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Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/books.php/item_id/1563486-A-Quiet-Kind-of-Chaos/sort_by/entry_order DESC, entry_creation_time DESC/sort_by_last/entry_order DESC, entry_creation_time DESC/page/6
Rated: GC · Book · Personal · #1563486
Chaos is that voice at the end of the day that says, "Bet you didn't see that coming."
** 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

Previous ... 2 3 4 5 -6- 7 8 9 10 11 ... Next
July 25, 2010 at 11:04pm
July 25, 2010 at 11:04pm
#702311
Well, that was a success. My efforts to iterate all the benefits of blogging paid off. I was finally able to persuade my mother to start a blog over on Open Salon. She plans on blogging about her adventures in online dating. She's been dating a couple months now and has pretty much decided that there are good reasons why many of these guys are single. *Laugh*

Some of the stories she has shared with me are hysterically funny. Of course, the second entry she wrote disappeared into cyberspace when she tried to post it. If I had a nickel for every time that's happened to me! *Rolleyes*
July 23, 2010 at 10:53pm
July 23, 2010 at 10:53pm
#702196
I have a mantra at work. In truth, I have several, but for purposes of this discussion will stick to the one resulting in the most frequent eye rolling. "If it's not documented, it didn't happen." I really don't care how many dead relative's graves your willing to swear an oath upon, if you don't have a case note that says you informed Mary of her right to due process, then you get no credit for having done so. No benefit of the doubt. If it's not documented, it didn't happen.

I was mulling over the nuances of my mantra today while reading chapters four and five of my textbook - which, ironically covered the topics of attention and focus - and I started to contemplate it in terms of this blog. There haven't been many blue days on that little calendar to the left, and I haven't been writing elsewhere. By not writing, I've, in essence, written off weeks at a time. I wonder what I've missed. *Laugh*

There are some things that I don't want to document out of wishful thinking. If it's not documented it didn't happen. And just like that I can stick my head in the sand with ostrich like enthusiasm and continue to intone that mantra in defiant denial of the troubling, unseemly aspects of life.

But there are good reasons for recording and documenting the ups and downs of life such as:

1. For one, as bad as things may seem, they'll probably get worse, and when they do, it might be nice to look back and remember the good old days.

2. Life is all about learning, and we learn more from our mistakes than our successes. By documenting the struggles, I can produce a record that may, one day, yield answers. I might be able to look back over past entries and seize upon the exact moment when it all when to hell.

3. It's all grist for mill. Painful experiences are often the most humorous . . . in retrospect.

4. Writing is therapeutic because you are in control of how the events unfold and details reveal themselves. It is like realizing in the midst of a nightmare that you are merely dreaming and can spin the situation into something altogether less terrifying.

And last, but definitely not least . . .

5. In recording the ups and downs in my blog, I'm sharing them with an audience and forming connections with others who may offer insight, commiserate or help me find some levity in the situation.

These are all good things. And all I have to do is show up.
July 18, 2010 at 10:09pm
July 18, 2010 at 10:09pm
#701841
Last night Tony and I watched the movie "Hamlet 2." My title today is borrowed from the opening of Act III. Tony and I both laughed hysterically over it. I'm not sure though if hope is a demon bitch or if hope has made us its bitches. *Laugh*

If either case, this waiting and hoping routine is getting old. He is under-review by the Navy board with a projected decision coming mid August. The Army is currently reviewing whether he's internship qualifies him to even be considered by their review board. Tony's working with both branches, but Navy was his first choice, and they look most likely to come through for him at this point.

In lieu of a meaningful entry (as I seem incapable of such things as of late) I give you this list of 5 things that happened this week.

1. I went shopping for swimsuits twice and have nothing to show for it aside from an aversion to shopping again any time soon. I only own one swimsuit and I will be going to the beach in two weeks. *Shock*

2. I managed to convince my son to read a book. He will probably finish it tonight. He's a reluctant reader, so I'm pretty pleased with this.

3. I finally got the family-wamily to eat something that I grew in my garden! It wasn't a vegetable, I'll admit, but it was still homegrown. I had the kids help me harvest poppy seeds and we made poppy seed muffins. The kids seemed to really enjoy both the ends and the means.

4. Lulu the hamster passed away, and was buried under a rose bush. Poor Lulu. Apparently it is a well known fact (to everyone but me) that rodents don't lay down in the open to die. They crawl into tight little spaces for the occasion. Lulu chose to draw her final breath in the curve of a plastic tunnel. So imagine if you will, rodent-phobic Kay trying to be all stoic about removing the dead hamster only to find it very much stuck. I managed to remove the appropriate section of the tunnel. Her little pink rodent feet were right there at the end peeking out at me. <Shudder> I had to get her out, but touching her wasn't an option so I tried to gently shake her out of the tunnel. When that didn't work, I tried to forcefully shake her out - while muttering obscenities under my breath. It wasn't pretty. Tony intervened and removed the hamster through means I don't care to question and laid her out in a small box for a private viewing. Zack said his final goodbyes. The jury is still out on whether there will be a Lulu part deux.

5. I started reading The Mammoth Cheese by Sheri Holman. Last month they had the annual "Friends of the Library" book sale, and I bought several bags that I'm working my way through. The Mammoth Cheese doesn't have a description on the cover, and I wasn't familiar with the author, but the title amused me and at $2 a bag, it doesn't take much more than that. Anyway, it's been a good read so far.
July 14, 2010 at 8:11pm
July 14, 2010 at 8:11pm
#701531
I'm now settled into my new office at work. It has been a month of changes. New staff, new responsibilities, a new office. Things have been shifting and rearranging in a good way, and will probably continue shifting around some with a fresh wave of turn-over in the office. It's not a bad thing. Newness has be fresh and inspiring and we all need to be inspired now and then.

And my office has a window now. *Bigsmile*

About a week after I moved into my new office, something weird happened. We have a fleet of 20 agency cars (give or take) and one morning we found one of the Gray Ford Taurus up on blocks. During the night, someone had stolen all four tires off the car and left it up on cinder blocks parked directly across from my window.

All the while I was hoping for a window, I never considered the possibility that I'd have a view of a crime scene. It was bizarre.

It took a week for the insurance adjuster to make it out, and the car couldn't be moved during that time. There it sat . . . up on blocks. It wasn't long before someone decided to add to the vignette with some of those removable bullet hole decals.

Today, they finally got tires back on the car. All twenty cars are now sporting special locking lug nuts to prevent any future incidents. So, my view has been restored, and I'm happy for that, but I have this nagging feeling that I may have lost some street cred. in the process. *Laugh*
June 8, 2010 at 9:22pm
June 8, 2010 at 9:22pm
#698593
is the fact that things keep changing.

I guess the sense of inertia I've been feeling is an illusion because things are changing constantly all around me. I've just been too absorbed in my own to notice. Thought I'd bust out of that rut for a little and post an update. Hell, I'm getting really wild because I even updated my Facebook profile and I never do that! Tonight is a rarity though. I've been home all evening alone in my own house. <blissful sigh>

I was going to hold out and not update my blog again until I had some news to report on the Tony/military front, but I simply got tired of waiting. No news is no news, but life goes on.

This year I finally managed to pull off the much discussed but never accomplished vegetable garden. I have tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, zucchini, leeks, onions, beans, lettuce (which I've been enjoying for weeks), chard, spinach, cilantro, and basil up and growing. The carrots haven't really sprouted yet, but I remain optimistic. I bought a watermelon seedling, but I haven't planted it just yet. I'd better get it in the ground soon though because it is the only thing my daughter is looking forward too from my garden.

My daughter has become quite the roadie for her boyfriend's band. The call themselves "Forbidden Dreams," and they just had there first paying gig on Sunday. It went very well, and they've been asked to come back and headline in August.

Speak of the devils . . . the family wamily has returned, so I will cut this short. *Bigsmile*
May 18, 2010 at 10:48pm
May 18, 2010 at 10:48pm
#696653
Today was election day. When I pulled into the parking lot at the municipal building, I noticed the absence of campaign volunteers staking out the buildings entrance. Usually, you have to walk the gauntlet of chatty, button-wearing, flier pushing, last minute campaign workers, but today there wasn't a soul outside the polling place in spite of the rain letting up at the end of an all-day soaker.

I walked into the voting room surprisingly unmolested, and a handful of very bored looking octogenarian poll workers immediately perked up.

"We've got an actual voter here!"

So, in spite of CNN's devout attention to the Specter vs. Sestak match up in today's primary, there wasn't much excitement in the air here in Pennsylvania. Instead, what we had in spades was voter apathy.

Still, I'm glad I never changed my voter registration over to Independent because today, I took part in making history. We probably broke the record here for lowest ever voter turn out.
May 17, 2010 at 10:32pm
May 17, 2010 at 10:32pm
#696553
Well, when it comes to biopsy results, no news is good news.
In all other instances, it is just damn irritating!

I'm still caught up in my spring garden delusions. The ones in which I tell myself that this year will be different. This year I will get it all done. This year I'll control the weeds and the insects and the weather and everything will come together. I recognize these delusions, but I enjoy them and they motivate me until reality and the subsequent despair set in.

I had the day off work today, and attended the Zack's annual IEP (Individualized Education Plan) Meeting at the school. He has had a great year, and having this meeting at the tail end of it is kind of stupid, but that's when it's due, so we meet. Since I'm happy with the current supports, it turned into a session of telling cute stories about the boy.

Zack is special child, and I feel lucky to have him for a son. There isn't a hint of malice in him. He is willing and eager to please others and he brings an infectious sort of enthusiasm to daily routines, because there is nothing he loves more than daily routines!

The teachers at the meeting all expressed a very genuine affection for Zack, and it was really great to see that, and to hear their anecdotes. And I'm feeling optimistic about the coming school year for the first time ever. *Bigsmile*

May 13, 2010 at 11:41pm
May 13, 2010 at 11:41pm
#696101
My mother-in-law had given me a gift card, so I decided to go shopping for some summer clothes in the hopes that it will get warm again and I might be able to wear them. I was checking out the sales racks and found a pretty lace-trimmed camisole top on clearance. It was my size, and it was marked WAY down, so I snatched it up.

I found a few other things also, and then made my way to a register. The cashier ringing me up had a sour look on her face from the start. I was shopping late-ish, and she'd probably already counted out her drawer in hopes that she'd seen her last customer of the evening. I smiled, and tried to be pleasant in response, but when she got to the pretty, lace trimmed camisole, she turned almost hostile.

She scanned the tag and frowned at the computer screen.

"Where did you get this?" she demanded.

I motioned absently at a cluster of sales racks nearby while I dug through my purse for the gift card.

"This was supposed to go to Haiti."

"Excuse me? Haiti?"

"It's from last year," she said with an exasperated sigh, "All the leftover clearance stock from last summer was supposed to be sent to Haiti as part of the relief effort." She shot me a how-do-you-live-with-yourself look as if she'd personally watched me wrestle the camisole out of the hands of a desperately needy Haitian.

Yes, there was definitely something accusing in her tone, as if I'd deliberately and single-handedly undermined the entire relief operation and beggared a nation in the process.

I felt a reality check was in order.

I wanted to yell at her. "They had an earthquake They need food, water, shelter, medical care . . . and you're sending them camisoles? Last years camisoles?"

But I didn't. I took my bag and left the bitch to close up for the night in peace . . . secure in her righteousness.
Because who knows how things are really interconnected in this world. Or, what may befall the people of Haiti next . . .
All for the want of a lacy camisole.
May 12, 2010 at 11:56pm
May 12, 2010 at 11:56pm
#696004
Today was my daughter's 15th birthday.

She's still a good kid. She was excited that I got her Catcher in the Rye. She also got a t-shirt that says "So far this is the oldest I've ever been." We got her a new cell phone too and a bunch of other books for summer reading (nearly 14 used books), but most of them haven't arrived yet (media mail *Rolleyes*). In spite of the teenage-y pulling away and growing up, she and I still connect over books.

She's a good kid, and I'm grateful for that.

I had other stuff I was going to say, but as soon as I opened the blog entry box, I started losing the train of my thought. I'm really out of practice!

They are interviewing this week for two new management level positions in my department. Every other person I know seems to have applied, and they've all been trying to pump me for any info, opinions, or speculation I might have. I can't wait til it's all settled again.

But things are just destined to stay unsettled for awhile. We are on day 8 of the 7-10 day window that the Army Review Board has to make a determination on whether Tony will be commissioned. And, I had a biopsy on Friday. I'm waiting for the test results to tell me whether the troublesome sore on my leg that just wouldn't heal up, or go away, is actually skin cancer.

So there you are. I hope I'll actually have some news for my next entry.
April 14, 2010 at 8:56pm
April 14, 2010 at 8:56pm
#693205
Why?

Why do I wait until the last minute to file my taxes when I know I'm probably going to get a return?

The deed is now done, so I guess technically I didn't wait til the very last minute. I just finished e-filing the federal and the state returns. I mailed out the locals earlier today. I've also decided that next years taxes are going to be prepared by a professional because they are going to be much more complicated and I'm pretty much at my limit now.


Why does my daughter start so many of her deep thought conversations with "Do you know what I just realized while I was in the bathroom?"


Why is it such a difficult and lengthy process for a person to join the military during a time of war? - in a "critical need" specialty no less! We are no closer to Tony getting into the Army, and no one seems to know why or what to do about it. Things are just stalling out.


Finally, the new dog has me feeling a lot like a new parent all over again. I'm still trying to work out the how, where and when of uninterrupted sleep and sex. Riley is a restless sleeper who thinks he belongs on the bed nestled between us. *Rolleyes*

That's all I've got.


April 5, 2010 at 8:18pm
April 5, 2010 at 8:18pm
#692392
Today we took the dog to the veterinarian. He was scanned for a microchip as the formal last step in our "locate the owner" process. He did not have one, so in the absence of any tags, chips, or leads (after 10 days), we have declared him our own. We sealed the deal with a round of shots, blood work, a general check up, and to make it official, a dog license.

No major medical issues were noted, but he does have infections in both ears and a nail that is split and damaged to where it can't be clipped. The vet says Riley is approximately 2 years old and most likely a Border Collie, Japanese Spitz mix, but with a better disposition than typically seen in either breed.

The people I work with are now planning a Dog Shower/Adoption Party for our lunch hour on Friday. Riley, of course, is invited to come as the guest of honor and I was asked to make a list of any doggy necessities we may need. I work with some wonderful people. Someone is even baking a cake for the occasion.

The Easter holiday was lovely. Beautiful weather with highs in the 70s and lots of sunshine. The whole family got together at Mom's, and it was kind of strange to consider that if everything goes as she hopes and my mother is able to get her house listed and sold this summer, it may be our last holiday gathering at that house. I don't know how quickly my mother will get the house listed though. She has a seemingly endless list of chores that need attention before she will allow the house to be shown. I'm not sure why painting the inside of the garage is so high up on her list, but then I don't spend as much time watching HGTV as she does. *Bigsmile*
April 2, 2010 at 11:25pm
April 2, 2010 at 11:25pm
#692123
It was a perfect spring day, and because of the holiday, I was free to milk every bit of enjoyment that I could from it. Tony and I took the dog to nearby park for a walk along the creek this morning. Later, I worked on cleaning out flower beds while Tony washed cars. Riley was pretty content to lay on the picnic table under a tree where he could keep an eye on both sets of activity.

I still haven't started my taxes, but I figure it's April and eventually it is going to rain.

For today, I focused instead on outdoor projects, and there are way too many of those. I have decided to scale back my flower gardening ambitions to something I can manage and hopefully enjoy once again.

April 1, 2010 at 11:49pm
April 1, 2010 at 11:49pm
#692027
I feel like I spent the month of March on a non-drug-induced trip down the rabbit hole.
But I still have hope for April.

My life has been a series of non-events. Tony not getting a job. Tony not hearing back from the Army for weeks on end. Kay not getting around to doing her taxes. Kay not planting a spring vegetable garden (should have had the lettuce in two weeks ago!).

Such is life.

Then, in the midst of all the non-eventfulness, something happened.

Last Saturday, I got a call from my friend Denise. Let me correct that. Tony got a call from my friend Denise because he is the sucker in the family. Denise had rescued a dog, and she wanted us to take it off her hands since she lives in an apartment with 6 cats. She wanted to bring the dog over for us to meet him because she was sure we would fall in love and give the dog a home.

The problem with this was threefold. First, I didn't want a dog. Second, the dog probably already had a home (he was wearing a collar, but had no tags). Third, of course my family would fall in love with him and I'd end up either saddled with a dog, or saddled with a inconsolable family when the owner surfaced.

Now, Denise volunteers at the animal shelter, but she didn't want to take the dog there because he was just such a sweet, wonderful dog that she couldn't imagine him alone and in a cage. I told her I'd think about it, and she sent me a picture to help sink the hooks in. He's pretty irresistible.

I was, and to some extent, I still am convinced that this was a well cared for dog, and somewhere he has an owner who is missing him. The thing about Denise though is that she has a big heart when it comes to animals, but when it comes to people she usually believes the worst. She found this dog when she saw him 'almost' get hit by a car. She wasn't to eager to see the dog reunited with people who had allowed that to happen.

We reached an agreement that she'd keep the dog through the weekend, and bring him to work on Monday morning. I would bring him home from there and we would foster him until we found his owners.

Bringing him into the office was a ploy because I know I work in an office of dog lover's and his picture was taken on at least a dozen cell phones and circulated out from there. Word of mouth and all that. I remained very sincere about wanting to get the dog back to his owner up until about Tuesday evening. That's how long it took me to fall head over heels in love with the little guy.

I don't want to steal anyone's dog, and I can imagine the heartache of losing a pet all too well. I'm still trying to locate his home, but with each day I'm a little more hopeful that we might have a new dog. It is possible that he is one of many pets that are being abandoned as families lose their homes or are forced to move.

In any case, we are enjoying our time with this very loving dog that we have taken to calling Riley. He will have a safe home with us for however long he needs it.

** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only **

My daughter put the bandanna on him. She's 14 and feels the need to "decorate" everything, and the dog is remarkably tolerant.

I should add that the cats are displease. The hamster, however, remains neutral.
March 18, 2010 at 11:21pm
March 18, 2010 at 11:21pm
#690669
It was a gorgeous day here. Warm, sunny perfection. My crocus are blooming and Tony and I played the first badminton game of the season. It might not officially be spring yet, but I take what I can get. Even our intern commented that I had a "nice spring" in my step today. Let's here it for spring! *Bigsmile*

I called my mother this evening to wish her a happy birthday, and was caught a bit off guard when she told me she plans to contact a realtor and put her house on the market this spring. She says she is ready to downsize. I guess she's been talking about downsizing for awhile, but had always said that she wanted to wait until the housing market rebounded a little. She isn't all that confident that the house will sell, and she isn't in a particular rush, but I think she's feeling good about the decision to move on with her life.

Spring is all about hope, renewal and brave new beginnings.
March 18, 2010 at 12:02am
March 18, 2010 at 12:02am
#690580
The chaos has been a lot less quiet lately, but I keep hanging in. I made someone cry at work today. I don't think it was my fault though. I think she was already on the brink. Still, it made me thankful that I don't work in the Post Office. *Smile*

Since it is Saint Patrick's Day and folks seem to be a festive spirit, I thought I'd share something the boy-child came up with, so here it is . . .

Zack's Ultimate Party Guide:


Cherry punch with a hint of raspberry.

Pinata rounds

Balloons

Cookies

Cake

Cartoons

Action (He did not specify the actions, so feel free to improvise. After all, it's not really a party unless someone is getting some action)

Build the donkey (Apparently it isn't enough of a challenge to just get the tail in the right spot)

Brain game *Confused*

All you can Eat Buffet

Movies and Popcorn

Jell-O (Could be Jell-O shots or Jell-O wrestling. He was vague about this leaving the door open to any and all Jell-O related activities.)

Dancing Rounds

Music

Video Games

Running into each other

Make up diseases *Laugh*

Chips and Dip (Don't double dip or you might spread the aforementioned diseases)

Make maps

Kicks to the finish (I was imagining a chorus line, but as Zack explained it, "this is when we all start kicking each other and the last one standing wins.")


Go ahead and feel free to use any of these suggestions for your next get together. I'm sure your guests will appreciate the effort.

In other news, I finally plugged in the flash-drive where I saved my novel, and I worked on chapter one a bit. Just for the hell of it, I posted it in my port. It makes me feel like I've done something productive anyway.



March 13, 2010 at 4:40pm
March 13, 2010 at 4:40pm
#690178
Don't know how best to explain my absence. Down and out? Under the weather? I guess it's been a combination of the two. Just a complete shut down, really. By Wednesday I was running on fumes. By Thursday I didn't have enough of those to keep me going. I crashed hard. It took two days to get my feet back under me. This morning I was up around 6 AM, and had run two loads of laundry, cleaned and swept the kitchen and was making pancakes by the time the kids rolled out of bed at 9.

Okay, so I still haven't left the house since I got home from work on Wednesday, but it is a miserable, rainy day out there, so can ya blame me?
February 27, 2010 at 12:29pm
February 27, 2010 at 12:29pm
#688805
We survived the snow hurricane without any loss of power. A lot of snow fell in the higher elevations, but down in the Burg where I live, we didn't have a big accumulation. That said, it snowed for a good 36 hours, and with the wind whipping it around, it made for a significant storm. My office was closed Thursday and Friday, and I'm starting to feel a bit out of sorts and out of my routine.

Tony wants to go to NYC tomorrow to attend a class in a Russian martial arts. My general rule of thumb for him is that he can be gone all day on Saturday, or all day on Sunday, but not both days. He thought I'd be okay with it this weekend though since we just spent two days snowed in together. I think I insulted him by explaining that it had nothing to do with togetherness. This is what he doesn't get. If he is off doing his own thing than I can't do my own thing. After spending two days with my dear family-wamily, I have a strong urge to run away from home, but I can't indulge that if he isn't around for the kids.

Besides, I cringe at the idea of him branching in to yet another martial art, but he is looking for a new challenge. I had a nice stock of library books before the snow hit, so I'd been making steady progress through them until I started reading A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley. The book is set in Iowa, a midst the pig farms and corn fields of my birth state. And suddenly there are all these uncomfortable parallels to my life and the people in it. I'm determined to finish the book, but my mind keeps squirming away from it.

I read for pleasure and entertainment, so the uncomfortableness evoked by this book is something I usually try to avoid. I think I have dedicated a pretty significant portion of my mind to the task of avoiding and filtering out unpleasantness. It doesn't always work to my advantage.

Much of my recent reading seems to be sparking a renewed interest in writing. I've been mentally working through some of the plot holes in my old Nano novel Secondary Gains. Unlike many of the writers on this site who have an abundance of projects in various states of completion, I have just the one, but it keeps evolving and sucking me back in. So far I've resisted the urge to do anything more than think about it because that would require some re-prioritizing of my free-time, and for now I need to stay the course. If I start trying to write now, I'm afraid I'll become very resentful of all the time Tony has available to him in his current jobless state.

See how good I am at steering myself away from unpleasantness?
February 25, 2010 at 7:57pm
February 25, 2010 at 7:57pm
#688671
Why don't I wear my wedding band?

A couple years ago, I had terrible poison ivy on my hands. For months on end I had patches of the rash on my hands, and it took months and a couple courses of prednisone to clear it up. That was the summer I stopped wearing my wedding band. I simply never got back to wearing it. Tony can't really complain that I don't wear mine since he lost his last summer. Anyway, I haven't put the ring back on and probably won't.

It isn't generally an issue. There is a reason I took the interns lunch invite at face value. I had only met him in passing for a very brief introduction, and in truth, I tend to be an acquired taste. *Laugh*

Anyway . . .

My office was closed today. The kids were off school yesterday and today. The call just came in closing them again tomorrow. We are in the midst of a snowstorm that is set to intensify overnight. They are calling it a snow hurricane because it is looping back on itself and organizing itself in a very atypical way. Tonight they predict winds may reach 50 mph which is hardly hurricane force. So maybe this is just a snow tropical storm. In any case, white out conditions and wide spread power outages are still a possibility, but it looks like once again, the threat has been overstated and we'll get less than forecasted.

With any luck though, I'll at least have a snow delay again in the morning. *Smile*
February 19, 2010 at 11:23pm
February 19, 2010 at 11:23pm
#688046
A strange thing happened at work today, and I completely misread the situation. Okay, misreading the situation wasn't the strange thing. That's actually par for the course. As I've mentioned before, I work in a predominantly female environment, but it so happens that we have a new male intern. I met him for the first time about a week ago, when we were formally introduced, but I can't remember his name, and other than polite acknowledgments I haven't had any real interaction with him since then.

Today, he stopped me in the hall around lunchtime and said "If you don't get a chance to run out today, you should stop by the lunch room. I picked up a pizza for lunch in case your interested."

I smiled and thanked him for the offer. Well I've been craving pizza for two days, and for two days I hadn't been able to get out of the office at lunch time, so if it had been yesterday, I would have jumped at the offer.

But today, I didn't plan on taking him up on it because I was about to head home for lunch. Before I could get out of the office though, I ran into my friend Emma. She commented on how fortunate I am to live close enough so that I can run home, and bitched that she didn't have anything for lunch and wasn't going to make it out of the office.

I told her the new intern had pizza up for grabs in the lunch room, and she wandered off to investigate.

When I got back from lunch, Emma was standing outside enjoying the relative warmth of the lovely day we were having. She told me that the Intern really hadn't meant to put the pizza up for grabs.

oh. I guess I misunderstood.

So maybe I misread the situation. Or maybe I'm reading too much into it now.
But maybe I should get back in the habit of wearing my wedding band. *Blush*

February 18, 2010 at 10:50pm
February 18, 2010 at 10:50pm
#687938
It is official.

The girl-child is a nerd, and I'm very proud.

She is working on a research project for history and she chose to focus on 19th century American literature. At lunch in the cafeteria she was explaining to her boyfriend that she was going to need to find some additional source material on Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Why? Well, as she explained it to the boyfriend, "You can't talk about 19th century American literature with out talking about Transcendentalism, and when you think of American Transcendentalism who do you think of?"

This left him speechless.

Well, not really. He called her a nerd for that, but I'm sure he said it with great affection.

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