Misconceptions

Get it? 'Cause I'm going to talk about babymaking and stuff and there's the word "conception?" It's true though, there were some things that I thought I knew before we went into this whole "create another person" process. I ended up going to a consult with an OB/GYN for advice and she was incredibly kind and helpful. I recommend that, rather than going to the Internet, if this is something in your immediate future.

1. You really have to be vigilant about protecting yourself from unwanted pregnancy, because if you let one sperm past your defenses, that is it.

I don't know why I've been trying so hard this whole time to prevent unwanted pregnancy. Seriously, the whole process of trying to figure out when you might ovulate was unbelievably difficult for me. It was just a lot of math, and even then I was never really sure.

2. You should have sex every day between periods if you are trying to get pregnant, then take a home pregnancy test as soon as you are one day late.

No. First of all, that is a LOT of sex. And it's a lot of perfunctory sex. I'll just leave it at that. Also, home pregnancy tests, while I'm sure they are useful in certain situations, just take you on an emotional rollercoaster that could just as easily be avoided (along with the expense) by being a little bit patient. Granted, I'm not a patient person, which is probably why I bought so many of the damn things.

3. You will "just know" when you are pregnant.

Oh hell no. Actually, the only time I "knew" was when something was wrong, early in the process. I was technically pregnant (see home pregnancy test / emotional rollercoaster comment, above) and my midsection blew up like a freakin' balloon. Luckily, we had heard the advice about not telling everyone right away, because my period was really late and heavy, so evidently that one didn't take. I probably went through 1/10 of the suffering that people who have later miscarriages went through, but it was still pretty horrible.

The bright side is that we did finally have success, it was just 15 months later. That may not sound like a long time, but it felt like forever. I talked to a friend of mine who has two children, and she advised me to enjoy the time I had left with my "old" life while I could. Just when I took that advice and started to think about things we could do, trips we could take, etc... I got pregnant. Ha, ha, ha, universe. Don't get me wrong, this was still fantastic news. I do have a lot to say about this whole pregnancy thing, though, so bear with me for a few posts, OK?

Where Do We Go From Here?

My surgeon and I had a conversation after my last biopsy about what they found. Like I mentioned, it wasn't cancer, just more warning signs. To sum up: 1) family history 2) previous DCIS diagnosis 3) "markers" found in second surgery 4) let's be frank: lumpy boobs that seem to continually make more lumps. It's what they do. So, suffice it to say my "team" doesn't think that sitting back and monitoring the situation is quite enough.

Tamoxifen is always the first option presented, since it is the least invasive from the doctors' perspective. I am pretty anti-drug, and am particularly anti that drug. Don't get me wrong, I take antibiotics when I'm sick, and would accept chemotherapy if I ever needed it (but hopefully not). My friend Rich had migraine headaches every day, for example, and I think it's fantastic that his doctors found a drug that would stop that nonsense. EVERY DAY! Yikes. The drugs I am not a fan of are the ones that people seem to take because the drug companies tell them they should and/or convince them they have a "disease." I feel slightly that tamoxifen falls into that category, not to mention the side effects scare the bejoolies out of me.

That left us to discuss prophylactic mastectomy. That's right, cutting off the boobs so they have a much lower chance of killing me. Several thoughts went through my head at that point, like, has it really come to this? Am I so scared that I would willingly undertake a somewhat major surgery not to mention the ramifications that follow? Finally, am I done with my boobs?

The last question got me to thinking about babies. I mean, not that we hadn't talked about the subject before; at the last family reunion I attended I realized how much love my family - heck, our families - have to offer, and how lucky we are in that respect. My stance on the whole childbearing subject was always "Someday but not now," because I genuinely have liked my life the way it is, and I'm not foolish enough to think that having a baby wouldn't change that in a very fundamental way. But this, plus my age which is *mumble mumble* made me realize that it's time to change my life (our lives) fundamentally.

So, I signaled for a time out to the surgeon and the oncologist, whilst we get with the baby-making. No, not right there in the office, although from the way they were talking about the urgency of the whole thing I'm not sure they would have been disappointed. And hey, nothing helps you make a baby like other people telling you to hurry, right? Right?

The Recap

Hi, I'm Jen. My friend Melisa has inspired me to start writing again, with a combination of writing herself and gentle cajoling. But, in order to appreciate some of the weird stuff that is happening to me this time, you have to have a small understanding of what prompted me to write so much here in the first place.

Back in 2002, I had a small run-in with breast cancer. Since I have family history (both mother AND grandmother on the opposite side), my oncologist at the time recommended radiation so that it reduced the chances of recurrence. Most of the bizarre shit that happened to me during that time either related to my doctors, the treatments, or strange reactions of the boob in question, which at the time I dubbed Frankenboob.

So here I am 7 years later (I can't really believe it has been that long) and all kinds of stuff is happening - but I'm going to save that for the next post or this will be entirely too long. I did have one more biopsy, but no cancer this time only "markers" which just means it's even MORE likely now that my breasts will, in fact, try and kill me. Oh yeah, and I fired my oncologist "Dr. Turban" because he weirded me out. I mean, he wanted to hug me every time I saw him, for one thing. I'm not a very "huggy" person (what can I say I'm from the Midwest) and seriously, the most I want from a doctor even when I'm distraught is maybe some tissues and a reassuring pat on the back. The last thing I wanted was a hug every time I went to see him, that's just yucky. He also mentioned that I should be drinking milk every time I saw him, even knowing that wasn't going to happen. So I've got a new oncologist, and she does none of these things. That aspect is much better.

Wrapping up the disease updates, I have also found out that I do not carry the breast cancer gene. So, mom, you are off the hook, at least in theory. My oncologist was quick to point out that we don't have tests for *all* the breast cancer genes, just the ones we know about. Thanks - remind me why this test has value again? Speaking of mom, she also survived a bout with ovarian cancer last year. It was, to sum it up, terrifying. She is doing much better now, and even took a trip to Italy recently. However, I feel like there are now new and exciting body parts that can threaten to kill me down the road. I'm trying not to think about it.

Other than the random health nonsense, things have been going along really well, and clearly I haven't been inspired to complain about anything or there would be more posts!

Same As It Ever Was

I overheard our receptionist talking to a group of small children in the lobby today.

Receptionist: What's your name?
Child #1: Kyle.
Receptionist: And what's YOUR name?
Child #2: (babbles semi-incoherently)
Child #1: He said Roy Rogers.
Receptionist: Roy Rogers??
Child #1: His real name is Gabriel.

The funniest part about this exchange is that I'm not 100% sure that the receptionist knows who Roy Rogers was. We are the generation, after all, that likes to forget anybody came before us. Kind of like her cohort, who didn't know who sang Blackbird, and then had trouble figuring out that Paul McCartney was one of the Beatles. It makes me want to lie about my age in the wrong direction.

I Hope You Know That This Will Go Down on Your Permanent Record

The Violent Femmes played Raleigh this week-end, and of course I went. I spent countless hours as a teenager listening to their first album. On casette tape, of course, so that it subsequently started sounding like the band was playing underwater on some of the songs, and then the tape finally just broke. We would play their music on the band bus (oh yes, the band bus), and many times my own personal judge of character of somebody I had just met was whether they liked the Femmes or not. Needless to say, my husband is a fan. I don't know if he wore out his casette tape playing it or not, but he knows the lyrics to some of their more obscure songs, so he passes the test.

The concert was free, and held in downtown Raleigh at a tiny park in the middle of the bar/restaurant/art gallery/trendy junk shop district. Let me preface my review of the concert with this: I am old. I'm convinced of this fact for several reasons.

First, I don't really enjoy drinking cheap, overpriced beer. I mean, $4 per can isn't THAT bad, by concert standards, but after one can of Bud Light I'm ready to just give up on drinking for the night. Also, they used this stupid ticket system, which means you have to wait in line to buy a ticket, then wait in line to trade your ticket for a beer. This means that you buy a bunch of tickets intending to trade them in later, but then if you don't want any more to drink, the bastards running the concert get to keep your money. Yeah, we drank ALL of the beers. No unused tickets for us! Looking around, I saw that most people also used all of their tickets. Many, many, tickets.

Second, I don't like crowds. It seemed like most people around me were basically OK with standing around shoulder-to-shoulder. This could have more to do with redeeming all of their tickets than with their age, I'm not sure. All I know is that I was hot (it was 95 degrees and humid with no breeze, even at 9 at night) and people kept shoving through us. Why in God's name can't people just stand the fuck still when the band is playing?? I mean, send one person to go get beer, there is no need for all seven of you to come shoving through everybody in a bizarre, rude, conga line.

This was not helped by the lesbian couple next to us, who decided to bring their children along, ages 12 and 8. The 12-year-old seemed OK, bobbing her head along to the music, smiling, trying not to acknowledge the drunk men next to her that were perving on her something fierce by the end of the set. The 8-year-old was NOT happy, and looked like he was going to throw up at any minute. Thankfully, he held off. He was practically laying down on the ground though, which meant that his mothers had the job of making sure he didn't get stepped on. They proceeded to direct traffic around him, which made some people get a little unruly. At which point, one of them would threaten to kick his/her ass, and the unruly person would walk away. We were pretty thankful for the "walking away" part, although generally it was more like "walking around the crazy lesbian and then shoving whoever else happens to be in the way (usually me or Nikki)."

That being said, the Violent Femmes still rock my world. They are good at what they do, which is more than I can say for other artists that are currently played on Top 40 (although I listen to less and less of that, to be sure), and they are still very odd. They played Country Death Song, which is a dark and ironic choice being that they were fairly close to being in the Appalachians. We sang along and looked around, expecting outrage. All we got was drunken revelry, and somebody behind us shouting FREEBIRD about 25 times throughout the course of the set. The set was much to short, of course, but hey - the price was right.

Yum

Is it wrong that I'm so excited about the potential of Karl Rove actually getting caught doing something shady? I can barely listen to stories about it on the radio without clapping my hands with glee. Glee, I tell you. I just finished reading one of Al Franken's books (dated, I know) about Rove's push polling to knock McCain out of the primary, and various other shady shit he's done to help a President that should never have become one.

And just to cement my liberal standing, I will repeat what should be repeated, over and over again. Al Gore never claimed to have invented the Internet.

London Calling

Our main TV broke about three weeks ago, so the first I heard of today's bombings was on BBC news on my way to work. It made the news much more immediate hearing it on a London-based station. The immediate panic and the jammed phone lines reminded me so much of 9/11 it was eerie. In addition to the victims and wounded, they talked about the 3 million or so people who would normally take the subway or buses today, and it was hard to imagine how scared those people must be, all of them.

My other thoughts are about Iraq. I have never been there, but I have to think that getting on a bus there you would take your life in your hands every single day. Not to mention on the street, in your home, going to the store, anywhere. Are they scared all the time? Or are they just numb to it by now and take it as part of everyday life? Also, ask yourself what your reaction was the last time you heard about a suicide bomber blowing up a bus in Iraq. Was it on par with your reaction to the attacks in London?

Of course this doesn't diminish the tragedy in any way. In "free" western societies we expect to be able to walk down the street or use public transportation without being blown up. Of course, we also expect to live without things like illegal search and seizure, wiretaps without court orders, imprisonment for indefinite time without hope of trial, going to jail for not revealing a journalistic source, things like that.

Hawt.

What other word is there to describe North Carolina in July besides, "Gaaahhh." Seriously. Hot, Africa hot, and humid so it seems like you're swimming through the air rather than walking. This is interrupted only by sudden and torrential downpours, some with lightning and thunder, some with hail, some with only huge, furious drops of rain.

Sometimes, the rain parts the heat like a wave, and you go outside and forget how hot it was just an hour ago. It feels clean and you want to sit outside and drink iced tea and be Southern® for a while.

Other times, the added moisture just makes it worse. You go outside and you feel like a piece of broccoli in a steam cooker. You slow down, though, so you get evenly cooked on all sides.

Spring, Summer, and Fall

I had a whole series of things that would fit into the seasons categories, but I got so hung up on how to write the Fall one that I haven't written anything. So I'm just going to skip it. Plus, the overall blog tone has gotten a little depressing with the multiple deaths in my family and among friends of the family.

There are much happier things that have happened this year. For example, my friend Krissy got married this February and about forty of us went on a cruise to watch it happen. Now that was really something, so much so that I finally got motivated to get a free photo account. The images are BACK, baby! Well, I still have to re-upload the old ones.

Moments like the wedding seem to have a gravity of their own, leaving an imprint in your mind. Sitting at a little restaurant on the water, listening to the water and the mexican music played on the official wedding boombox, sipping a margarita and watching a good friend get married to somebody she loves with all her heart. Now that is a good one to keep with you for a while. Despite Carnival making abundant mistakes, we had a fantastic time and wouldn't have changed it for the world. A lifetime of happiness to Krissy and Ted!

Winter

While we were on vacation, my Aunt Ola Mae passed away. It seems as though our family is reaching the point where we will be gathering for funerals more often. Most of these will be for people that have reached the winter of life, and I think Aunt Ola Mae had definitely made it there. She buried two husbands, has seen a generation of children born, then a generation of grandchildren, and finally a generation of great grandchildren. She was the photographer in the family - we used to joke that we wouldn't recognize her without a flashbulb on her forehead - and she drove like a bat out of hell. Seriously. We would all leave at the same time and she always always was the first to arrive. She was always full of energy and loved to laugh. The overwhelming sense I get from her passing is that she had seen everything there was to see, and now it's time for the next adventure. I hope she takes some good pictures.

Good Things

And I say
No, no, no, don't pass me over No, no, no, don't pass me by
See I can see good things for you and I
Yeah, good things for you

The year is 1992 (or thereabouts) and the place is a basement of a rental house that is somewhere in the vicinity of campus but is just far enough away that you have to find somebody with a car to take you there. There are five of us in the basement, and we are trying to learn songs with only three chords. For a brief period we consider naming the band DAG, but then Tommy convinces us to go with Oresteia. This turns out to be an interesting choice, considering that the only gigs we ever play are in crappy hick bars in semi-rural Wisconsin. For the most part, they call us Ortega, and then are fairly hostile when we don't play salsa music. Actually, that's not true. They are VERY hostile, when we don't know Freebird. FREEBIRD!! SKYNYRD!! DAMN, this band SUCKS!

So back to the basement. We feel like rock and rolls superstars in the basement. It's smoky and poorly ventilated, which proves to be good practice for me at putting up with the aforementioned crappy hick bars. I only have a couple allergy attacks, which is amazing considering the length of time we spend in the basement. Ray, although a great guy and pretty good contact with the crappy hick bars, has some trouble with the DAG songs. As they say in the South, bless his heart. It probably didn't help that he's deaf in one ear.

I know that leaving the band was the right thing to do for my college career. My week-ends were better spent practicing piano than pounding out DAG in a smoky basement. Still, for a brief while it was fun to be a rock and roll superstar, even if it was only in my own mind. I attempted to join a smaller band later on, sort of a Hootie wannabe, but it wasn't the same. Maybe because he didn't smoke.

It's That Time of Year Again

How to make deep-fried turkey instructions can be found here and here, the last one includes a recipe for the seasoning.

Enjoy!

Eulogy

Instead of trying to do something elaborate here, I am going to stick with what I do naturally. Telling stories.

My favorite story about my grandfather:
When I was little, I remember sitting in my grandparents' kitchen and coloring in a coloring books. It is possible that the coloring book came with me on the trip, but it is possible that it came instead from the toy cupboard. The toy cupboard was a fantastic place. I don't know what was originally stored there, but it became the place to keep toys for the grandkids. My grandfather sat down next to me and watched me color for a little while. I had carefully outlined the shapes in crayon and was filling them in, moving the crayon back and forth across the surface.

"When I was your age, we didn't color like that," he said.

I didn't reply, but switched the movement of my crayon to an up-and-down motion. He watched for a second.

"When I was your age, we didn't color like that," he repeated.

Again, I switched, this time to diagonal.

"When I was your age, we didn't color like that."

I had almost exhausted my options, but switched to a round-and-round motion.

"When I was your age..."

In my best exasperated child voice, I said, "Well Grandpa? How DID you color when you were my age??"

"Well, I didn't use all different ways like that, I picked one and stuck with it!"

***

My grandfather's favorite story about me:
They had taken me to the grocery store with them, and as they went through the checkout line they gave me some money for the gumball/toy machines near the door. I don't remember how much money they gave me, but it gave me the option to get gum or a toy, and several different options of toys. At three years old, this was a monumental decision. By the time they finished paying for the groceries and got out to where I was standing, the money was still in my hand. As soon as they were in earshot I blurted out:

"These machines are driving me CRAZY!!"

***

We weren't ready for my grandfather to pass away. He had always been a central reason why it was more fun to spend time with my family than go to the movies. My uncle thought for a year or more that a-g-i-l-e was pronounced "a gill" because my grandfather thought it would be funny to see if he would believe it. This was before the phrase "Is that right mother??" was commonplace in their household.

He played baseball with his kids after dinner in the side yard, a place we probably should have been playing baseball when my brother managed to hit one right through their plate glass window.

I remember at Christmas having a song stuck in my head (as I often do) dancing in place to it in my uncle's kitchen. When I looked up, my grandfather was dancing in place to the same rhythm, just because I was. I started laughing and promptly forgot what song was in my head, but we kept on dancing anyway. Like I said, more fun than the movies. Certainly stranger.

Grandpa was always smiling, always shaking his fist in a mock-threatening manner, would always make editorial comments about things going on around us - just like I do. We all have stories that capture a part of him, and we're lucky in that respect. But we still weren't ready. He was Enright, Chuck, Charlie, and Finn. He was Grandpa.

I'm Going to Have to Call You Back

Alrighty, so I have been meaning to really write, but obviously I'm just putting too much pressure on myself. So for now, I'll just get something here so I don't look so lazy. (Oh, it's much too late for that.)

I was on my way home the other night and saw a Cyclist up ahead. You know, he's not riding a bike he's cycling. He has the spandex shorts, the spandex jersey, the funny little shoes, the helmet, the sunglasses, and as I pass him, I realize he's talking on a cell phone. What sort of a conversation is this guy having? Those numbers (huff puff) sounds good Bob (huff puff) but I'll have to (huff puff) call you back after I (huff puff) get up this hill.

Life in the Kingdom

As far as turn-based games online go, there is none finer than The Kingdom of Loathing. Where else can you become a Disco Bandit, fighting things like Baseball Bats (a creature with bat wings and a baseball for a body) and P Imps (in the Copse of the Deep Fat Friars)? My current questing takes me into the Palindrome, where every creature is (you guessed it) spelled the same forwards as it is backwards. The only problem now is that when I run out of adventures I am very very sad. So, I do the sensible thing and get my character falling down drunk.

For Your Information

In answer to my dad's question of the other night, gas in Raleigh is running about $1.68 for regular unleaded. It doesn't change the fact that I still have to put gas in my car when it runs out. And driving to Raleigh just to fill up your car would NOT save you any money.

Don't Look Now, But I'm Back

Ever feel like you've simply run out of stuff to talk about? Seriously, I have been wanting to send email to my friends for the longest time, but I didn't because they would just be so boooooring. Got up today, went to work, came home, made dinner, played a computer game. That's what I did yesterday, too. The fun just never ends, does it? But, I decided that if I don't keep writing I'll never get back in the habit.

Wednesday, I was driving to work and I was behind a Ford Econoline van. Now, this particular make and model holds special significance to me since we had one for a good portion of our family vacations. My father never called it a van, though, it was always a "truck". Pointing out to him that if it were a truck it would have a truck license plate was an exercise in futility. Pretending not to know where to go when he said, "Come on everybody, get in the truck," was equally pointless. The van I was behind the other day, however, would have gotten some cool points even from my dad. Above the back door handle were the stick-on kind of letters that you buy to put on your mailbox. They said: VANACONDA

Deep Fried Jelly Bracelets

It has come to my attention that most people (people I don't know) end up here looking for one of two things. So, in an effort to be the most helpful superjen I can, here you go:

1. How to make deep-friend turkey instructions can be found here and here, the last one includes a recipe for the seasoning.

2. The legend of the jelly bracelet, and what color means what... OK, girls, listen very carefully to what I am about to tell you. It doesn't matter what color means what, it doesn't matter what ANYONE tells you. Wear them (if your school lets you) or don't wear them (if they are banned or you don't like them). However, no boy has the power to make you do anything you don't want to do. Repeat after me the girl's ultimate defense against pressure of this type: WhatEVER. That's right, the perfectly timed "whatever" (especially accompanied by rolling eyes) ought to do the trick. Barring that, kick em in the nads. But you didn't hear that from me.

What a Way to Wake Up

I turned on the Today Show this morning to try and motivate myself to get out of bed. Yeah, it's sad, but the most trying part of my day usually happens somewhere between opening my eyes and taking a shower. So... warm... so... comfortable... can't... zzzzzz

This morning, they had a feature about teenagers that wear "jelly" bracelets to school. Apparently, the new urban legend at middle schools is that if a boy breaks off a certain color bracelet, the girl would then have to perform a corresponding ... act. Now, I'm unclear about whether it is supposedly on the boy that breaks it, or just on somebody, but regardless, schools are now banning the bracelets. Here's my question about the whole thing, who is more idiotic?

1. Girls who buy into the whole bracelet thing, which seems to me about as serious as the urban legend when I was in school: If you wear green on Thursday, it means you're horny. Seriously.

2. Schools that buy into the whole bracelet thing and decide to ban them, giving it a lot more attention than it deserves (Hello! It made it on the Today Show!) or

3. The father that they interviewed who claimed, and get this one: It is my daughter's Constitutional Right, her God-given Right, to wear jelly bracelets to school.


And Moses said unto the people, thou shalt have no other bracelets before the jelly bracelets. Or is it Life, Liberty, and the Wearing of Jelly Bracelets? I'm sure our forefathers are now pirouetting in their graves.

A Little Late, But...


I thoroughly enjoyed the bit on the hook hand urban legend story at The Morning News. Yeah, it was for Halloween, so deal. The one by Tobias Seamon was my favorite. A psychotic gleam in his eye, an itch in his armpit. Indeed.

Bicth or Bitch?

When I walked into my office this morning, these words greeted me. They were drawn on one of my tables in permanent marker, and then circled. Now, I'm pretty sure the second spelling is the correct one, but I had no idea how someone had gotten into my locked office and left me a multiple choice like this one.

As it turns out, the building hired a painting crew to paint doorframes that needed touching up. The painter assigned to the job had a death in the family, and had to bring his children with him so they could leave directly from here to go to the funeral. It is what happened next that puzzles all of us here. Apparently he unlocked every door in the building and then let his children run amok - they dumped out wastepaper baskets, dumped the hole punch into the copy machine, erased our docket board, wrote on my desk, left candy wrappers all over the place... it was basically Lord of the Office Flies in here.

So, the painting company has apologized and will be cleaning off the exercise in profanity. My suggestion was to shackle the children to the desk and have them clean it off, but then again, we don't really want them back here THAT badly.

WHAT WAS THAT???

We stayed up far too late last night, victims of a re-run of the X Files that neither one of us had seen before. We absolutely had to see how it ended. Finally, it was over and we drifted off to sleep.

In my dream, I was being chased by something that I couldn't see. Running like hell, I heard it make a loud noise, but I could tell the noise was fairly far away from me. It moved around a bit, but then got louder and louder until I knew it was right next to me. Abandoning any hope of escape, I struck out hoping to defend myself against this formless noise...

I woke up when my arm hit something, and then realized it was Ryan. Not fully awake and still pretty freaked out from my dream, I grabbed his hand. It was at this point that I realized I COULD STILL HEAR THE NOISE. I grabbed his hand tighter and shut my eyes, wondering if this was one of those dream-within-a-dream things, since the noise had stopped. Then I heard the noise go streaking up the stairs, and realized it was the stupid cat.

So, at 3:30 in the morning, I got out of bed, fully awake now, and headed up the stairs to see how the cat could be making so much noise. I crouched down at the top of the stairs, and looked for him under the futon. He came slinking out from behind it with a shopping bag attached to his head. He had somehow managed to slip his head into one of the handles on a paper shopping bag, and had been running around, trying to dislodge it. Also chasing me around in my dream, but I guess I can't really blame him for that. I got it off his head and threw it away - he sat in the middle of the floor making soft wheezing noises while I tried to tell him everything was OK. There is still some question in my mind as to who was more freaked out by the whole experience.

Battening

North Carolina is really a lovely place to live. It's an easy drive to both the beach and the mountains, there are trees and greenery all over the place, the winters are mild, there is air conditioning for the summers, etc. etc. Every so often, Mother Nature reminds us that we have to pay a toll for all this. The ice storm last winter was one such toll - people lost a bunch of trees, which led to a loss of power, water, and phone service. Now, we have a hurricane sitting off the coast. We have had so much rainfall this summer that our trees are once again turning from things of beauty into weapons against our power lines, phone lines, and roofs.

Hurricanes, for the most part, are very polite. They usually move at about 10 miles per hour, giving everybody plenty of warning. In contrast, for example, tornadoes are unbelievably rude. I like to think that's why we don't get as many tornadoes here in the South. The hurricane is much more gentile and takes its own sweet time about doing things, just like your typical native southerner. Hurricanes do tend to pit one state against another, however. Here in North Carolina we focus our telepathy at the hurricane and urge it to hit Florida, maybe, or on up into Maryland, if you please. Those bastards in Virginia haven't gotten their fair share of bad weather! Come on, give us a break.

I have only seen three hurricanes since moving here. Bonnie was the first one, and when the people at work told me there was a hurricane coming I left work and went home in a hurry, figuring that it was going to hit any minute. See, Wisconsin is the land of tornadoes, and I figured it was one of those rude-type storms. When I got home, Ryan said we had better go to the store and prepare, and I said... but there's a hurricane coming! We can't go outside! Yeah, he laughed. Anyway, Bonnie was the "good" kind of hurricane - the kind that blows like hell and you can sit inside and watch the trees turn sideways and the rain come down like somebody turned on a faucet... but nothing flooded and the trees were spared for the most part.

We managed to move away from the coast for the next two, Denis and Floyd. However, we moved in with a friend in his BASEMENT apartment. My friends, there is a very good reason why there are hardly any basements in North Carolina. I woke up one morning, swung my feet over the side of the bed and they went splash. What the... oh crap! The whole apartment flooded during Denis, and again during Floyd. Raleigh as a whole was spared, though. We are hoping that Isabel sees fit to behave and not toss too many trees around. The psychology here is to be prepared, since that will definitely make the hurricane not hit us at all. Nothing like a stockpile of expensive batteries to ward off Mother Nature, after all.

Take Them Bowling

We rented Bowling for Columbine this week-end, and I would like to personally deliver it to each of your houses and watch it with you. Barring that, I guess I will just recommend that you rent it. We will probably end up buying it - I for one would like to watch it again. To blatantly steal a thought from a fictional movie, it makes me want to be a better (wo)man. It was depressing, it was uplifting, it made me laugh, and it made me cry. Who would expect that from a documentary? To some extent, it made me mad that Michael Moore went to the lengths he did in order to try and add some spice to the film - it would have stood on its own if he didn't, for example, track down Dick Clark in Hollywood and try and make him look like an asshole. He has a very meaningful interview with Charlton Heston until he decided that he needed to try and make him look bad. But for all these shortcomings (at least in my opinion), it makes a huge impact on the viewer. I believe it is to the movie's credit that it doesn't try and answer any of the questions it asks. Why are Americans so afraid? Of different races, of crime, of strangers, of the Orange Alert, of any number of things. WHEN PETS ATTACK, tonight on Fox. Now we're supposed to be afraid of our pets?

But I digress. The message I am taking away from the movie is to be involved, and not to buy into a culture of fear that is being preached to us from the media and the government. Also, to try and get other people to watch the movie. Grassroots, people, grassroots.

Billy Whoooofleck??

Not a phone call I would want to get again, really:

Phone: Jennifer?

SuperJen: Yes..

Phone: This is Carol, from [my oncologist]'s office.

[insert sound of heart stopping... here.]

Carol: Hello?

SJ: Yes, hello.

C: [my oncologist] would like you to come back in and have your blood tested again, because your Billy Rubin was low.

SJ: What?? Billy who? I don't know anyone named Billy.

C: Bilirubin, it's an enzyme having to do with liver function.

SJ: Uh-huh.

C: So, he would like you to come in in 2-3 weeks.

SJ: 2-3 weeks. Right.

C: OK so we'll see you then.

[click]

Billy Rubin, that bastard. How could he abandon me in this fashion? So, I went back in and told them that I had flunked my blood test, but had studied really hard and would like to take it again. I got nuthin - people who talk to cancer patients all day have very little sense of humor, actually. Then they stuck me again, and said they would only call me back if it was low again. I think it has been long enough that I'm out of Billy Rubin's woods. And man, no more splitting a bottle of wine before my blood tests. I'm thinking that was the culprit - my liver was trying to send an SOS to the oncologist. Help! Help! I'm being oppressed!

Life's Little Victories

These apparently happen to Keith Knight a lot more frequently than they happen to me, but I'm starting my own list.

#1: You hear an all-to-familiar sampled bass line on the radio

No! It's Vanilla Ice! Dear Lord, make it stop!!

And then it's the original song in all its glory!

Bowie! Mercury! YES!!!

Getting Fuzzy

I invite you to feel the cold wrath that is my spork. Thank you.

In the Fark Personals Forum

jessss: OK, 11-letter word for Star Wars character

LawTalkingGuy: Luuuuuuuuke?

I Have Tried the Ice Cream of the Future

... and it was OK.

I recently signed up to sing the National Anthem at a Carolina Courage soccer game with some people from the choir I belong to off and on. The hubby and I decided that we would spring for the (free) tickets and stay around for the game.

Initially, we thought that getting something to eat would be a challenge. After all, we have stopped eating dairy products so pizza was out, and forget about hot dogs just from a basic self-preservation standpoint. Luckily, one of their sponsors is Nuri-Mond Deli, so we were able to get grilled vegetable wraps and hummus with pita bread. But then, we looked around for something bad. Sporting events are made for dietary sinning. When I saw a big sign for Dippin' Dots, the Ice Cream of the Future, the deal was sealed. I mean, how can you not want to try the ice cream of the freakin' future?

So, we shelled out $3 for a cup. When he started scooping it in, I thought - oh crap, that looks like gravel. Or Nerds, that teeth-breaky candy from the Wonka people. We looked at each other and psychically sent the message, "Oh well, it's only money." But it wasn't bad, really. I think I would describe it as cold, soft, creamy gravel. It's a little plasticy, and of course it's dairy so you won't find me eating it again anytime soon. But damn it, I have tried the ice cream of the future and that is what's important.

Community Property

I just went into the kitchen in my office building to try and microwave my lunch. Someone had already stuck their food in there, though, so I figured I would have to wait until 1) it was done and 2) they came back to actually remove it. I checked the timer, and it said... 7:48???? What? That means that they probably put their food in there for at least eight minutes, if not more. I checked inside - looked like your standard frozen dinner fare to me. Didn't look like, say a frozen steak or other sort of non-instant food that need to be actually *cooked* not just warmed up. I took a trip to the restroom and returned when the timer was at about 5 minutes, and the dinner was actually making little popping noises in there. I'm thinking that when the nuker returns, this plastic food is going to be melted like the plastic container in which it is presented. Mmmm, radioactive.

Duck, duck, ... ew

As with most office buildings, there is a culture of people who smoke that congregate outside. I'm not going to go into how much I dislike running the gauntlet of toxic fumes to get to work. If you cross through the parking lot and go down a hill, there is also a pond that serves as eye candy for the backyards of houses that are nearby. In the summer, the pond gets all sorts of water fowl, ducks and geese and stuff. A few of the ducks were always seen wandering around the parking lot - I don't know if the pond was not good enough for them or what. Maybe it was their exercise regimen. At any rate, the smokers decided that they would feed these ducks while they were giving themselves lung cancer. Now, not only do the ducks permanently reside right next to the building, but they laid their eggs there. There is all manner of duck feces all over the sidewalk, and we see the maintenance guy out there every morning trying to clean it all up so nobody slips and falls. Now there's some real thinking ahead, smokers. If you think about it, picking up smoking and feeding ducks up by the building can be related to missing the thinking ahead genetic material. A very simple cause and effect logic is clearly missing.

Fear the boob

I realized this morning that it has been a little over a year since I found out I had cancer. The great part about that is I forgot about it until it was a year and month - not like I had to sit here and count the days or anything. I like the fact that I have to go see the oncologist but I don't need to go see the oncologist. It so beats the alternative. In other news, my mom told me she is back to getting the mammogram once a year now, like "normal" people. Go mom! Thanks for the tough genetic material!

Neurosa

A friend of ours has recently discovered that her apartment building has an infestation of mice.

We're talking here about people walking in to their apartments and finding 20-25 mice that scatter when the door opens. Residents hear the mice scrambling around in the walls when they are trying to sleep. This was evidently caused by the destruction of a pond and forest in order to build more apartments.

As alarming as that would be to anyone who has to live in the building, our friend has taken this extremely hard. She has been in the building for about ten years, and developed something of a sentimental attachment to the building. It is where she lived with her (now deceased) cat, it is where she has set down her roots, she used to feel more at home there than anywhere else she has ever lived. More than just that, though, the invasion of mice has triggered some sort of rebirth of her entire personality. The neurotic genes that she inherited have been catalyzed, and a superheroine is born. Neurosa, champion over germs, Brillo pad in one hand, Clorox Wipe in the other, she will find and destroy any trace of anything human in the apartment. Everything in the closets and the kitchen will be disinfected or discarded; she will have no mercy. The apartment will smell like a hospital, and no food will be prepared. If the mice win (and the mice will NOT win, Neurosa will not allow that to happen), a suitcase and a car is all that will remain of this former life, this secret identity if you will. Neurosa takes no prisoners and is not sentimental over a bedroom suite (that might have been touched by a mouse with germs). Nor is Neurosa sentimental about the cat's earthly remains - ashes that were to be scattered off the balcony of the apartment when Neurosa moved out now have an undetermined fate. For Neurosa is the conqueror of anything unclean, especially mice, and Neurosa will be damned if her beloved cat's ashes will be devoured by mice.

Coincidence?

Anti-gay sodomy laws declared unconstitutional

Strom Thurmond dies

You be the judge.

Norah

We went to see Norah Jones the other night. Usually when it has been raining for the last umpteen days, the last thing you would want to do would be to go to an outdoor concert. And yet, the weather cooperated and held off raining until we were leaving. In fact, there was a nice breeze during the concert that made it not too muggy and kept the bugs away, at least for the most part.

Norah just rocks. I can usually overlook when a musician is not quite as talented, but has a unique sound, like Anthony Kiedis. He makes their sound work, but hearing him live you can tell he's making it up as he goes along. Or Britney Spears - when you hear her sing live you can tell how much work they have to do to put enough effects on her voice to make it palatable. Not Norah. I didn't have to overlook a thing - every single member of the ensemble was just solid. She sounded just like she does on the radio - just satiny smooth and beautiful. She only did one song (The Nearness of You) from jazz repertoire, and it was killer. I almost wished she had done more along those lines, since everything she sang made me go "aahhhhhhhh." The sort of music where you can just relax and enjoy.

Underachievers

I think the day this country should have realized it was in trouble was the day they replaced the street sign:

MEN WORKING

with

MEN AND EQUIPMENT AHEAD

Yeah, we dropped them off this morning with some stuff, but we are not prepared to guarantee that they're actually working. But they're out there, so... don't hit them with your car. Thanks.

Just a Geek

Yup, borrowed that from Wil Wheaton. I am planning to purchase his new book, by the way, it sounds amazing from the reviews I have read so far. I am just having a major geek moment today, and figured I would share. See, most people that know me know that I am a big geek. No, no, don't argue - underneath this smooth, polished exterior lies the heart of a major geek.

Case in point: I really haven't gotten as much sleep as I would like lately because I have been playing Dark Age of Camelot. Last night, they instituted a patch that lets me instantly level my characters from the "Gosh I wish I could kill that spider" stage to the "RAWR!!! I will put the HURT on you!" stage. Way too much fun, so, y'know, that justifies staying up until 1:30, right? ... oh, I am a geek, and a bit ashamed at my lack of control. They also added a feature where you can check the time from within the game. That has to be a feature requested by parents. Oh yes, we associate regularly with characters in the game whose controlling humans are 13. They are... interesting. Mostly I just get annoyed by the net speak - even though I understand it (I'm a geek, after all), it just doesn't fit in the Medieval period, and they DON'T UNDERSTAND THAT.

Me: "Drakkel, why are you talking so funny?"

Drakkel: "lol what u mean i m happy 2 b here.

*sigh*

Other People

I have recently discovered a website called Other People's Stories. It is an excellent way to pass some time if you're bored, and an excellent way to read some good writing even when you're not bored. Check 'er out.

So, I am a married lady now. Funny, I feel pretty much the same as before we got married. Pictures should be arriving within whatever schedule our photographer is on, so I'll probably put some up. We had terrific weather, which was significant because that was the ONLY DAY in the whole week where it wasn't rainy and cold in addition to being pretty windy. Wisconsin in May can be a bit... unpredictable that way. We are not sure about this, of course, but we think the good weather may have been a wedding present from my husband's father. Thanks David, wish you could have been there.

Out of Mind Auto-reply

THIS MESSAGE HAS BEEN AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED, PLEASE DO NOT REPLY. I will be out of my mind from today until a month from now when I get married. I apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause. If you need to contact someone sane while I am out of my mind, please figure that our for yourself. Thanks, and have a great month.

Super Jen

Return of the Refinance Stalker

Now we're to the pathetic, "Don't you love me anymore??" stage of our relationship:

I just wanted to check back in with you to see if you have had any second thoughts about the refinance. I have everything ready to go if you are reconsidering the 5 year ARM. I would also be able to change the loan into a 5 year ARM if you are willing to let me. I hope everything is going well and look forward to hearing from you. Please give me an update when you get the chance. Thanks.

Dear Sir,

No.

Oh yeah? Well... you can't play with my toys anymore

What is this country coming to? Seriously, take a good look around for a second. Yes, we still have more money than most nations, but what are we using it for? To wage wars on countries that don't attack us without even a majority of support from the population, and then to piss and moan and act like babies when our allies say the same thing that most people in our own country are saying. OK, the "majority of the population" thing is based on the sampling of people with which I have contact, and the majority of sentiment I hear people voicing on television. All I know is that every time there is a war protest, the White House doesn't comment. When a majority of Republicans were elected into Congress, however, the White House commented that it means America Wants War. And now, the freedom fries. I have no desire to actually move away (see refinancing saga below), but I would like to be put into suspended animation until reading the news doesn't make me want to hurl.

A Nice Warm Cup of STFU

We are currently looking into refinancing our house, and one of the things my fiance did was to apply at Lending Tree to experience that whole "banks compete over you" thing. Well, the first company that gave us a quote required a whole assload of financial information to be submitted, and then required that we have our house appraised. Then, they proceeded to lock the rate (without asking us if we accepted their offer) and tell us that we were closing that Thursday. HELLO! They basically railroaded us into getting it completed as soon as possible - not to mention without considering any other offers. Then, we got a competing offer from another place that was pretty similar, and still not exactly what we wanted. In discussions with the second company, they suggested a 5 year Adjustable Rate Mortgage (ARM), which sounded pretty attractive. We called the first company and told them thanks but no thanks, we're going with the ARM at this other company. Below is the email that my fiance got from the first company. I am not going to comment, I'm just going to sit back in amazement.

Despite my frustrations, I want to let you know that I understand your position. I am upset at the fact that I am able to offer you the same 5 year ARM that *company* is offering you. I did not present you with the option in the beginning because I don't feel that it is your best option. I have your best interest in mind and I truly feel that the 30 year fixed rate option is the best option. I was under the influence that you were planning on staying in the house for the next 10 to 15 years and I don't see why you would want the vulnerability of an ARM when you can lock into a 30 year fixed at the lowest rates in history. In the beginning, I asked what your goals were through the refinance and understood them to be eliminating PMI, saving money monthly, and lowering your interest rate. I have done all of these things for you and have a hard time understanding your hesitations. Your loan is ready to close and I have spent a significant amount of time and effort getting it to this point. I wish you could see the loan from my perspective and wish that you were as excited to get it done as I am.


*company* may be presenting you with a 5 year ARM option, but I feel like they are undercutting me and promising you that the 5 year ARM is your best deal. Keep in mind that the interest savings is about $80. The monthly PMI will have to also be added in, which I was under the influence was something you set out to eliminate from the beginning of this process. It is true that you can refinance in 60 months when the ARM increases (which it will every 6 months to 1 year) but you will have to finance the closing costs once again which will cash in even more of your equity and will eliminate any interest savings you received from the initial lower rate and will actually cost you more money. If you choose not to refinance, your rate will eventually reach 10% which you will pay for the remainder of the loan, probably at least 20 years. Not to mention that *company* will take at least another month to get this done for you, when I have what I feel is the best loan available ready to close today, not making your first payment due until May and this payment can be made for you with the cash you will be receiving at closing.


I apologize for going on about this, but the more I type, the more frustrated I get. I worked hard for you and to now have to turn this loan down is not fair. I don't understand why you would choose to go with *company* when I have worked this hard for you. I think that you would agree that my customer service is second to none and have been in contact with you on an almost daily basis. I have given you many different options and worked plenty of numbers for you. I hope that you are getting the same level of service from *company*, because it is very important and you deserve it and you will be sorry after the loan closes if this is not the case. I hope that you weigh all the options available to you and would like to change your mind and get your loan closed, but I wish you the best luck with the wedding and with your refinance. Please let me know when you change your mind, I would be happy to get this done for you. Thank You.

No.

OK, I just read this very disturbing story about bloggers promoting a new milk-based drink. Not only am I bitter that they don't consider mine a "key blog" (yeah right, that really upset me), I am upset that this product is even being developed. I will say it at the risk of permanently damaging my reputation as a Wisconsin native: Milk is not good for you. Just say no. Seriously, you will thank me, your sinuses will thank me, your whole body will jump for joy after a week of dairy reduction and/or elimination.

Dude, You Should Totally Ask Her Out

I just walked past the office of an attorney down the hall, and did that glance in thing - you know, you're casually strolling past, and you just casually look in there, even though you have absolutely no business looking. I think it's instinctual, this compulsion to be completely aware of what's behind door numbers 1, 2, and 3. I mean, if the caveman didn't glance into every cave he passed, he could be lunch, right?

Anyway, the attorney was on the phone, as is normal for attorneys, I'm learning. So here he is talking to a client, presumably, and he's all curled up sideways in his chair with his feet dangling over his desk. I fully expected to hear him giggle and say, "So what did she say about me? Does she think I'm cute?" I think that seeing that will give me new perspective the next time I have to make a work-related telephone call.

Of All the Luck

The asshole who cut me off in traffic this morning, you know the one, the one who waits until the lanes are merging and then decides that he has to be right in front of you at the last minute? Yeah. I was behind him after that point, and even though he was going about 20 miles over the speed limit, ended up behind him once we exited. Then, he turned where I turned. Then, he pulled into my parking lot and parked.

Now, as upset as I was when he cut me off, I was ecstatic in equal part when he ended up at my destination. I mean, how often do you get the chance to actually see the guy that drives like that? Not only that, but possibly to hold the door for him as he enters the building? I hurried out of my car, if only to be able to point out to him that cutting me off didn't get him in the door any faster.

I think he was on to me. He didn't even get out of the car until I was in the building, and then suddenly he had something very interesting in the trunk of his car that he had to look at. In retrospect, I guess it was all for the best.

Ow

My back hurts. I think I hurt it trying to pull wet clothes out of the washing machine, which sound incredibly wussy, but there you have it. I hurt it Sunday, and it got better and better and then yesterday got worse again. It's funny how your perspective changes when there's a persistent voice in the back of your head saying "ow ow ow ow ow." Activities that I didn't even think twice about I now dread. I think it got worse yesterday because I went to the grocery store for a few things and - *gasp* - walked around some. Sneezing really sucks. Also, coughing, drying my hair, feeding the cat... bleah.

I made a phone call to a massage therapist that works in the same building that I do. I had to hang up the first time because I was laughing at how funny his British accent sounded saying MAA-sage. But I overcame. We are still playing phone tag, but hopefully he will be able to make me stand upright again. It has been very embarrassing to walk around the building like I'm 80 - I have developed this little waddle that feels pretty good but looks so ridiculous I want to laugh as I walk around. But laughing hurts.

Ten Movies Flock Thinks You Should See

Yes, you. Flock has seen more movies than you. No, I don't care who you are or where you work or any of that other crap, he has seen more movies. Just trust me on this one. I have paraphrased his reasons below, since we hashed this out verbally in my living room. And no, Flock is not his real name. It's a long story. Forget that, check out these movies:

1. Citizen Kane He didn't have much to add about this one, except that you can't miss it for the young Orson Welles, and even if you know about Rosebud, the journey is what makes this movie great.

2. The Godfather The first two, really. If he had room, Goodfellas would have made it, too.

3. Seven Samurai Every western you have seen is based on this movie, the granddaddy of them all. If you have already seen Star Wars, you can see where the inspiration was obtained. Yeah, I'm going to geek hell for that one. I don't care.

4. Andrei Rublyov This one everyone should try and get through. It is long. And in Russian with subtitles. But what makes it all worth it is the emotional impact it has on you once you have finished.

5. Gone with the Wind Although he had seen it before, he caught this when they re-released it in theaters, also. Watching this movie, you forget that they made it in the 30's. Well-made, and the epic of all epics, everyone should have it at least on their viewing resume.

6. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb This, if you haven't seen it, is the one everyone in the world has seen that one part of. You know, the part where the guy jockeys up on the falling bomb? It's also very funny, and one of Kubrick's best films.

7. Taxi Driver He didn't have much comment about this, except that it's a great movie. If nothing else, see Jodie Foster before she lost all her baby teeth.

8. 2001: A Space Odyssey One of the rare movies where the script doesn't get in the way of the movie. This movie was done way before any of the special effects technology caught up to how Kubrick wanted it to look. With painstaking attention to detail, they created what would be the most expensive movie of all time if it were done with today's technology. It shows.

9. Children of Paradise At first, I thought he was talking about City of the Lost Children, which is also French, but no. This movie is an epic film on par with Gone with the Wind, but takes place in 1800's France. They actually made this movie under the nose of the Germans right before France was occupied in WWII.

10. The Third Man A film noir mystery. Good eats.

11. Our amplifiers go all the way to eleven! OK, he couldn't finish the list without adding Alfred Hitchcock movies. Start maybe with Vertigo, move on to Psycho, The Birds, Rear Window, Shadow of a Doubt... yeah, the biggest problem he had was with limiting the list to ten.

I am ashamed to admit that I have only seen three of these movies, so obviously I have my work cut out for me. Perhaps if I didn't spend so much time playing Dark Age of Camelot...

Is This Thing On?

Yes! I'm back, had a lot of extraneous activity for a bit, there, but I need to write some stuff down before I completely forget about it. So, let me talk about our trip to Florida over the MLK week-end. Some of us (but not me) get that Monday off, so we decided we would go and visit my fiance's grandmother in Daytona Beach. He hadn't seen her in roughly twenty years, which is a long story, but we figured it was about time. Since we are about eight hours away by car, we decided to drive.

Sightings from the road:

There is a Welcome Center in South Carolina that is smack dab in the MIDDLE of the state. There is NO WAY that the Welcome Center is welcoming anyone who hasn't been in the state for at least a couple of hours. My thought was they are welcoming all the incoming paratroopers, or the crash-landing aliens.

Speaking of South Carolina, I finally laid eyes on South of the Border. There are signs for this thing all the way into North Carolina along I-95, but I had never actually seen this monstrosity of tourism. The worst part is that we didn't have time to stop. I want to visit the monstrosity! Maybe some other time. I hear they have ashtrays with pictures of Elvis on the bottom that even the non-smokers can't resist buying.

So, we made it to "Florida," or so they claim. It was between 30 and 40 degrees almost the entire time we were there, including the day we spent walking around outside in St. Augustine. Probably the most humorous part of this is that the Floridians apologized for the weather. Then the day we left (naturally) it was in the 70s. I know this, because everyone we met told us. "It's nice today!" "It's in the 70s! Too bad it's windy." I have never heard people talk about the weather this much. Something in the water, maybe.

We had a good time with granny. She had cancer in her throat some time ago, so doesn't speak above a whisper, and eats through a tube. All the same, she seems to have boundless energy and practically leapt around her home, cooking us so much food I thought I was going to go into food coma every time we ate. The problem with having someone cook for you that can't eat is that there is absolutely no tolerance for leftovers. She's a good cook, however, and everything was really delicious. We played penny-ante poker, and while we had our lucky moments, I believe she would have cleaned us out if we had stayed longer.

Do You Hear the Lambs, Clarice?

If you have a list of ten movies everyone should see, feel free to email them to me, still. My email address is at left, all code-like to avoid the evil spammers (hopefully).

Speaking of evil, there is a guy in our office building that has been creeping me out ever since he got here. If the police suspected that a serial killer was renting in our building, I would know EXACTLY who to point to, assuming that my safety was guaranteed. He is maybe a little old for "the profile" that they talk about in the movies, but he is very quiet, nondescript, keeps to himself, etc. Also, he will dig through every candy dish in the building to find the gold-wrapped Brachs candies. He will go to every dish, take ALL the candy out of it, and mumble to himself the whole time. I have seen the work he gives to the our shared secretary, and he literally cuts up other letters he's written and pastes the sentences onto a new piece of paper for her to type. He will then underline parts of them in pen. They look like ransom notes to me, and I'm sure she has her reservations. The other day, I walked to the kitchen and he was standing in front of the door, just staring in. I politely said, "excuse me," as I edged cautiously around him, and he looked startled, walked into the kitchen, and proceeded to stand in front of the soda machine, staring. As Strongbad would say, "That guy gives me the jibblies." Jibbly.

Dave's Ten Movies Everyone Should See

This means you.

I have known Dave since high school, and he has always been interested in literature, movies, drama, you name it. Hopefully, he still writes in his spare time, other than the vastly entertaining emails that he sends me (and other people too). Furthering his credentials, he managed a movie rental place for a bit, which means he has seen many more movies than I have. If some of his descriptions sound a bit touchy-feely, that's as a result of the San Francisco atmosphere he's breathing. Heh. I would like to point out that not only does Dave read what I write, he reads for content. You have to respect that in a friend.

1. Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back: I'd like to count the original trilogy as one movie, but picked this because a) it's the best of the current 5, and b) it's cheating--if a Star Wars virgin sees just this one, they will be obligated by forces of natural curiosity to see the other two. References to this movie abound in culture so much that one needs to be familiar with the story to prevent becoming a social pariah.

2. Ferris Bueller's Day Off: it reminds everyone of what it's like to be young and to seize the day. The kids aren't carefree--indeed real teen angst about relationships, college, et all pervades the film--but it demonstrates that those worries can be set aside, if only for a day.

3. The Breakfast Club: I wanted to let only Ferris represent the genre, but The Breakfast Club details class strife so well that it needed a shout-out. Nobody uses a pop movie to discuss the caste system as well as John Hughes, and no movie does it better than this. Plus, I think it's useful for society as a whole to know that 'Claire' is a fat girl's name.

4. Airplane: you can't watch it and not laugh (again, and again, and again) but the comedy comes in 2-5 layers PER SHOT. Hopefully people will walk away recognizing that life has complexity, but, more importantly, you should always look for the joke.

5. Dances With Wolves: nature is beautiful; destroying it is bad.

6. Trainspotting: if you take enough drugs and hang out with enough drug-users, you'll eventually end up grinning over a bridge with a sack full of cash. No... wait... drugs are bad! If you take enough drugs you'll see spirit visions of the baby you killed climb across your ceiling. Actually, it's just a good story of another culture and it uses music beautifully to help tell its story (I'm thinking specifically of "It's Just a Perfect Day...")

7. Pulp Fiction: no excuses, just a wonderfully entertaining movie. The only morals I can think are (again) drugs, organized crime, and pawn shops are bad. And it's not a motorcycle, baby. It's a chopper.

8. Holiday Inn: even black & white movies can be good! Irving Berlin wrote "White Christmas" for Bing to sing in this movie, and no one should die without seeing Fred Astaire glide across a floor as though he were on ball bearings.

9. The Shining: this movie uses brilliant suspense, contains a brilliant story, and has the best steady-cam big-wheel shot I've ever seen in my life. It's good to be scared every once in a while (vicariously, at least) and it teaches one never to disturb someone else when they're writing--good lesson. Ed. note: That's right. All work and no play make Super Jen all crazy.

10. Dead Poets Society: I know people have problems with this flick, and that's fine, but don't underestimate the utility of the life choice Carpe Diem. It also discusses the benefits (and punishments) of resisting totalitarianism, introduced a new generation to the sweaty-toothed madman, Whitman, and above all, teaches you to think for yourself.

Ten Movies Everyone Should See

I decided that I wasn't going to try and tackle something like "The Ten Best Movies of ALL TIME" like one of those corny VH1 shows (that I love watching, don't get me wrong). But let's face it, I do not have the time or the resources to watch every single movie ever made and make that sort of judgement call. So, I decided to list ten movies that I think everyone should see, whether it is because they are good movies, or just to increase cultural IQ. I encourage anyone (anyone?) who reads this to email me your list, and I will post it here. And like me, you don't need to have any credentials whatsoever. Whee! So here are mine, in no particular order.

1. The Breakfast Club - this is one of those cultural relevance ones, if you're wondering.

2. Dirty Harry. I only recently watched this movie. Not only does it have GREAT lines (including the one that everyone already knows), it feels like a documentary about what 70's movies are all about.

3. Star Wars. Speaking of the 70's... even if you "don't like Sci-Fi movies," watch the first one. At least you'll be able to correctly identify wookie impressions.

4. Lord of the Rings. Same advice as #3. Also, I realized that all my movies were old. So here's a new one.

5. So I Married an Axe Murderer - If only to witness the Scottish comedy in the middle, oh so worth sitting through the rest of it. A rare Mike Myers vehicle in that it contains very little if any potty humor.

6. Braveheart. This way I have my epic bases covered. Yeah, I liked Gladiator, but this one wins that little duel, at least for me.

7. Pulp Fiction... unless you don't like cursing with your movies. That's the only complaint I have ever heard about this movie.

8. Monty Python and the Holy Grail. You'll thank me when the office geek starts quoting it. Believe me.

9. The Princess Bride. This movie makes me smile.

10. The Blues Brothers. Nothing like an original. Music superstars galore, and lot of quotable lines.

Another Mystery Solved

A couple networks are struggling to answer that nagging question, "How long do you have to wait after a tragedy before you can profit by putting out a made for TV movie about it?" The answers vary, however. Some say a year and a half, while others are a little more conservative and say heck, let's wait a full four years. Wow, I'm glad they have that figured out.

Carolina Christmas

It was 70 degrees the other day. Naturally, it was pouring down rain. Even umbrellas were futile, given that the wind was blowing so hard. I think I would prefer some nice snow, thanks. Then my fiance could actually get some time off work. His company is so crazy they wouldn't even say "don't come in" during the ice storm when they HAD NO POWER. They left a series of messages that said check back in another two hours, check back at noon, check back at 3:00, then finally they figured the power wasn't coming back on. The message then said, "The building is without power. If you have things that are of critical importance that you can do by the light of the window, come in." I was pretty much speechless - which is rare for me, believe me. Yeah, so the streets are icy, there is ice falling off the buildings and the trees that could seriously injure you, you are probably without power and heat at your house... but come in if there's something that the company really needs you to do, K? Sheesh.

I'm Calling the Cop!

This service may not do anything at all to stop spammers, but it sure makes me feel better. Especially when I read the report from Spam Cop and see "Yum, this spam is fresh!" Mmm, fresh spam. For me to poop on!

Fran on Ice

I suppose I could share some things about the recent ice storm that hit North Carolina. (See pictures here.) Frankly, the only thing that comes to mind is "Wow, that sucked pretty hard." We were among the fortunate, though, we had power the whole time, it just flickered randomly. We had also purchased the new expansion for our crack... er, I mean... video game, so we were content save the occasional reboot due to flaky power. We would get up every so often to go look out the window at the tree that is now leaning over our porch, threatening to crush it like a grape. A grape porch. My feeling on this ice storm, along with many of the major hurricanes that pass through this area, is that it is [your deity of choice]'s way of saying YOU HAVE TOO MANY FREAKIN' TREES! Natural selection for the arbors. That sort of thing. Speaking as someone who spent an entire day recently trying to rake up all the leaves in my yard, I say, good idea.

It Had to Happen Eventually

I am 30 years old. Nobody is more surprised than I am about that. Mostly, I have been a little waffly about how I'm taking this. That's right, waffly. I have had some advice from people who have already gone through this, and it has likewise been mixed. I think the advice I liked the most is that this is the year at which one starts to come into one's own. A self-actualization milestone.

I just hope that nobody expects me to act like a grownup.

And Back to Politics Briefly


I believe
This comic pretty much sums it up. Thankyouverymuch.

Call Me Ripley

The last couple days I have had a fairly intense pain located just below my rib cage. I don't know, is that the solar plexus? Anyone? After considering several possibilities of what this might be, I have decided that I am host to an alien. My only question now is should I be eating for two? Also, do aliens prefer coffee or tea? Perhaps a nice danish?

Slow News Day

I would like to preface this by saying that we didn't have any tornadoes in North Carolina this week-end. Sure, they thought we might, and the weather took lives not too far from here. But mostly it just rained.

That being said, I think the news coverage went just a bit overboard on this whole weather topic. My fiance, being an employee of a bank, got yesterday off. He said that every five minutes there was a weather update to say OH MY GOD IT'S RAINING! RAIN HITS THE TRIANGLE! HEAVY RAIN! WE MIGHT HAVE A TORNADO! and then five minutes later STILL RAINING! RUN FOR COVER! THE SKY APPEARS TO BE FALLING! Now, this may be big news since we had a drought all summer. They didn't ever get to tell us about rain, and they saved it all up.

The other complaint I have is that there were about five accidents blocking traffic this morning because during the drought everyone forgot how to drive in rain. At least that's my theory. Did they bring us traffic every 15 minutes? Every 30? No! Traffic at 8:00, then HEAVY RAIN HITS THE TRIANGLE every 15 minutes thereafter. Hey, bozo, I can look out the window and tell that it's raining. Tell me where traffic is actually getting through.

The Carnival

When we went to the outer banks of North Carolina with my family this summer, we had great fun with the word Ocracoke. Specifically, with my father's insistence on pronouncing it "Orchid Choke". I made the analogy that his brain was like a carnival ride. The word pays admission at his ear and goes in, but by the time it comes out his mouth it is so dizzy from being on the rides in there it has no shot of being correctly pronounced.

To some, that can sound like criticism. The thing is, I wouldn't have it any other way. One of the funniest memories I have is of being in a hotel room in France somewhere with the four of us, listening to my father read the fire safety instructions in German. OK, not exactly German. But that's what made it so funny. I think my brother and I hiccuped for about an hour afterwards. Painful, but worth it. Totally. Dad may not have been granted an ear for languages, but in its stead he has been granted great humor, a real desire to help people, and a gift to put people at ease, even complete strangers. We can't go anywhere with him without running into somebody that he knows, and who wants to talk to him at length. People gravitate towards him; he is everyone's friend.

Happy Birthday, Dad. I love you.

Must... Not... Snap...

In the "Ten Items or Less" aisle this afternoon, the woman in front of me was buying 30 cans of Fancy Feast(R) catfood. Yeah, like that counts as one item. Well, it would have in my book if the cashier didn't have to stand there and count them and then SCAN ONE CAN THROUGH 30 TIMES. Beep. Beep. Beep. Ooops, missed it that time, try again. Beep. Then the customer paid with a check and had to read her driver's license number to the cashier. When it was finally my turn, the cashier asked me if I would like to stand there and fill out an application for a Winn-Dixie savings card. NO! Does the fact that I am standing in the express lane make you think I would like to hang out in the grocery store all afternoon?

In general, though, I am liking that grocery store more and more. First, they are across the street from the office. Also, they actually have an organic foods section. This is part of my cancer prevention, eating more organic foods, more fruits and vegetables, more whole grains, less partially hydrogenated oils, less dairy, no MSG, that sort of thing. Winn-Dixie even carries Amy's Kitchen(R) frozen foods. If you have not tried them, you are foolish. They are tastier than Lean Cuisine(R) and Healthy Choice(R) frozen foods put together. Also, I would wager that all the so-called healthy choice dinners have things in them that are not on my new healthy diet. I think they should be required to put the healthy in quotation marks.

Sightings on Highway 40

The onion truck: a small pickup truck going under the speed limit with its hazard lights on. There were huge bags full of onions hanging off the back, and boxes of onions below those. As I passed him, I noticed that even the passenger seat was full of onions. That man likes his onions.

The paradox: a small black car with lots of bumper stickers on the back. One read "VAMPIRE." OK, I get that, some kind of goth with a delusion. One of the others read "VEGAN AND I VOTE." OK, a vegan vampire? Either this vampire is starving to death, or it drinks the blood of poor innocent vegetables.

Intimidating

This morning I was behind a pickup truck on my way to work. When I got closer, I noticed that it had a decal across the back that said INTIMIDATOR, and a number 3 in the back window. Not really surprising, since Dale Earnhardt's following in North Carolina was, to say the least, rabid. I remember hearing a woman on the news shortly after his death saying that she had been a fan of his for all of her 21 years and just didn't know what she was going to do now. The only thing that bothered me about the pickup truck was that as I got closer, I realized that right in the middle of his "intimidator" decal was a picture of... Betty Boop. Yeah, I have always been intimidated by her.

Charging Blindly Ahead Into Politics

For me, This article pretty much sums it up. I know it's cheating to just quote somebody else and say, "Yep, I'm with him." But rarely have I been so captivated by an article, especially one that I picked up for free while having my car worked on.

The BBC World News

I enjoy the perspective I get from listening to the BBC World News in the morning. For example, I heard Peter Jennings on television this morning saying something like:

Will President Bush be able to convince a reluctant United Nations of the need to attack Iraq?

OK, now that puts a slant on it, doesn't it? I mean, it pits him as David against Goliath, doesn't it? But wait.. wait... what if we actually don't need to attach Iraq? What then? On the BBC World News this morning:

Will the United States be able to strongarm the United Nations into agreeing to an attack on Iraq? And if so, will the UN have any credibility left?

What I don't understand is why. Why bomb the haystack to kill the needle? How many innocent people get killed that way? Just to avoid making this an ultra-serious post, I also enjoy listening to the BBC to hear certain reporters call him "Meester Booosh." We meet again, Meester Booosh.

Our Modern World

I really enjoyed the Rolling Requiem idea for today, and listened to the local one on the radio today. In case you had not heard of it, Mozart's Requiem was sung in 21 time zones today, each starting at 8:46 in that particular time zone (the time of the first plane crash).

On the other hand, our building managers are holding a commemorative... conference call.

Two-Loop Bob

My favorite post from the (finally updated!) Computer Stupidities page:

"First call, Monday morning. I knew it was going to be one of those days right from the start. The call wasn't going well at all. Bob, the customer, just wasn't getting it.

Me: Ok, Bob, type a capital 'B', then press enter.
Bob: A capital B?
Me: Right, capital 'B' as in Bob.
Bob: Capital 'B' as in Bob?
Me: Exactly. Capital B as in Bob!
Bob: (long pause) That's the one with two loops, right?

He became known as Two-Loop Bob from that moment on. His saga has been passed down from each call center generation to the next."

"Two-Loop Bob" shall henceforth be my univeral put-down. Muah.

Boobs, Post Script

Done with radiation! I had a chat with the nurse, and she told me that I can expect to be a little tired now and then, I may have some pain in my shoulder or my rib cage, and all the skin will peel off my boob. All the... what?? Great, that will be attractive. Of course, it is still a fairly bright shade of red at this point.

My fiance says that I look like I have been driving with one boob stuck out the window.

Boobs, Week 7: The Final Week

As of this morning, I only have two more treatments left. These final ones are focused on the site of the cancer, and so the underside of poor Lefty is already on the mend. In order to target the correct area, we had a ten-minute holding still session, followed by the ceremonial drawing of a circle-ish shape on my boob. Now, I am part of their tribe.

I'm not supposed to wash the circle off, since they need it for the last five treatments. You know how mothers tell their children to wear clean underwear in case they are in an accident? I have been a tad fearful that I will get in an accident this week and they will have to cut off my clothes. What do you think paramedics would make of, say, a bright blue circle on the victim's boob? Yeah, that's what I thought, too.

Nuggets of Wisdom

-For food safety, you should wash your hands for the amount of time it takes to sing the first verse of Old MacDonald.

-It is nearly impossible to get the song Old MacDonald out of your head, once it is stuck there.

-There is a combination laundromat/tanning salon in Delaware Ohio. It is called the Wash and Tan.

-When older people get married, there will be Viagra jokes.

-Bob Evans is everywhere.

The Leprechaun Gets Hitched

We were in Michigan for a few days, for my fiance's grandmother's wedding. Yes, his grandmother. She will be 70 this year. She stands about 4'11" so we occasionally call her a leprechaun. Anyway, she met a guy through a friend of hers, and started meeting him for breakfast at McDonald's every morning. After a great deal of soul searching ("I'm never getting married again, no way!") she decided to marry him. She was pretty cute about the whole relationship, for months she denied that he was her boyfriend ("We're just friends!"), and so forth. Despite my continual playing of "Here Comes the Bride" the day before the ceremony, she flatly refused to walk down the aisle. She did ask me to play a prelude... ten minutes beforehand. But it turned out OK, I mean, at least nobody left. I think her refusal to walk down the aisle comes from the 11th commandment of the Midwest, "Thou Shalt Not Be Made a Fuss Over." Just for that, I'm posting a picture of her here. Ha! Nuggets of wisdom from the trip later.

Boobs, Week Six

27 treatments down, 6 to go. Whee! I decided to try going bra-less yesterday, and wore the softest t-shirt I own, instead. It happens to be a shirt that says HANG LOOSE - HAWAII. I am not making this up. Anyway, it was worth a shot, but didn't really help anything.

It's kind of funny when I show up too early or they are behind schedule at the radiaition oncologist. When they call me back, everyone else in the waiting room gets a really stunned look on their face, as if they expected me to show up there to wait for someone... or perhaps just for fun? The thing is, I am pretty young to be having radiation, and look a bit younger than I actually am (thanks mother nature!) so people get wiggy. Yesterday, there was an elderly man in a wheelchair who was talking to everyone else in the waiting room. He stared at me for a little bit, and then said, "You ain't seeing no doctah!" Then they called me back. I'm not sure if that experience made him feel better or worse about his own situation. I mean, sure, I'm going through this awfully early in life. But on the other hand, younger people are obviously much better-equipped to handle treatments that are a little tough on the body. Either way, I just enjoy shocking the hell out of people.

Must Be Our Lucky Day

Sign posted in the restaurant we ate at today:

Due to water restrictions in Cary, we are only able to serve water one time per week. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

We cautiously ordered water with our lunches, and got it without any problem. We're thinking about going back tomorrow, just to see what happens.

Boobs, Week Five

Dr. Hottie informs me that the extra-red, extra-itchy portions of Lefty are due to perspiration. In the meantime, it's fry-your-hands-on-the-steering-wheel hot here in North Carolina, and he kept me waiting half an hour in the office with broken air conditioning.

Telemarketers Are Invading My Voicemail

I have received numerous carpet cleaning advertisements in my home voicemail. They are fairly generic, and to me just mean that I don't actually have to tell someone no in person, all I have to do is push the delete button. If my mailbox were full of these, I would have to hunt them down and shoot them, of course.

At work, I have gotten a very disturbing voicemail telemarketer, twice. She says (paraphrased since it's already deleted):

Sam? This is Lisa. I think this message needs to go to the manager of the loan officers. Anyway, the reason I'm calling is... um... we've had hundreds of people log on to our website to find out about refinancing their mortgage, and I think that you should try to contact them. Please give me a call at 1-800....

OK. First of all, my outgoing message identifies me as Jennifer [last name] at [company name]. Secondly, leave me alone.

What the...

This cartoon is disturbing. I get the concept, but what the heck is going on in the second scenario, there? Looks dirty to me. Bad Lore.

At the Sushi Restaurant

Sometimes, the easiest jokes to make are the funniest.

Me: I mean, they have an inherently misogynistic culture...

Him: They give massages?!?!??

Boobs, Week 4

I itch and I can't scratch. Perfect. The growing... er, swelling... seems to be under control, which squelches my hope for a city-devouring body part. I guess my boob can do without the extra attention. After all, I have three whole doctors who are only focused on that one part of mine. That's a whole lot of people on my boob. No wonder it's swelling up, it's feeling all self-important and stuff.

On the Orange Juice Carton

"Enjoy as often as you like"

Wow, thanks orange juice people. I smell a law suit.

Revisions to the Military Alphabet

We work with someone who just got called up to active duty and will be shipped off somewhere, he can't say. Somewhere with turbans, we suspect. At any rate, he called the other day and repeated a number using "niner niner" at the end (military speak for 99). That made us wonder if he was going to start using the military alphabet to spell things, too. Just in case, we looked up what they would be. (A is Alpha, B is Bravo...) All told, there are two dances (Foxtrot and Tango), two literary characters (Romeo and Juliet), but only two that we really think exemplify the "typical" GI's world - Whisky and Kilo. Therefore, we believe that a new system should be instituted:(invaluable assistance by KelRocks...)

A = Alcohol

B = Beer

C = Condom

D = Drugs

E = Ecstacy

F = .... FOOZEBALL!

G = Grenade

H = Hazing

I = Indecency

J = Jarhead

K = Kilo (we'll leave that one)

L = Lap dance

M = Minors

N = Naked

O = Opium

P = Pawn shop

Q = Quarantine

R = Roofies

S = Sex

T = Tattoo

U = Underage

V = Veneral disease

W = Whiskey

X = X-rated

Y = Yo

Z = ZZZZZZ.... (what the hell starts with Z???)

Or Not

My doctor, who I have dubbed "Dr. Hottie" (oh yes, he is tasty), informs me that my boob will not actually eat a city. It's not growing, it's swelling. Whatever. He also told me that I should oil it up and massage it. I'm not making this up. On the surface, I was cool. Oh, really? OK. In my head, though, the porn music was playing. You look like you need a massage... bah de chick-a wah wah, bah de chick-a wah wah....

The Boob That Ate Manhattan

Lefty looks bigger than righty. Maybe I'm not going to get super powers from the radiation, but possibly my boob will become a world-wide menace that can only be stopped by saltwater. Rolling to a town near you.

Deep Fried

I start radiation therapy on Monday. I am supposed to get a "sun burn," which is a doctor euphemism for "radiation burn."

But I won't have super powers. At least, not any more than I already have. I was bummed out, because I would really like to be able to fly.

Strange Days at Wendy's

All I wanted was a Junior Cheeseburger Deluxe. That's all. After trying to give me the order belonging to the next car in line at the drive-thru, the INCREDIBLY ANGRY manager tried to "help" me out.

Mr. Angry: What did you have?

Me: Junior Cheeseburger Deluxe

Mr. Angry: Regular?

Me: (wasn't it deluxe?) What?

Mr. Angry: (thinks I'm deaf) REGULAR?????

Me: Um... yes?

Mr. Angry: Did you pay already?

Me: Yes! (hello?)

Mr. Angry: OK.

Telephonis Moronis

My direct number at work used to belong to a mortgage company. When my caller ID shows a number I don't recognize immediately, I generally answer with my company's name, just in case. And yet, 9 out of 10 people will just launch into what they intended to say, regardless of what I say. I would like to say "Pizza Hut," or something equally unmistakable, except that I don't always recognize our own clients' phone numbers right off the bat. And I wouldn't especially like to be unemployed.

Probably the funniest call I got was from the toner pirates. I get this term from one of my former jobs, where we got a call offering us toner at rock bottom prices, from some company with which we had never done business. Upon calling our copier rep, he said, "Them's toner pirates, honey!" The toner pirates called here, probably thinking they were calling the mortgage company, and asked for the serial number of my photocopier so they could get some toner out to me for a lower price than anybody else.

Me: We don't have a photocopier.

Pirate: You don't?

Me: No, the building owns them, we just use them.

Him: *click*

Sometimes, it's fun being me.

Bust of Homer

This is worth listening to. Several times. Heck, as many times as you want to listen to it. Screw the man! Penis. Hehe, penis.

You're Among the Little People Now

Sign seen on the way to the beach:

ELECT MIDGETT SHERIFF

OK, I know the explanation for this, but I don't care. I wanted to steal the sign. Just because.

Boobs, Part II

DCIS and you. Well, OK, DCIS and me. This is a very lovely form of pre-cancer that happened to be growing in my boob. What the hell is pre-cancer? Can you get pre-heartburn or pre-diabetes? Can you be pre-pregnant? At any rate, I have had several gnarly decisions to make in the last month or so. Oh yeah, did I mention that I'm also planning my wedding?

Decision number one: to amputate or not to amputate. OK, so I figure I might want my boob for later. If they're giving me a decision, and they feel like it's 6 of one and half-dozen of the other, I'm keeping it. See below, liking to keep my body parts for as long as I possibly can. This means 6-1/2 weeks, Monday-Friday, of radiation therapy, a nifty tattoo, a painful sunburn (er, radiation burn), and lots of follow-up mammograms. But hey, I still have a matched set.

Decision number two: drugs? I have the option to take tamoxifen, since my little guy fed on estrogen. This was a fairly simple decision. Just read the side effects. Let's see, birth defects, blod clots, strokes, endometrial tumors... wait, a cancer preventative drug causes cancer? Umm, OK I think I'll pass.

On the Way to Cheeseland

We flew through Cleveland to get to Madison, and as we flew over the city en route to the airport, definitely over Ohio... the woman behind us noticed the large body of water and pointed it out to her child.

Oooocean. Can you say ocean? Oooocean.

All I can say is, no wonder Americans are dumb. It's hereditary.

The Hint from Heloise for Today

Always make sure that the lid to the creamer is securely fastened BEFORE you shake well.