Does "bah humbug" apply for Halloween?

Argh. In theory, I don't have any problem with Halloween. Heck, I'm all for the integration of pagen rituals into this increasingly fundamentalist society. It's the execution that I struggle with. As I sit here typing this, all I can hear is kids screaming their bloody heads off running all over the place, ringing the doorbell more times than is necessary. I like the nice, well-behaved kids who walk up to doors, say "Trick or Treat" (please, at least pretend people!), and then say "Thank you." I'm also very discriminating with the candy. Good costumes, good manners, and parents close by get more candy than sullen teenagers in "hobo" clothes or out of control kids screaming, pushing, and running everywhere. You might say I'm a bit of a Candy Nazi when it comes to door duty. Which explains, of course, why I'm so willing to hand over the duty to others.

Another thing. When I was a kid, someone in our group usually knew someone at the house - or they knew our parents. What I'm trying to say is that there was at least some sense of neighborhood connection (well, until I turned into one of those punk adolescents). I don't know any of the parents of any of these kids at all.

Agh! I'm getting so old! Get off my lawn. Damn kids don't know how easy they have it these days. When I was a kid we had to walk uphill to Trick or Treat in 3 feet of snow and got apples and pennies and were happy for it!

The good, the bad, and the very ugly

I don't know whether to be sad that the weekend is over or happy that October is flying by, because this month has just been unbelievable with its ups and downs.

Whenever anyone tells me that there is good and bad news, I always ask for the bad news first, because I figure that the good news will soften the blow of the bad. So that's how I'll present the weekend.

The very ugly:

DH went through absolute hell the last three days in FL. From being dicked around by his company over a mere $1500 for the broken lease (grrr), to being dicked around by people purporting to be be interested in buying my bike (grrrrr), to having the woman who was bringing over the agreement to break the terms of the lease show up a half-hour late, which had a domino effect such that DH missed his flight home. That's right - he's packed and ready to go and shows up at the airport 15 minutes before the flight took off (nevermind that the USAir website said the flight would be leaving 25 minutes late; naturally the flight left on time) - and then he's told that he's too late, and he'll have to wait for a flight two and one half hours later, that took 2x as long to make the trip because it connected in Charlotte. I thought DH was going to lose it when he called me to tell me that he missed the flight. It was just the capstone to the whole return from Florida experience. Needless to say, if they ever get in touch with him asking him to come back or whatnot, I have no doubt what DH's reply will be.

The bad:

I just found out tonight that my grandfather has had a melanoma identified (the same kind of cancer that took my mother's life) and is going to the hospital for the third time to have additional stuff removed to be sure that it has all been cut out. I was kind of surprised that my gramma didn't tell me 3 weeks ago when they first found it, but she said that my grandfather didn't want her to tell anyone. My gramma had called a few weeks ago, asking for my SSN to make sure that their beneficiary stuff was all in order, but when you're 80+ I figured that's just the normal course of things. Luckily, it does sound like, from the results of a bunch of scans and whatnot, that the cancer hasn't spread. Plus, his sister - ten years older than he - had lung cancer when she was 85, went through chemo and radio and the whole kit and kaboodle, and is still around.

The good:

Compared to all the other stuff, it isn't going to sound like much, but I did finish painting the trim in the dining room this weekend. Considering that it has been 2 years since we put down the hardwood floors and repainted both the den and the dining room walls, having finally finished most of that room (still have to paint a little of the door jam and touch up a few spots where the tape pulled the paint of the wall) is a pretty major victory. I wonder how long it will be before I get to the den's trim. Also, we bought two big pretty tropical palm-type plants for that room, which look pretty neat in there.

No kitchen work this week, since we are waiting for the countertop to be installed on the island. It's getting too close for comfort to Thanksgiving.

Ugh. I have had so enough of this

What a long friggin' day. What a long friggin' week. What a long friggin' month. I'm just so tired of it all.

Work: Driving me batshit crazy. This has been a bad month at work (albiet not as bad as some I know, but bad in its own relative sense). I really am starting to hate going in every day, the work itself is just blah. At some point I have to buckle down and start a job search. I really wanted to try and stick it out 3 years, and I still want to try and make it through 2... but I won't know if something better is out there unless I try and find it. I took the 730 train home tonight - the last train - and it is not a pretty sight. Nevermind that I have a bunch of work to do this weekend, whereas if we'd been able to focus a little more clearly on the obvious solution about 3 weeks ago we wouldn't be working over the weekend.

DH: They never connected with him about his counteroffer (calling him twice on an old number, apparently), the guy who holds the lease on the condo is being a super-douche (although, frankly, can't say I blame him. The rental market down there really sucks), and everyone down there just seems so... dumb. No other way to say it. Happily, he'll be home tomorrow, but the amount of drama that we've gone through in the last 3 weeks for this deal has really put a black mark on the whole experience. Sadly.

Kitchen: I'm at my wits end making the last few decisions. I can't find a faucet I like for the island. I can't figure out what I want as a backsplash. I have to pick a paint color at some point. This thing is not going to be finished-finished for T-giving, I just know it. Argh. It's been over two months, and I'm just over it!

Kitties are begging for food; I should probably go and feed them. I need a large drink. Unfortunately, with the kitchen stuff scattered all over the house, I don't think that I could find any drinkin' stuff even if I tried.

I hereby declare October the crankiest month ever! Thank goodness it's over on Wednesday.

Progress!

So many things happening, so little time in which to absorb them all!

Issue 1: The Kitchen

After work stopped for nearly 6 weeks because of the cabinet-in-the-island drama, it resumed today, with noticible, if minimal, progress. The island has been constructed, although it has no countertop, sink, etc. The chandelier over the table has been installed, and most of the cabinets and drawers have pulls! Evidence:


The Island


The Chandelier

Issue 2: DH's return from FL

Naturally, a mere 48 hours before DH is supposed to return home from FL for good, DH's employer realizes that perhaps they might want to keep an integral member on their small team for a bit longer to ensure that they meet a fairly significant delivery date. So they asked him to stay an extra 3 weeks. Can you believe it? We could have done our sailing thing if they had told us, oh, 2 weeks ago! Crazy. Anyway, at first DH was totally going to just give them the ol' "F.U." but I convinced him to counteroffer - let's see how much they are willing to pay to keep him down there. He delivered said counteroffer today; we'll see what happens!

Issue 3: Well, there really isn't an issue #3, but I like odd-number symmetry, so I had to add it.

Baby it's cold outside...

...and everywhere in this cruel world. There's been some very negative developments in the last week. Let's review:

- I was turned down for the job for which I interviewed.

- They've "lost" the cabinet I've been waiting 4.5 weeks for to get the kitchen on the road to completion

- DH and I cancelled our Veteran's Day sailing lesson for another time

- DH's new position will be in HERDON! for the next two months or so. That's like an hour's drive at least.

- DH has ruined my morning routine, which I now have to re-establish all over again

- The hard drive on my laptop is about to totally crash and burn

- I STILL don't have a plumbed sink and I have to do dishes AGAIN

To balance out the negative, just a wee bit:

- We had Indian food for dinner tonight. Nothing makes life better than good Indian food

- DH has scooped kitty poop TWICE since he's been home

I had hoped that there would have been more good to outweigh the bad, but whatever. The Indian food was pretty darn close to making things even, though,

It's almost official

DH will be home for good in less than 3 weeks (coming home for the last time Oct 28th). We're going to (likely) reschedule our Learn to Sail class for another time (possibly extend it into a vacation in, say, the British Virgin Islands, later next spring). Somehow, in the next two weeks, DH has to cancel his lease, his services, sell my bike, pack and ship all his stuff home.

So that's that. Our crazy Florida adventures have come to an end. Of course, this change opens up a variety of possibilities:

- a weekend trip to New York to see Madame Butterfly (or anything, maybe we'll repeat last year's experience and sublet an apartment for a long weekend)

- visiting our alma mater, Dickinson College, for Homecoming weekend November 4-5

- a weekend jaunt out to Skyline Drive for some leaf-peeping

- a day-trip to Philly, because we miss cheesesteaks

Sadly, all of these things are threatened by cold weather, which I abhor. C'est la vie.

I don't care if you hate football, you need to watch this show

Of all the crap out there this TV fall season, I've dropped a couple of shows and picked up two new ones. I'm so over Project Runway, and actually, I'm not feeling Earl this season either.

My two new loves are "Ugly Betty" and "Friday Night Lights." I could get over "Ugly Betty" real quick if they don't diversify the storylines a bit - and drop the weird secret woman storyline alltogether. Also, "Ugly Betty" directly conflicts with "The Office," which I am not giving up anytime soon, so I have had to watch all the episodes online (which ABC makes very easy: link here).

My second new love is "Friday Night Lights." I had no intentions of watching until I heard absolute raves about it on Television Without Pity, which does not give out raves lightly (hence the name -"without pity"). I didn't see the pilot during it original showing, but I caught a rerun on ABC family or something. The storyline was predictable and cliche, but the cinematography and the characters were so well crafted that I was in. tears. the entire episode. Just awesome.

I caught the original showing of the second episode (it's on NBC on Tuesday nights at 8pm, a death time slot). This storyline was not cliche, and the characters continued to develop depth and complexity. Again I was in tears from beginning to end. I don't like high school football. I don't like small town Texas life, where people drop in prayer every 5 minutes, I feel terrible for kids whose only chance of getting out of the narrow-minded small town hellhole vortex is sports and not academics. But this show is killer!

Unfortunately, as reported on by this CNN article, not enough people know about this absolute gem of a TV show. Unlike good restaurants and vacation spots, undiscovered shows are ruined by cancellation. Please, people, I beg you. Give this show a chance! Get caught up with the storyline by watching it online here.

New "doors" tour

There is an interesting article in the NYTimes today that reports the famous Ghiberti doors from the Baptistry in Florence will be on tour in America (after a lengthy restoration process) with stops in Atlanta, Chicago, and the Met in NYC.

Coincedently, I just finished reading about their fabrication and creation in "The House of Medici: It's Rise and Fall." Ghiberti and Brunelleschi (B was responsible for the magnificent dome over Santa Maria del Fiori, which in turn inspired Michelangelo's creation for St Peter's in Rome) were apparently fierce rivals over the commission for the Baptistry doors. It's a very interesting story. Hopefully I'll remember to get up to NYC when they are there next October. The last time I was at the Met was for another famous Florentine artist's exhibition: Fra Angelico.

Funniest thing I've seen this morning

Granted, it's early, but this YouTube video is a collection of hilarious cat antics. Many of these I've seen elsewhere, but all together I was laughing to the point where I had tears in my eyes.

My cats never do anything this funny.

You've screwed me again, Pennypacker!

Wow, this day started off strong and has ended with a real bang. I made a train with mere seconds to spare, had my interview this morning, was pretty busy all day...

And then it all came tumbling down. I have been trying really hard to keep the fact that I am even interested in another position, let alone applied and interviewed for one, as confidential as possible - using my home email address and such to avoid email missteps. And I think that I have had some measure of success in that - until I found out this afternoon that one of the people in the office with whom I interviewed non-chalantley mentioned my applying and interviewing with them in a meeting of 11-15 people. Moreover, THREE people at the meeting work in my office!!!! So there goes any hope of information control that I had hoped to have. I am royally pissed about it. First, that's really not anyone else's business what positions I may or may not be interested in. Second, there have been no decisions on either side - mine or the office's - as to whether the position is mine to have or if I even really want it (yes, I am actually not 100% sure I want the job, but without interviewing for it it doesn't even become an option). Third, once people know I interviewed they are certainly going to look at me differently in my office, questioning my committment and whatnot.

I could go on and on about this, but suffice it to say that I am NOT happy and am incredulous at how unprofessional that person was in disclosing MY information.

Then of course I miss the 524 train, the 549 train is cancelled, and the 613 train ran 10 minutes late. Also, it was 62 degrees in my house when I got home, because I forgot to turn the heat on. That, my friends, is really cold.

Argh! I am so over this week.

News Flash!

Wow! Some major news developments tonight. It turns out that the location that DH is working at just had a major gov't contract recinded, which means that DH is coming home. Just wow! No details have been finalized, but it is likely that by the end of the month DH will be back in MD 24/7 with me.

I have some very mixed feelings about this. On the one hand I am thrilled beyond comprehension that there are no more lonely nights, no more keeping tons of lights on when I am home alone for the false sense of security, and most importantly, no moe scooping kitty poop.

But we really did enjoy some of the activities we got to do down there on my weekends visiting: diving, kayaking, bike riding, etc. It was going to be nice to have a sunny, warm getaway during the winter months. Just a couple of weeks ago, they were asking DH whether he would consider staying an extra couple of months.

So right now there's a whirlwind of things that have to be done; DH has to find another job (not in the unemployed sense, but since he is on this rotation program at work, he has to find another temporary slot), he's got to cancel all the services down there like electric and internet, he's got to pack.... So much to do.

What a weekend!

Not me, I voted for Kerry

Ugh. I am exhausted. DH and I just finished a 2 hour bike ride along the northern end of Palm Beach. We rode from the Flagler Bridge all the way to the Lake Worth/Palm Beach inlet (getting drizzled on along the way) and once we were there, a couple of guys told us that there was a manatee in the water alongside the jetty.

Naturally, with manatees being one of my absolute favorite animals, I jumped back onto my bike and DH and I rode over to this secret path between two multimillion dollar houses to get out to the beach on the south side of the jetty. It must have been a 1/2 mile hike through and over the dunes to the jetty. We went about halfway and saw a dark shape in the water; it wasn't moving much, but it wasn't close to the rocks either. After watching for about 5 minutes, I was ready to just accept that we weren't going to see it take a breath (which would confirm beyond any doubt that we had seen a manatee). Suddenly, his brown little nose appeared at the water's surface, we heard a wet "whoosh" sound, and it went back under. YEAH! My first wild manatee sighting. If only I had brought my snorkel gear and swimsuit... I would totally have been in the water!

So with the excitement of the manatee-sighting we set back for Palm Beach proper - destination: Sprinkles Cafe, which has the best (and naturally, since this is Palm Beach, most expensive) Dulce de Leche ice cream I have ever eaten. Along the way I keep noticing that every other car is a Mercedes, driven by some middle-aged white guy who I just sense made his money in some shady fashion. We come up on a black Mercedes SLK roadster convertible (I think that they give them out when you buy on Palm Beach) and I peek in - thinking "here's another one of those Palm Beach MAWGWSM (middle-aged white guy with shady money) and lo and behold - it's Rush Limbaugh, confirmed seconds later by DH shouting to me "Hey, did we just pass Rush Limbaugh?"

So I guess you could say we saw two manatees today.

Happy Birthday DH!

Well it's DH's turn to turn 30! We're spending it in Florida with a VERY early start to the day. We were up at 6:30 for our scuba dive trip with Christie from Force-E. She was fantastic! We went out on "The Wetter the Better" with about 20 other divers and dove off of Palm Beach on "The Corridor," which is a series of wrecks in about 85ft of water (our deepest dive yet!), and the Spearman's Barge, which was a reef that ended with a wrecked barge in about 65ft of water. The water was warm, the visibility was good, and I was much more comfortable on this dive than the last two we had.

At about 830, when we were on our way out the Palm Beach inlet, I thought about where I had been 24 hours earlier. It was raining, hard, and I was soaking wet and cold waiting for a MARC train to take me to work. I must say that things improved rather rapidly in the course of 24 hours.

Happy Birthday DH!

BTW, we did see a turtle munching on an old barrel sponge - which was very cool

Heavy reading

Lately I've been devouring (figuratively) books... I don't know whether I just happened to pick a few easy reads or good reads or what... but a week ago I ordered 5 books from Amazon and I am already starting on #4.

I've already mentioned La Bella Figura, which was as very fun to read. I also read Severgnini's other book, Ciao America. which was also fun. More interesting was that he wrote the book while living in Georgetown for a year. Having him mention the Safeway, Volta Park, and many other little G-town landmarks made the book that much more relatable for me. I think that he didn't quite get Americans as much as he thought he did (but then, is that even possible) but still it's a fun little insight into a foreigner's perception of, well, us.

Finally, I've just finished re-reading Camus's The Stranger. It is one of a long list of books that I was "forced" to read in high school that I have wanted to revisit as an adult. It was a stunningly easy and fast read, so much so that I was worried that I was breezing through it too quickly. Being older, taking the time to think about what was going on in the main character's mind - how he could think and philosophize the ideas that he believed - gave me a renewed appreciation for the book.

I am now reading book #4 from my most recent Amazon order: Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms. I am a huge Hemingway fan (the title of this blog is a famous line from The Sun also Rises) and a huge fan of Italy, so this was a natural choice. I'm only about 30 pages in, but I cannot wait for the train ride home and the flight to FL on Friday to really sink my mind into the book.

The last book on my "list" is The House of Medici: It's Rise and Fall. Considering the types of books I've been reading lately, I can't figure out why I didn't enjoy undergrad history classes, or indeed even high school English and history classes, a lot more than I did.

Alright alright already, I'll post it

Yes, you may have heard, my undergraduate alma mater Dickinson College was recently ranked number 1 in a "survey" done by Men's Fitness Magazine (article here).

Truly, I find this very strange. We did have a requirement to take so many semesters of fitness classes and "Truly Living," which had its own variety of pseudonyms; the Dining Hall was generally nutritionally friendly; and the Kline Center (the gym) has been radically enhanced since I graduated. Still, I find this just a little weird - particularly considering that such a significant percentage of the population studies abroad for at least one semester, removing us from all of these supposed benefits.

Of course, it could be exactly that factor which makes the difference. Studying abroad - particularly on the continent in Europe, where meals are more than just an opportunity to get your daily caloric needs satisfied - is really what radically changed my own eating habits. I became much more attuned to the benefits of fresh food as close to its original form as possible, as opposed to the chemical, sodium, preservative, sugar laden garbage that the US seems to celebrate. European refrigerators are generally much smaller than ours, they shop more often for fresher ingredients (when's the last time you got to visit an open air market with truly local produce, meats, and baked goods?), and they take the time (again, in general) to make a meal from scratch rather than pop something in the microwave.

Actually writing all of this makes me feel incredibly guilty. For the longest time I tried to live as close to this ideal as possible - meals from scratch, no pre-processed or pre-packaged junk, etc. But not having a functioning kitchen for such a long time has really knocked me for a loop, and I do find myself eating a lot more "microwaveable" meals than before. Of course, I carefully read labels and buy stuff from Trader Joe's, so I am avoiding the chemical, salt, sugar, preservative mess that is Lean Cuisine or Swansons or "insert generic TV dinner brand here."

So I guess I really did learn some valuable life skills from college... but it was purely accidental.

And that's how I ended up with 17 new panties...

I went shopping at Target today, and one of the things on my list was a package or two of new cotten undies. I started looking in this one section, where I couldn't find any in my size... so I grabbed a package of 3 that were the next size up, because I really needed some new undies.

Then I walked around to another section, and found two packages of four undies in my size that I really liked, so i threw them in my basket. I thought that I had taken the first package out, but I guess I forgot.

Then I found a sale rack, and again, couldn't find any in my size that I liked.. but I saw a package in the next size up that were okay. I looked at them, and I thought that I put them back... but I guess I dropped it in my basket.

I didn't realize until I got home and started emptying the bag that I hadn't left the two packages that were a size too large behind (no pun intended). Whoops. It's too embarrassing to return undies, so I guess I'll just keep them.

Besides, a girl can never have too many pairs of cotten undies!