is my sixteenth wedding anniversary. We exchanged cards and I gave my husband a pair of underwear. Captain America underwear! Remember Under-roos? These where like Under-roos for adults, but with out the matching undershirt. A stripped down version of Captain America . . . so to speak. He was amused. More importantly, I was amused. I've been in a romantic frame of mind lately, which comes in handy with the Anniversary and all. I thought about trying to write a romantic bit of poetry for my husband instead of buying a stock card. You think I should be able to do that, but nope. I simply can't write that sort of thing with out going all snarky around the edges and ruining the effect. I shoot for a sonnet and default to a limerick . . . and there not even funny. Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yes, I was talking about fictional romance which somehow seems more real than regular romance. I'm current reading The Time Traveler's Wife which is very romantic. I'm only about halfway through and all I can think is how odd it would be to have all the memories of time spent together without them being shared memories. Shared memories are such a huge part of what ties two people together. It's not even the memories really, it is having that common perspective a shared frame of reference for making sense of the world . . . together. The last book I read was The Mammoth Cheese and it was surprisingly romantic for a book about cheese. There was a passage about President Thomas Jefferson and his love for his wife. When she was on her dying, she copied part of a line from her husbands favorite book. When Jefferson found the unfinished passage, he wrote out the rest of it. After his wife dies, he has all of her belongings burned, but "he kept that one sentence he had finished for her, to remind himself that he and his love had once been the beginning and end of a single thought." For years Tony and I have had a running joke about our "shared thought for the day," because a day rarely passes without Tony and I discovering that we are both thinking the same think at a particular moment. We'll hear a song on the radio and both call up the same memory, or I'll bend over to pull a dandelion from the garden and we'll both smile remembering the time he teased me over the health and abundance of my dandelions. He suggested I should be harvesting rather than weeding them, but I pointed out that it was too late because they'd already turned bitter. My daughter was very young at the time and thoughtfully asked us "What do you think they are bitter about?" It took us awhile to get to where we are, and most of the time, we hadn't a clue where we were headed, but we were young and stupid and didn't know enough about life to guard our emotions or wonder whether we should trust each other. In many ways, Tony and I grew up together. Each of us was clumsy with the other's feelings. At times we still are. Not the stuff of great romance, but I'll take it. Captain America undies and all. |
| I have a lot of loose change floating around in my head tonight. I'm not sure if it adds up to anything or not, but I'm just going to start typing and see what we come up with. From time to time, things happen at work that kind of tug at me in a quiet by insistent kind of way. Most of you know I work in a program that serves folks with intellectual disabilities. I'm a program manager, and most of my work anymore is administrative and behind the scenes, but every now and then, an actual human being manages to slip through the tangle of bureaucracy and stumble upon my name in the quest for compassion. Lately I've had several calls from the concerned siblings of brothers or sisters living in group homes in another state. Parents retire and move south with the adult children they have always cared for, but they get older and frailer until they are no longer able to provide care. The family members get placed in group homes and the parents pass on leaving Jr. at the mercy of strangers. So Jr.'s brother or sister talks to me to see about getting Jr. transferred from the group home in North Carolina or Virgina to a group home in Pennsylvania. In some cases, the stories involve neglect or mistreatment leaving the family feeling helpless and frustrated when they are several states away. I do have compassion . . . for whatever it's worth. I very compassionately draw a picture of all the ways in which the system is going to fail them while patiently answering questions. Forget about "Who, what, when, where." They want to know "How," and when all I can do is shake my head apologetically, they want to know "Why?" I can explain in great detail about Federal Medicaid dollars. In order to receive the Federal dollars, the States must contribute matching funds which are determined by an elaborate calculation. Ignore for a minute our current reality in which the "State" dollars are really Federal dollars funneled into the state treasury as "stimulus money," and you can well imagine that states are pretty possessive of these "blended" funding streams. There is no mechanism to transfer services from state to state because the money doesn't cross state lines. That is the blunt reality and no amount of compassion can make it suck any less. I can explain how the system operates, but there is never a satisfactory answer to "Why?" |
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