Apparently My Life Is One Big WTF Moment After Another

I realize bloggers tend to exaggerate or embellish, so I'm here to say that I really try not to do this. Mostly.

This is relevant because something completely surreal occurred today and it's going to sound like I'm totally making it up.

I woke up to a metric shit-ton of racket outside, and proceeded to find a Hollywood movie set in the woods outside my house.

I've mentioned that we live in The Hundred Acre Wood, and it's pretty isolated here. And when I say isolated, I mean there's a few houses in my immediate area, but everyone's house is on a plot that has a good deal of land around it so we're looking at trees, instead of into each others windows.

Also, it's very quiet. And we like it that way.

We have nothing but woods for miles behind our home. The only thing back there is a hunting camp owned by a sweet elderly couple. There's very little activity except when it's hunting season.

In the past few months there's been more going on with utility companies running lines, some heavy equipment doing who knows what back there. But still, it's fairly quiet.

So imagine my surprise upon waking up and getting ready to log into my computer for work, I heard what sounded like a parade of loud truck engines outside my house.

It turned out it that it was in fact, a parade of loud truck engines right outside my house. They were all idling there, waiting to turn onto the little dirt road next to our property that leads to the hunting camp.

This was highly unusual. I figured they were doing some upkeep work there or having a family function. Or something.

So I listened to to all and sundry going in and out for an hour before the doorbell rang. A relative of the family who owns the camp stopped by to let me know a movie was being filmed. “Oh, like a college thing?” I asked. No, an actual real movie, he says. And they'll be back there for a FEW WEEKS.

For serious.

Okay, well I figured Mr. RelativeToTheFamily was embellishing a bit, and we're talking some “movie” that someone was “filming”, probably being done with the help of friends and family in the hopes of breaking into Hollyweird. It can't possibly take weeks, right?

The Relative mentioned the director's name and what the film was about, and even said to stop by if I wanted to visit. I thanked him, said I work from home and I might stop by later just for fun, and went back to work.

Then I watched a long, loud line of cars, trucks, golf carts, ATVs, equipment, etc. head back into the woods. Dog was going out of his mind barking at everyone and everything. Taking him out for doggy business was getting to be incredibly difficult since all he wanted to do was protect the homestead from these intruders.

So I got that itch in my brain that maybe I should look up this “director” on the Internet Movie Database (IMDB).

Well imagine my surprise when I see that he actually has a number of proper films under his belt, and lo and behold, there's the movie he's filming now, BEHIND OUR FRIGGIN HOUSE.

With actual, Hollywood actors. We're not talking Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, but definitely recognizable actors.

Yay us.

I've been trying to work and take conference calls during all this hoo-ha, and it's been a challenge. Of course, I'm also peeking out the windows trying to see what's going on. Granted there's a good deal of woods out there obscuring the view, but I can see what looks like set building and lots of people running around.

Now I'm wondering what I'm going to do if they're filming and Dog has to go outside. The only way to get him to go is to walk him around the entire property. He's gonna stand there and bark his face off at the crew. What happens if they're filming at night? Are we going to be able to sleep with all this activity? There's strange people milling about everywhere now, which is kinda creepy.

I'm intrigued and annoyed at the same time. I'll have to see what happens tomorrow.

I'm thinking by the end of this I'll be quite happy for Hollywood to go on home.

Bitch... Please

Driving back from errands today, I heard the radio edit version of Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines. Now I've heard the uncensored version many times and I don't have a problem with it, although I understand a number of ladies have their panties in a bunch about the lyrics being “rapey”. Meh....for me it just doesn't register high enough of my scale of things to worry about.

It's catchy, even though the song sounds like it's been sampled from Marvin's Gaye's Gotta Give It Up. I'm more of the generation that hates the whole idea of sampling. Go write something original already.*

Anyway, they get to the part in the song that says “You're the hottest bitch in this place.” ( classy, I know ). Well, for the radio edit, instead of using “bitch” they substituted “ho”.

Really? ...ho?

I realize I'm not up on my urban-speak, but last time I checked, HO was short for WHORE.

I understand that term is used regularly in music, and I properly don't care. However, I would like to point out (and I'm probably splitting hairs from a gangsta-perspective) “bitch” does not equal “ho”.

So I was left scratching my head, because this meant someone actually thought that an urbanized, shortened version of WHORE is more wholesome for the afternoon radio audience's virgin earballs, and therefore less likely to offend than “bitch”.

Has this person been residing in a deep cave in the Amazon, under a moss-covered rock since 1970?

“Bitch” stopped being an insult somewhere around 1985, people.

I equate calling a woman a “bitch” with calling a man an “asshole”. By the way, I know plenty of “assholes” that are perfectly happy to own that.

Look, I'm no raging feminista, but if you were to poll most ladies today, I can pretty much guarantee most of us would prefer “bitch” to “ho”, thank you very much.

* Also... get off my lawn.

Mowing The Line

There have been so many things in the news recently that I wanted to write about. Unfortunately, I have been warned time and time again (especially in the last few weeks) that social and political bloggery could be interpreted a certain way, and the upshot would amount to a one way ticket to unemployment.

Since I happen to like my job, and I especially like receiving a paycheck, I'm left with the topics of dogs, cats, spiders, general stupidity, driving hazards, having a teenager, and cicadas.

Speaking of cicadas, they peaked two weeks ago. That photo of the bug-covered shed from my last post is nothing compared to what it looked like when it peaked. And the noise... ugh.

According to NYMag.com, their noise can reach over 100 decibels, like jackhammer levels. It also states they taste like corn, or asparagus (urp!). This apparently means my dog likes vegetables.

The brood hatched around 1 billion per square mile, although I'm fairly certain that's just in my backyard alone. I tried sucking up the corpses and shells with the lawn tractor bagger thingy, and it didn't work very well. Once we got a heavy storm, it knocked all the bug shells off the trees and other vertical surfaces leaving me with piles of rotting, stinky bugs.

The article also tells you not to mow during the day because the sound of the mower can confuse them into thinking it's a mating call. Which would explain why they were landing on me by the dozens.

Speaking of. Since Hubby had been traveling, that was also the weekend I finally had to mow the lawn. The grass had grown too tall to ignore, and Dog would sink. All I could see were ears and tail.

Now, I was told how to operate the mower/tractor about six years prior, but promptly forgot all of it. I never used it, so my brain marked the information “inactive” and locked it away, never to be found again.

Between Daughter and I, we got it running. I started on one small patch. After making my first pass, I realized nothing was happening. Cutting, I mean. Oh yeah. I probably should drop the blade, right? Shut up.

So I dropped the blade. I did not realize it had several levels - not just “up” and “down”. So what did that mean? It means I dropped it all the way.

After going about ten feet I stopped to check my progress and saw that I was basically tilling the earth. I wasn't overly attached that patch of grass anyway, and it'll grow back, right?

I played with the blade handle and found a setting somewhere between “doing nothing” and “goodbye grass”.

Once I got the gist of it, it was really fun.  

Cicadas

So I've been known to complain about the schizophrenic weather here in Pennsylvania. Two weeks ago we had a week of temperatures in the upper 90's (in old money Fahrenheit), immediately followed by temps hovering around 30 degrees and a frost advisory.

Last week the weather began a swing back to sweltering temps, and this time I knew we'd be in for the Great Molting. In other words, cicadas.

Thursday began with a few that climbed onto the shed. Today, there are hundreds if not thousands between the shed and the trees:

Gross, right?

There's nothing we can do until they're done with their bug business. And yes, the dog wants to eat them all. He's already had a few and I've had to suppress my gag reflex during his prolonged chewing.

It's bad enough their molted shells are stuck to everything, but there's also adult carcasses strewn all over the yard now – large black fly-things with huge, blood red eyes.

I assume they died immediately following bug-sex.

And they smell. The combination of hot weather, giant buggy shells and dead bodies are making it quite stinky. I read I'm supposed to rake them up and get rid of them, but we're talking about raking an acre area. That ain't happening. Well, I suppose we could get the lawn tractor leaf collector thingy out and suck up the corpses. Maybe I'll try that this weekend. The lawn will be due for a mowing by then anyway.

It's so loud I can actually hear them inside the house. It's a whirring noise, like a flying saucer from a 1950's sci-fi movie. One managed to get into the house today. I picked it up to chuck it outside and it nearly vibrated out of my hand while making very angry pphhffippt!! noises.

So about the heat. It's kinda normal for us to have a few freakishly high temps in the late spring, but not this much. When it hit 99 degrees on Saturday, I gave up and went to locate the air conditioners.

Hubby is traveling, so I had to figure out how to get three 50+ pound air conditioners from the basement, to the second floor, then into a window. As much as I like to whine about losing weight, I'm actually a small person. Hubby can usually accomplish this in about an hour. It took me nearly three.

First, I realized that carrying them upstairs while still in the box was impossible – my arms are simply not long enough. I unboxed the first two in the basement, then carried them upstairs. These were the newest, and the lightest. Once the first one was in, the second one went fairly smooth.

After tackling that, I figured I'd take a crack at the third, larger air conditioner. This was the one that I also donated a pint of blood on, thoroughly bruising the hell out of my arms. I would also like to note, if I ever find the engineer that designed the air conditioner, and the method of install, I intend to punch him/her. 95% of this thing hangs in midair, outside the window, making it extremely wobbly until you put the sash down.

The other models had one badass screw in the middle that held it to the window. This one didn't. Apparently the engineers were having a contest that day for installing air conditioners that weigh more than dark matter, with the least amount of hardware. For example, this is the only clamp they provide to attach it to the window sill:

Ignore the duct tape. It's just there to look pretty.

Basically, that clamp and the sash are the only things holding it in place. Actually, I take that back – there's also a clamp at the top of the window to keep the sash from accidentally sliding upward. Big deal. Like it would have killed them to include a second clamp for the other side of the AC?

Oddly, it feels sturdy-ish, but I'm not taking chances. I don't even want to breathe on it wrong. I'd hate to have it flop out of the window and flatten my lovely cicadas.

Dogs Are Weird

Or maybe it's just our dog.

I think he's a cross between a Papillon and a Border Collie. His ears are huge, he's considerably larger than any Papillon should be, and tends to "herd" us. But he's a very happy dog...

...and an oddball. He'll have a perfectly good bowl of kibble or soft food, yet he'd rather go outside and eat everything he can wrap his dog-lips around:

Sticks

Beetles

Leaves

Those clods of grass that fall off the mower

Moths

Dandelions

Dandelion puffs

Rabbit turds

Stink bugs

Dirt

Rocks

Dried worms on the driveway

I've read it's either an attention or boredom thing, or a massive case of pica. I'm leaning towards attention/boredom because he probably needs some longer daily walks.

With his interest in eating/attacking nature, I wish he'd get a taste for spiders. It's disgusting, but at least I could get behind that weirdness. Also, this was on the porch last night:

That sucker is about three inches across. I guess spider season has begun.

  

Spoilers!!

OMFG John Hurt as The "Forgotten" Doctor !

Okay....now I can't wait for November when they run the 50th anniversary special.

p.s. River Song !

p.p.s. Can we please have a spin off for Madame Vastra and Jenny already!?!?

Making Mountains Out Of Dongles

I've been pondering my experience in the workplace and wondering if it's unusual. I've had a (mostly) happy career with supportive people around me, most of whom were men. My only truly lousy work experience was due to crappy management and a workhouse atmosphere, not sexism.

I don't think I've ever experienced true sexism/sexual harassment. If I did, it wasn't anything that registered high enough on my radar to worry about. Yeah I know... I'm sure there's women out there that have had someone make their condition of employment based on sexual favors (I'm looking at you, Hollywood), or were not fairly considered for employment or schooling because of gender. However, I'm not sure how prevalent it is these days. And I'm talking about real, straight up harassment – not “Oh, a guy at work told me he liked my new outfit. I find that offensive.... boo hoo.” Sorry, but that's not sexist or harassment.

I began thinking about this because of an IT news story that popped up a couple months ago:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/03/how-dongle-jokes-got-two-people-fired-and-led-to-ddos-attacks/

In a nutshell, a woman at a programming conference overheard two guys talking to each other about “forking a repo”, and making a dongle joke (“Forking a repo” is actual programming slang). As for the dongle joke – so what? It's silly, adolescent and kinda funny, but certainly not offensive.

The guys in question weren't even speaking to this lady. If she was really bothered by their comments, she could've put on her big girl panties and asked them to keep it down because it was distracting from the lecture. (She claimed she didn't say anything because she didn't want to be heckled, or ruin her experience. Geez Louise. That's fucking life, isn't it? For everyone, male and female. If you're going through life avoiding confrontation, you're not living.)

But no, she handled the situation in a passive-aggressive manner meant to publicly shame them. She took their photo, posted it to Twitter and her (apparently popular) blog, indicating she was offended by their sexual remarks. One young man lost his job. The young lady lost hers as well. Some morons made rape and death threats. On top of everything, her company ended up with a denial of service attack courtesy of Anonymous.

Scenarios like this really frost me because throughout my career I've been told to look for any form of sexism or sexual remarks. Anything that could possibly insult my delicate female sensibilities should be reported immediately to human resources.

I didn't get into IT thinking I could behave as a hot house flower. The field was male dominated and the work was hard. I didn't want special treatment, I wanted challenging and interesting work. I wanted to be treated fairly and move forward in my career because I did a good job, not because the guys were afraid of being reported, or because I met a human resources diversity requirement.

Back in the 1990's, I had an HR director that would pull me into her office almost monthly to make sure I was “doing okay, since I was working with all men”. Seriously, she said that. HR Lady made it sound like I was working with a team of sex-starved maniacs that have never seen a female before, have no manners and behave like animals. In that scenario, who was the one actually being sexist? Two guesses and the first one doesn't count.

I went through great pains trying to explain to her that nothing weird was going on, I didn't feel the least bit uncomfortable and yes, I really enjoyed working with the guys. These are the same men that gave me the opportunity in the first place, trained me, and most of all treated me well. She couldn't wrap her brain around this so every few weeks she'd “check in on me”.

After a while, the HR Lady realized she wasn't getting any juicy details from me and tried a different tactic: she would regularly try to persuade me to join the local “women in business” group that she belonged to, which I declined. She sold it as a support system for career women - which at the time sounded reasonable especially if you're looking for a job, but based on her behavior it put me off.

In retrospect, maybe I should have joined if only to say that in order to succeed, sometimes you need some perspective and a sense of humor.

Were there dongle jokes? Nope, most of them were way worse - especially by today's standards. And guess what? We all had fun.

Did I have some men say rude things to me? Yep, and I said rude things back. In my experience, dishing it back usually put an end to it. Sometimes people are just assholes and it's not about gender.

On the other hand, I'm sure there were people I worked with who thought I was inferior simply because I'm female - but they didn't articulate that. Nor did they prevent me from being promoted or doing my job. In other words, their personal thoughts about me weren't acted upon, and therefore have no impact on me.

Like I said at the beginning of this post, maybe my experience is unusual. I still don't work with a lot of women, but the ones that I do work with seem to have similar career experiences as me.

Are there women still being harassed, or being treated in a sexist manner? Probably. I'm not saying it doesn't happen. Maybe certain career paths attract it? Guys get harassed too, but that rarely makes headlines.

It just seems like I'm constantly hearing about how sexism/harassment/chauvinism is rampant, and it makes it sound like women are still being treated like it's 1950. The thing is, the article above demonstrates the extreme consequences of making a mountain out of a dongle.

Another Brilliant Idea.....not.

I've been looking for a way to jump start my weight loss... again. I really like doing low carb because it broke me of sugar cravings, but I've reached a point where not much is happening anymore.

Granted, part of this is due to sitting behind a computer for 10 hours a day, coupled with the fact that the stinkin' groundhog lied about Spring so it's still cold as Jack Frost's nutsac here.

There's really only two things I missed while being on a low carb diet: pizza and rice. Not together obviously, but as separate, delicious entities.

Pizza is pretty much out, unless there's a “pizza only” diet out there that I'm not aware of. Rice, on the other hand, has several. Specifically, a brown rice detox.

So, in one of my stupider moments, I jumped all over that. It's only a week, right? Plus it's really high fiber, so that's good, right? Like a pooping yourself thin.

Well, I did it for a whole week. I ate mostly brown rice, vegetables, fish and water. Lots and lots of water. Low calorie and very low fat.

By the second day, I was thanking God I worked at home because most of my time was spent in the bathroom.

Then on the fourth day, my intestines went on strike and stopped working altogether. I woke up that morning having all the bodily discomfort of a woman in her 9^th month of pregnancy, but without the impending birth.

Or so I thought.

By the fifth day, I reenacted the John Hurt scene from Alien.

Days six and seven were fine, but the bloating was ridiculous. The experiment was over.

Still, I was pretty happy I made it a whole week on mostly vegetarian and low fat foods. I honestly thought I'd have something good come out of it, but no. I actually gained weight.

I don't know how much because I refuse to use a scale, but my jeans are tighter than they should be.

How can someone actually GAIN WEIGHT on a low fat diet?

Rice is ruined for me forever now, or at least for a very, very long time. But maybe that's a good thing.

Hi There

Hi....yeah. Just a small hiatus there.

Okay, not actually that small.

I managed to not die of boredom, and finished my systems architecture class. Honestly, if I was a young 20 something and hadn't worked in IT before, I don't know how I would have passed. It really wasn't an undergrad class. That's just my opinion though.

In other news, Daughter finally got her license. This also meant having to buy a cheap-ass car in order to facilitate any real autonomy – for both of us. Yeah, I could just have her drive my car when it was available, which is pretty much never. It would also mean continuing to drive her around to every extra-curricular and social activity. Anyone with teenagers knows this is a full time job by itself.

So yeah. Cheap Jeep. So far it's only been in the shop once, but thankfully it's got “good bones”. These things live forever. I had one for the better part of 12 years, and know other people who kept them running for over twenty. Plus it has the added benefit of four wheel drive – since we live in the Snowy North - and lots of actual METAL to act as a giant bubble around said teenager. I mean geez, cars are all plastic these days. Anyway, more on the used car experience later.

You may have noticed I stopped bitching about work over the past year or so (well, I should say any of the three people still reading this blog. I figure I've lost all readership due to grievous blog-neglect). Anyway, I finally like what I'm doing. Also, not being on-call 24x7 is beneficial to not having a heart attack at 44. I'm just too old for that. Still, it's not that coding didn't hold a viable future for me, only that coding at my last job was a bullet train to a fresh circle of hell.

Hubby is traveling for work a lot more now, so I've got doggy detail. This is fun because the dog mostly doesn’t listen to me, and usually pushes the envelope by acting like a two year old on crack.

The most unsettling part is taking the dog out before bed. We have lights around the house, but obviously not in the forest, which is right over there.....and there is nothing creepier than shining a flashlight into that thick darkness and seeing ten pair of green eyes staring back at you.

Have I mentioned that the dog doesn’t like to be rushed with his bowel movements? He can't just go outside and do the needful. No, he has to make a round of the yard and inhale any remnants of his previous deposits, eat rocks, and roll around in a musky, flattened patch of grass where I presume the deer have been camping out. So while he's sniffing around doing doggy things, I'm shivering and hoping that whatever is giving me the stink eye from the woods isn't hungry and/or have large teeth.

Our dog.....it's a good thing he's cute.

On the cat side of things, well, he's still on the Kitty Prozac. So far so good, six months and no extraneous pee. He's still a complete asshole though.

Our cat.....it's a good thing he's cute.

Random Conversations Part 1

On the way to the gym...

Daughter: “Ugh. It's way early. I'll be asleep by the time we get there.”

Me: “You could have stayed in bed.”

Daughter: “No, I want to do this. Wait....ewww. What's that smell?”

Me: “What smell? Oh, yuck. [rolling down window] It must be skunk.”

Daughter: “That's just nasty.”

A few minutes later....

Daughter: “Oh man.....gross, another skunk. Can't you smell that? [rolling down window]

Me: “Well, we're almost there.”

Daughter: “What is it with skunks and the early morning? This just stinks.”

Me: “So you're saying 5:00 AM smells like skunk butt?”

Daughter: [Giggles] “Yeah, but is it actually the skunk's butt?” I mean, they have a gland or something that makes the smell, right?”

Me: “It's a gland, but I think it's in the butt area. Skunk-butt area.”

Daughter: “I can't believe we're talking about skunk-butt at 5:00 AM.”

Warning: Way Too Much Use of Italics, Underlining, and Bold Within

Well it finally happened.

After having a year's worth of positively useful and enriching classes, I've got a complete and utter DUD this term.

Six chapters into the book and we're still discussing network architecture theory (it's a network architecture class, in case you haven't guessed....), and how bad it sucks when management isn't on board with security base-lining.

Here's an original thought! ….we can keep on whining and complaining that security is such an under appreciated field....OR we can learn some methods to help make the case to management. Or learn breathing exercises.

But the theories - oh God... all the endless theories about the best ways to ask questions about the system you're going to build. I got it, really....you need to fully understand the business' objective and know exactly what they want in order to deliver the best product.

I totally get it - this is an area of development that is so full of FAIL. I've experienced first hand how bad it is when developers and architects design something so completely different than what the client wanted.

But we have devoted six (very long) chapters thus far on how to ask questions. I fully appreciate that I have a short attention span, but really? Can we get into the meat of actually designing something? It's only a 12 week course. At this rate we might design something, oh, I don’t' know.....maybe around 2016?

So far every weekly assignment has been a five page term paper discussing some scholarly article that MAY or MAY NOT have ANYTHING to do with architecture. Esoteric topics like, “Do hackers prefer the color blue, and what does that say about the best way to prevent a breach to your system?”.

For serious.

There has yet to be any assignment on the material being covered in the book or lectures. And that makes total sense, riiiight?

The content of my papers has typically been me regurgitating things I learned either on the job, or from my other classes. While I can see the benefit of that (ten points to Gryffindor for applying existing knowledge!) it would be nice to actually learn something for the obscene amount of money being paid for this class.

I am currently preparing for my midterm and know fuckall of what to actually study.

For all I know, the exam will cover the sexual habits of lemurs and require us to design a secure VPN network around it.

Moving Towards Idiocracy

There is so much stupid on the roads of America. Sooooo much stupid, oblivious driving.

Lately, the motorists I encounter are operating under the misguided assumption that everyone else will simply get out of their way.

I'm not talking about driving in congested towns and cities – that's a given. It's here in suburban Pennsylvania where things are reaching critical mass.

Stop signs are only a suggestion, and not actually obeyed as a traffic law. Four way stop? Nope. It is guaranteed that someone at one of the four is going to blow through it.

Look both ways before pulling out of your hidden driveway? Nope. Just launch your car into traffic like a Viper from the Galactica. Assume that you'll materialize within the flow of traffic, so there's no reason to check for oncoming vehicles.

Sigh.

Anyway, I have one story that not only takes the cake, but also relieves it of icing, rolls it down a dirt road, then has the balls to serve it up at a church picnic:

Here in the Pocono Mountains, we have two towns that sit quite close to one another on a stretch of death-highway. This highway is notorious for being very winding and congested. Because of this, there are numerous accidents. There is a speed limit in place requiring drivers to slow down to 50 miles per hour, instead of skating along at 60 or 65.

Not only is this speed limit completely ignored, but I find most people are generally doing somewhere in the vicinity of 75-80 mph.*

Fine, I can accept that. I'll stay out of your way.

But if you're speeding at 80 miles per hour, weaving in and out of traffic, then cut off a tractor trailer which has to swerve into my lane in order to avoid YOU, causing me to nearly ditch my vehicle off the side of the road - then I've got plenty of reason to be pissed off.

This moron didn't do it once, but THREE TIMES.

I've had the misfortune to encounter this spectacular specimen of douchenugget three times in the last two weeks. This idiot's car caught my notice because he/she has a large decal that takes up the entire back window which reads: “Here'sTheBlood”.

Here's the blood? What the fuck does that mean? Does he/she transport blood? Is that the reason for the hurry? If only.

The first time I was nearly killed by this moron I made a mental note to Google it.

Well, I'm here to say, DO NOT Google that.

It looks like a website dedicated to anti-abortion. The kind that shows you graphic images.** Thankfully, I got a content warning for graphic images before I clicked on it, and instead was able to maneuver to an “about” section of the site.

Anyway, my point is, the motorist in this story is just another fine example of moral licensing that occurs in this country - on both sides of politics.

 On one hand, we have the “save the planet” Prius owner, with the requisite “Coexist” and Obama/Biden bumper stickers. In my personal experience, they will cut you off in heavy traffic while doing 90 mph (why, exactly, do you own a Prius??). Good job “coexisting” with the other drivers on the road.

(I don't mean you, Mom. I know you're trying to save gas money. Also, you don't cut people off or have a “Coexist” sticker.).

And there's this jackass in the Here'sTheBlood car, advertising to the world that he/she cares about the blood of aborted children, but apparently doesn't care about other motorist's blood (or the blood of children in THOSE cars) being splashed all over the highway because of his/her shitty driving habits.

* I have no problem with speeding. I do have a problem with it on a death-slalom highway that has a reputation for killing hundreds of people.

** I am not pro abortion. For me, it simply doesn't pass the “icky” test. But putting photos of it online is just as disgusting.

Stand on the Bloody Bin Bag!

I can identify with Edina and Patsy here.....this is too funny:

Cooties

With the cold dry weather, we've all been suffering from the lip shrivels. Lip balm of all kinds is a hot commodity around here, but apparently I need to start buying it in bulk.

Last week:

“Mom, I ran out of Carmex. Can I use yours?” asked Daughter.

“Are you kidding? You're my daughter and we've probably got the same cooties, but that's a really great way to get the flu. Still, I never used mine so it should be germ free. If you absolutely have to, go ahead and take it – it's in my makeup case.” I offered.

“Meh...I guess I can wait.”

The next day, the lip stuff is still in my case. When opened, it looks...lopsided. “Well, I must have gotten a defective one. “ I thought, then proceeded to use it.

Fast forward five days.

“Mom, my throat is killing me. I used the flashlight to look at it, and there's all these white patches...”

“Let me see.” I said.

Oh boy......and such lovely white patches too. Daughter's tonsils were covered with what looked like cottage cheese.

Also, there was something tugging at the back of my mind.

That tugging was the Hippocampus Gnome*, trying to jump start my short term memory. Unfortunately, my perimenopausal brain wasn't having any of it. Yet.

“Um. Yuck. That's looks like strep throat. Or at least, that's what it looked like the last time you had it. I'll call the doctor tomorrow morning.” I said.

Then I remembered.

Along with that memory came the odd itch at the back of my throat.

“By the way, did you use my lip balm?”

Daughter's eyes grew large, “Oh my God! I'm so sorry ...but I didn't think I was sick then!”

“I believe I told you to just take it, not use it then put it back. Ugh. Well, I guess we'll both be out of commission for a while. Thank God tomorrow's Friday.”

*Thank you Terry Pratchett.

Happy 2013

To Juxtapose With My Previous Post...

I'd love to have something clever and/or snarky about the fiscal cliff, etc., but I'll defer to The Gormogons instead. Their cleverness is better than anything I could ever come up with.

Anyway...

Every year I start a post about the President's vacation in Kailua, and every year I delete it because it seems so pointless.

This year it surfaced again since we happened to be in Washington, and Barry was not. So I finally decided to tell my tale, regardless.

Normally I wouldn't give a fat rat's ass where The Pres takes his vacay, but this hits home for me. I've experienced the clusterfuck first hand.

Back in 2008, our Hawaii vacation coincided with the soon-to-be First Family's.

We had been to Kailua before. It's a very relaxed place with quiet beaches on the windward side of Oahu.

Our vacation was planned eight months in advance with a considerable amount of saving involved. Even if we knew how insane Oahu would be, changing dates was pretty much out of the question.

All traffic in the little town of Kailua came to a crushing standstill thanks to a confluence of issues: the roving bands of groupies hoping to catch a glimpse of Barry, the land-locked nature of certain areas of the town, and what I assume was the security detail for the future Pres. A trip across town that would take five minutes took nearly an hour.

The biggest travesty was the condition of two of the world's most beautiful beaches.

Instead, Kailua and Lanikai beaches looked like the Jersey Shore on the 4th of July, but with even more loutish behavior. There were people who apparently thought it was a nude beach – or just didn't care, there was public urinating, and monumental swath of garbage left behind. Apparently this is repeated every Christmas now.

My point is, if I brought that kind havoc and upheaval upon a sleepy little town, I sure as hell wouldn't do it again.

  

Washington Weekend

I have about 5,000 things I want to write about, all flying through my brain, but it all brought me to that procrastination point where I just didn't write about anything at all. Oddly, I woke up this morning feeling a) like I'm catching a cold, but also b) more rested than I had been in weeks. Which is weird, but I'll take it (and some cold meds) and move on.

That said, I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas holiday.

We kept it simple this year, and according to the news reports, it sounds like a lot of other people were holding back as well. I figured that would happen. Anyways, we took a quick trip to Washington D.C. last weekend as a small gift to ourselves and to finish our Christmas shopping.

Washington is driving distance from here at The Hundred Acre Wood, and Hubby got a hotel discount for all the traveling he does for work. So other than food, it was a relatively frugal trip.

We decided to stick to Georgetown – no monuments or museums this time. Georgetown has innumerable great restaurants, and you could literally walk from Glover Park, down Wisconsin to M, and pick a new restaurant every night. It would probably take months to get through them all.

We stuck with three: Sushi Ko, The Tombs and Old Europe, so this will probably sound more like a restaurant review than a real post. But hey, just sharing in case anyone has the opportunity to get down to D.C.

Sushi Ko isn't fancy, just a tiny restaurant with simple formica tables and a spartan décor. It opened 36 years ago and has the distinction of being Washington's oldest sushi restaurant. It is also refreshingly inexpensive for a D. C. restaurant.

The sashimi and nigiri were perfect. Very thinly sliced. Many sushi restaurants seem to go for “American sizes” and make the fish too thick, which can often be too chewy to be enjoyable. The Beef Kushi-Yaki (beef on skewers) was lightly marinated (in what, I do not know, but it was delicious) and tender. Just perfect.

The food is consistently high quality, and I have to say it was the best Japanese experience I've had. Which I should explain...

I've been to several excellent Japanese restaurants in the last 20 years. The two others that stand out for me would be Morimoto in Philadelphia and Kome in Allentown. Up until this point, Kome has been at the top of my list.

Morimoto (Iron Chef Morimoto) was outstanding until our last experience a few years ago. Our first visit was shortly after it opened in 2001. It was amazing and unbelievably expensive, but truly an incredible dining experience. I could certainly understand why everyone raved about Morimoto-san's skills.

However, this was his first restaurant after leaving Nobu in New York, and at that time he was physically involved. During our first few visits he could be found making sushi and visiting each table, making sure everything was perfect (it was oddly surreal having someone you watch on TV stop at your table to check on your dining experience, but a seriously nice touch). About five years later we stopped in to celebrate Daughter's birthday and it was not a good experience. The sushi was sloppy and the “Kobe” sirloin was burnt. Thinking it was a one-off, we went back again a year later, but it still wasn't the same as it had been.

It may be that after Mr. Morimoto opened a few more restaurants, he was no longer overseeing things in Philadelphia. However, Google tells me that Zagat's is giving it 28 out of 30 now, so maybe it's time to give it another shot.

I'm told Kome in Allentown has some connection to Morimoto, some say the owner or chef worked there at one point, but I haven't found anything on Google to prove that. However, it has been consistently outstanding for the past four years. It's a beautiful place, very trendy and they make a fab martini. And of course, the food is wonderful. Kome had been Daughter's favorite restaurant until our Sushi Ko experience. Now she's got even more incentive to go to school in D.C.

There's some good photos of Sushi Ko here, which show the frontage as well as a mural from the Japanese folktale Tamamo-no-Mae painted along the side of the building.

Our second day in D. C. meant getting Daughter out of bed before noon. But she had incentive – there would be shopping. Although, she didn't realize that while Georgetown did have the standard “mall fare” like Banana Republic and Sephora, it mostly had trendy mom-and-pop shops, antique and second hand stores, high-end stores like Barbour, Hugo Boss and Dean and Deluca, as well as European clothing stores like H & M and Benetton - none of which she had heard of before.

We started at Georgetown University, which was a ghost town. Since it was the weekend before Christmas, everyone was gone. It was actually pretty neat being the only people there. It was also freezing cold, because the storm that blew through the Midwest earlier that week was sending gale force winds through the East, and D. C. wasn't spared. After about an hour of poking around the school, we headed over to the 1789 restaurant, which is just off campus.

The 1789 is one of Georgetown's best restaurants, but our destination was actually it's rathskeller, The Tombs. Years ago, it had been a dark pub with just enough room to circumnavigate the square wooden bar. It's been redecorated in the last ten years, adding a restaurant area and more lighting. I'm not crazy about that. I preferred it cramped and dark. Heh.

Anyway, my understanding is that The Tombs shares the kitchen space with the 1789, and the food was outstanding.

After lunch, we spent several hours walking it off and exploring the pretty row houses and the shops. Headed down to M street, then up Wisconsin Avenue to Glover Park. I found the same old book store that I visited during my last trip to D. C., years ago. It's situated in the basement of a 150 year old brick row home, with stairs so narrow and steep they resemble little more than a cement ladder. Then, once inside, it opens up into a maze of bookshelves. I love places like that.

By this time it was getting late, so we stopped at Old Europe for dinner. Conveniently, it happens to be practically across the street from Sushi Ko, so we really didn't stray much.

Old Europe is a German restaurant with a standard fare of sausages, schnitzels and Sauerbraten. For December, it had a special menu dedicated to it's Wild Game Season. We tried the wild boar sausages for an appetizer, which were done with some kind of wine sauce and spiced apple slices on the side. I've never had that before, but they were so good I'm looking into trying to find some locally. Hubby went with the Sauerbraten, his personal favorite, Daughter was unadventurous with a sirloin, and I had the venison goulash. Venison has always been hit or miss with me, so it was a tough choice. This seemed to be slow cooked like a stew, then served in a kind of pastry shell. Each bite sized piece was fall-apart tender, and spiced just right.

Again, this is another restaurant I'll miss until we visit again in a few years. Thankfully, Old Europe has been in operation for 50 years and seems to be doing phenomenally well, so I expect it will still be there when we finally get back to Washington again.

White Christmas 2012

It doesn't happen every year, but we got snow on Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Fa La La La Blah

Today is December 12th, and I have just now begun to shop.

This is how it goes every year - a mad rush on my part to get it all done before the 25^th.

I actually like Christmas. I just despise shopping.

Of course this year has a special set of obstacles. I have a final exam to study for and finish by Friday, and a paper on IT Security baselining for Sunday.

I think the problem is that I'm hopelessly unorganized (note the last minute studying mentioned above.....case in point). I start thinking about Christmas shopping in September, then remind myself in October that it's not far away and I should really start getting a few things early. After that, it's suddenly December and I'm running around with my hair on fire.

Also, I don't like crowds. Actually, I don't like crowds at malls. Crowds at the local Celtic festival are fine, because that usually involves Guinness which tends to make for a more relaxed atmosphere. Perhaps if I could have Guinness at the mall, I might not mind shopping.

The rudeness level of the holiday shopping crowd is unreal. The Mongol horde had better manners (and probably better fashion sense). Macy's is elbow-to-asshole making it impossible to move. How can you get anything done?

So I'm shopping online as much as possible, and expedited shipping is my friend. Now that I bought a few things on Amazon today, I almost feel like listening to Christmas music.

While on the 'Zon, I figured I'd update my wish list. Unfortunately, this is where I stick anything that I want to remember later, so taken collectively, it was pretty weird:

• At least five different books on the history of Japan and/or the Tokugawa Shogunate
• Certified Ethical Hacker Exam Guide
• Pliny's Natural History
• Vintage Guerlain Mitsuoko
• Spinal Tap's last album
• Hobbes' Leviathan
• Likas Papaya soap
• Herriot's Cat Stories
• Book on String Theory
• The Killing (Danish DVD version)

Which might be why I get some rather interesting “Recommended For You” items from Amazon.

So anyway, I'm sure I'll get into the spirit a bit closer to Christmas, once the shopping is done and the school work completed. I'll even bake a few things.

One thing I really have to make this year is “The Hot Pink Mess”:

It's actually called Cherry Walnut Bars, and contains everything I hated as a child: walnuts, shortbread, Maraschino cherry juice and coconut. Naturally, now that I'm an adult, these things are miraculously delicious.

The recipe is from an old copy of the Farm Journal Christmas Book:

I love this book. It is chock full of heinous 1960's technicolor vomit. And it is awesome:

Unfortunately, I probably can't post the recipe since it's copyrighted, but if anyone really wants it, just email me.

p.s. If you'd like to see about awful photos of long lost recipes please click here. James Lileks has a great site called “The Gallery Of Regrettable Foods”. It is filled with snark and you will laugh your butt off. I promise.

Ostrich

It was so foggy the last few days, I'd swear we were living on the moors. Today it didn't burn off till way into the afternoon:

At least now you can see the mountain in the distance. Before, there was nothing but low cloud, and it looked like the forest ended in oblivion.

Went to the doctor (again) for my quarterly sinus issues. I begged for something else to address my allergies. I also begged for them to find an answer to my prolonged fatigue, reoccurring pains, hives, and other assorted weirdness.

I don't want a major disease, just a reasonable explanation for this nonsense. Nobody can tell me definitively if it's menopause - or something else. If it's just old age, hell, I've got a real crappy future ahead of me.

So off I go tomorrow for more blood work.

In the meantime, it's antibiotics and Nasonex for the sinusitis and allergies.

Anyway, they converted over to computers at the doctor's office. An appointment that used to take fifteen minutes takes at least a half hour or more. But now there's print outs! I get a little packet of printed shizz summarizing my visit, along with all the blood work referrals.

It made for good reading when I got home. Hmmmm. Isn't this interesting....it also gave me a summary of my temperature (low grade fever), heart rate, respiration, blood pressure, height, aaaaaand wait for it.....

…..weight and BMI. Fuck.

When I first got there, they weighed me. I told them I didn't want to know, and faced the other direction.

That's me, the big pink ostrich with it's head in the sand. I figure if I don't acknowledge an actual numeric weight, I can continue to delude myself into believing the dryer is shrinking my jeans.

Yes, I know. I said I was doing low carb and everything was glitter and rainbows. It was. For about a year. I must have lost at least 20 pounds. Then five minutes after posting my “isn't low carb awesome” rant, I hit the wall. Hard.

I swear I gained ten pounds within a week. I wasn't doing anything different, it just happened.

So back to my health summary and discovery of my actual numeric weight. Just....ugh. I haven't weighed that much since I was eight months pregnant with my daughter.

Which came first, the severe fatigue or my fat ass? I just don't know.