Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Christmas 2006

Christmas was good at both my parents and Bobby's. Emma had a great time, and really made out... really, the amount of gifts she got is ridiculous. My nephew, Jonah, was totally enamored with her. He kept looking at her, batting his big eyes... it was quite amusing. Malachy not so much - he's going through a bully phase right now... it's very frustrating. He started trying to wrestle with Emma, and he upset her pretty bad. She was crying pretty hard for a bit, but I made her tell Shannon what happened so she could punish him, and told her next time to go straight to Shannon so they can correct his behavior right when it happens. But Emma calmed down, and in the way she does, forgave the situation quickly. Besides, Jonah wanted her attention. We didn't get out of there until close to midnight, so when we got to Bobby's parents' we marched Emma straight to bed so Santa could come.


Then everyone else stayed up until between 2 and 5 in the morning. I was quick to fall asleep, as usual, but most everyone else still had wrapping to take care of. I was, as usual, first to wake up, followed quickly by Nana. I wanted to let everyone sleep until they woke up, but at the same time I knew Emma needed to be back at 10am, so I woke her up just before 9, and then had her wake her Dad up... then everyone started to drag themselves out of bed. After we opened gifts, we pretty much had to get Emma ready to go. As we were leaving to take her home I saw Bobby's sister Katie sleeping amid the wrapping paper in the middle of the living room floor. She had just passed out.

We made it back shortly after, and hung out the rest of the day. Bobby's dad had a pretty bad cough, but no one seemed to be too concerned. His mom just said he needs to quit smoking. Later that evening some cousins came by and we all had dinner. We were sitting around after dinner and decided to open some of the wine I received for Christmas. It was yummy. Once people started to go home, Bobby & I, Brian & Jessica, Katie & David, and Erica all headed up to Jessica's family's cabin. Once we got up to the cabin and set up, we had a good time. Brian and Bobby taught Erica how to play pool, we played some darts, and Scene It.


We had a nice leisurely morning, and eventually made it out to breakfast. At the restaurant we had two talbles and started slinging jelly packets at one another. Katie said something about loving the smell of napalm in the morning... smells like victory. Bobby and I both hear Emma say that all the time, where is that from. Well, Emma gets it from Garfield, but it's originally from Apocolypse Now. Bobby and I admit we've never seen it, and it is then decided that when we get back to Norco, we are buying it and we are watching it.... So they bought the double disc with the original and the extended edition.... which is 202 minutes. Weird freaking movie. Good, but bizare. The extended version has some really bizare scenes.

Bobby and I didn't make it home until almost 9pm. Lucas was not happy with us. Grandma said he was very depressed. He was okay until that morning, but he really missed us.

Friday, December 22, 2006

A Night With Dirty Frank

We went out with a bunch of Bobby's friends - his brother Brian, Brian's wife Jessica, their buddy Andy, Andy's brother Jimmy, and Brian's Navy buddy Skibo to see a Pearl Jam cover band, Dirty Frank; the one thing all these boys have in common is a deep love for Pearl Jam. I swear they knew and sang every word to every song. This is actually the third time we went to see this particular cover band. Everyone had a good time.

Saturday, December 16, 2006

McCallum Christmas Party

We picked Emma up, and went to my mom's family's Christmas at the nursing home. I was not looking forward to this, as my mom's family is rather strange. I just wanted to see my grandma open her gift ( A Year of Tea Sampler, 52 varieties, 520 tea bags - she must drink 5 cups a day, and LOVES tea). When she did, the look on her face said that this was the best present she could have gotten. I was worried that Emma wouldn't have a good time at all, since I'm usually bored out of my mind, and there were no kids there under 14. My uncle is in a barbershop quarted though, and brought them all along to entertain.


Some video of the quarted singing:
An Intro Song
Jingle Bell Rock
Merry Christmas to You
Gloria in Excelsies Deo
Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Emma was entranced. After they sang some songs for us, they wandered through the nursing home singing to people there. The lady in the hall in the last picture cried, she was so happy. Emma followed them around while they sang to everyone, and when it was time to leave, the only people she hugged were my grandma and my uncle.

Friday, December 15, 2006

Harvco Christmas Party

Bobby switched his visitation with Emma from Thursday to Tuesday for last week, since my Christmas party was on Thursday. I meant to go out there. Sent an email saying I needed to leave by 4. But then I decided to run updates on peoples computers here during the meeting. Little did I know that my boss' computer still didn't have Service Pack 2, so it took until 4:45 to update. So I didn't make it out to Norco. Bobby did though, then left his wallet at his parents'.

Which isn't the smartest thing to do when you are going out drinking on someone else's tab a couple days later. So Wednesday, after taking he took his final (which ended at 9:30pm), we drove out to his parents' to pick up the wallet, then stopped by my parents' to drop of presents and say hello to my brother and his wife who had just flown in from Italy. We were immediately offered wine, and since my brother had arrived - fresh olive oil too. Hard to say no. Even though it's already 10:15, we have to drive back, and Bobby has to be out the door by 5:30 or so. As we are sitting there chatting, Tania is checking her email, counting. "That's it! We're sold out. Keith, change the website NOW so no one else orders." It only took 2 weeks to sell out.

We finally made it home and into bed just before 1am. Much too late for us old people that need our sleep. Thursday morning was rough, and I'm sure Bobby didn't make it out the door until close to 6:30. Not good.

Thursday afternoon was frustrating. I left work at 3 so I could get home, and get ready by 5pm. I told Bobby the day before that 5pm is when I wanted to leave. I expected traffic. He needed to buy a tie. His brother had bought him a pinstrip suit for Christmas last year, and he just got it tailored the end of November, but the only ties he had were from when he was bartending, and they are in pretty bad shape. I was on time, getting out of the shower at 4:15, and Bobby calls. He's just left Macy's with some ties. Now he has to stop at school and pick up the book he just returned to the library so he can do some extra credit assignment in order to pass his class. What time is it? 4:20. Crap. That's ok, cocktails are at 6, dinner doesn't actually start until 7. Just hurry and we'll leave as soon as we can.

He calls again later. He was in line at the bookstore, when one of his classmates called him back, she has the book, he can borrow it. So now he has to stop by her house to pick it up, then home. (Argh) Guess what time he finally made it home? 5:45! Then he has to shower and shave and get dressed. Luckily he can be quick, so he was ready around 6:15. This is the first time he has put on the suit since it's been tailored.
"How do I look?"
"Pregnant."
"What!?!?"
They had cut the jacket wrong, so it looked like the opening in the front was bowing over a big belly. At that point I had to laugh. But it looked ok if he left all the buttons undone, so that would have to do. We get in the car and head into the traffic I expected. Then I felt like I was in Office Space. We jumped into the carpool lane right before it came to a halt and the rest of the freeway started moving. We eventually jump the line and move a bit, but then the carpool starts moving again. When we got to the interchange, we debated - carpool or no? Yes, the ramp alone is probably worth it. Except that we had some SUV in front of us that needed to drive 50 mph the whole way - even though no one is in front of them.

We pulled in front of the restaurant at 6:58. I feel better. Dinner wasn't even served for at least 20 more minutes. So it all worked out well. The Christmas party was fun.


The moment we walked in, my boss was the first to greet us. His wife mentioned something about how interested she was in my brother's olive oil, and Eric cuts in with, "Oh, yeah, I'm in trouble for not ordering any yet, is there any left?" Nope, sold out last night. She wasn't very happy about that, and let him know it. He just looks at me with this "save me" glance. I told him I would see what I could do. Bobby and I decided that I would drive home later, so I kept myself to less than 2 glasses of wine the entire night. They had a wheel set up to spin for giving away prizes. I won a shot - but Bobby took it in my place since I was already stopping (though I did try some of the port later). The next prize given was a night on the party bus. (Why wasn't that my prize?) Everyone got $200 at South Coast Plaza, though, so that was nice.

Monday, December 11, 2006

Christmas Preparations

It's 6:30. Yoga is at 7:30 (I know, I could have taken the 6:00 class, but I like the 7:30 class more). I'm trying to motivate myself to hang out the extra hour and go. But really I just want to go home. But I haven't been since last Monday night, and I probably won't go tomorrow.

My parents have embarked on this massive picture project. They've taken all the pictures from when we and they were growing up, and have been organizing and scanning each of them. The idea is to make them all available to all of us - so we all have the pictures of our childhood. It's a monster project - I can't even believe they are doing it. But they want it to be a surprise for Keith (since he's really the only one that doesn't know yet), so it needs to be DONE by the time Keith and Tania get in on Wednesday.

(It's going to be so much easier for those that are kids right now. My nephews and Emma and Bobby's neice practically have their lives documented in digital photo and video and uploaded onto the web. We won't be showing anyone's dates their baby pictures, they just need to google them.)

At the same time, my mom wanted the house to be decorated for Christmas when they got here. Keith is especially partial to Christmas. So mom asked Jessica and I to decorate on Saturday. Like always, it was fun for about 5 minutes, then it was a chore. But we did it. Have to add, that trees are cheap at Wal-Mart. As much as I hate that place, I might buy my tree there every year. We got a 5-6 ft. Noble for about $35 (they were $80 at the tree farm).

Yesterday I spent about 4 hours on Malachy's present. Printed 110 pictures and put them into an album. It's kinda hard making sure you have enough pictures of everyone, and spacing them about evenly. Suddenly realize I have very few pics of my middle brother's wife. Have to find some, trying to keep it limited to pics from the last 2 years. Barely any of my younger brother - he's been AWOL a lot.

Friday, December 8, 2006

Dream

Gma just found out that she's been having mild strokes for years. That seems to be what's causing her lapses in memory. I now am responsible for seperating her medications - she started a new medication and "forgot" the doctor had told her to stop the last one, so she started taking both... not good. Luckily they caught her early on, since she went back to the doctor the next day - if not she could have overdosed and killed herself.

It was strange - she was sitting at the dinner table with Bobby and I, telling us what the doctor said about her strokes, and that night I had a dream that really stressed me out. In my dream we were sitting at the table (just as we had been that night), and she had reached for something and strated shaking really badly. I asked if she was ok, and she fainted but woke right back up. Then she just looked off into the distance, and said, "I'm going to die." As if she were accepting it at that moment. I responded, "That's ok." as if I had also accepted. Then I started crying. That's when I woke up. It kinda stressed me out Wednesday. The company went golfing and out to dinner, but I couldn't shake it off.

Monday, December 4, 2006

How Will I Get There?

The president of my company got onto a bit of a soapbox for about 15 minutes in the meeting today. Started talking about how this time of year is a really good time to evaluate our personal goals and decide where we really want to be in not just 5 years, but in 1 year. And how are we going to get there. Mentioned how when he was younger he really wanted to be successful... more than he wanted anything else. How instead of living in Manhattan Beach where his buddies were living, he lived in Pasadena. How he skipped parties during the week, because it was more important that he get to that successful mark.

At first I thought he was trying to encourage some people to just quit, but his goal was really to motivate everyone to work harder to bring more deals, which doesn't really apply to me since I don't source deals, but I did get something out of it: I need a plan. Not just an idea about what I want, but steps and a timetable, and all that.

I got out of the meeting and wrote Bobby some long winded email about how we need to make a budget and figure out how we can cut our expenses, and I set some goals for what I want to accomplish in the next year or so. We've been doing pretty well paying off our debt, but we spend a lot too. We want to be able to start this contracting business, and we need to get on it. If that means we have to sell our cars and get something cheaper, or I have to find another job, or whatever, we need to do it. I don't want to live paycheck-to-paycheck.

Thursday, November 9, 2006

Never Argue with a Woman

One morning the husband returns after several hours of fishing and decides to take a nap. Although not familiar with the lake, the wife decides to take the boat out. She motors out a short distance, anchors, and reads her book. Along comes a Game Warden in his boat. He pulls up alongside the woman and says, "Good morning, Ma'am. What are you doing?"

Reading a book," she replies, (thinking, Isn't that obvious?)
"You're in a Restricted Fishing Area," he informs her.
"I'm sorry, officer, but I'm not fishing. I'm reading."
"Yes, but you have all the equipment. For all I know you could start at any moment. I'll have to take you in and write you up."
"If you do that, I'll have to charge you with sexual assault," says the woman.
"But I haven't even touched you," says the game warden.
"That's true, but you have all the equipment. For all I know you could start at any moment.""Have a nice day ma'am," and he left.

MORAL: Never argue with a woman who reads. It's likely she can also think.

Thursday, November 2, 2006

Crazy Dream

I had a crazy dream last night that I'd run into my ex, Jason, and he was trying to show me how much he'd done to improve his life. And it was like he was trying to get back together. And I don't know why, but he had an Emma too. Not just a kid, he had a carbon copy of Emma.
I was trying to be nice, but i couldn't wait to get away, but his Emma was asking me why I'd left her. Why I never called or visited her anymore. Then suddenly we were in a house that was supposedly his across the street diagonally from my parents house (where there is actually no house, it's a street), and I was trying to tell his Emma that my parents house is right there and she could call me any time. I wanted to leave because Jason was making me feel uncomfortable with his trying to get back together, but I was having anxiety about leaving his Emma.

I told Bobby... he said it made him feel like if I ever left him that I would have anxiety about leaving his Emma. I had to agree that (not that I planned on leaving him, but) I probably would have anxiety about leaving her.

Saturday, October 28, 2006

We had a little birthday party for Malachy. I have adorable nephews...


Two short videos:
Malachy opens his dinosaur
Malachy and Jonah play with the Dinosaur

He was so excited about that toy dinosaur. I wish I could have got his initial reaction on video. Jonah was stoked on it too. He'd been kinda cranky the whole time, but when that dino came out, he was suddenly very excited.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Happy Birthday to Me...

Today we did dinner at Bobby's parents' as usual, but they had an ice cream cake for me.


And here is some video of Caelyn acting very strange:
Silly Girl
Crazy Caelyn

We weren't sure what she was doing, but she wasn't crying and seemed to be having fun.

Saturday, October 14, 2006

Schools

Today we went to pick Emma up, and headed to Bobby's parents', and when we got there his Nana starts telling this story about how she was driving around with her granddaughter the other day and there was crazy traffic and police with rifles and a police helicopter overhead. Then, she looked at the paper on this morning, and there had been a race riot at Fontana High School. 500 students. Started between a black girl and a latino girl, ended with the police shooting bean bags and smoking the kids out. Madness. There had been another scuffle involving 100 students on the same day at some high school in San Bernadino.

In the same paper, there was a little comic strip. An old man was standing next to a kid saying, "When I was your age, I had to walk 10 miles to school, uphill in the snow." The kid next to him responds, "Wow. You had it easy." Next to them is one of those newspaper dispensers showing the headline to be "SCHOOL SHOOTINGS!" Oddly true...

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Some Random Thoughts

I've had some random thoughts about recent news that I've been dying to tell someone:
I read this article, and thought to myself, "really, why would anyone even participate?"
Now that N. Korea has tested nuclear weapons, does Team America: World Police seem oddly prophetic? (If you haven't seen that movie, I can't stress enough how funny and worth a rent it is)
With this whole Mark Foley - underage page issue: It seems to me this issue is more about homophobia than pedophelia. People are outraged that he was harassing these unerage pages, but the kids are like 16. If he were hitting on some 16 year old female pages, do you people would be panicing this badly? (By no means am I saying he didn't do anything wrong) Sure they'd be upset about the sexual harassment, but would they still be screaming pedo or are they just screaming pedo because it isn't pc to scream homo?
I heard a professor of Islamic studies in an interview last night claiming that Muslim society is the only one that western culture makes fun of? Has no one seen South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut? I'm fairly sure rednecks and jews and black people and asian people are adequately assailed.

Friday, September 22, 2006

Little Superstar

Makeup

I used to wear barely any make up at all. I literally had mascara and chapstick. Sometimes I'd use powder, but that was it.
No eyeshadow, no blush... definelty no foundation or eyeliner.

And while I like getting dressed up and wearing make up, it's a pain in the ass to do it every morning. It's seriously an extra 10 minutes of sleep I'm missing out on.
And my face stays clearer when I don't wear foundation.
And I like how I look when I'm not wearing make up.
And now, when I go out, I may wear my make up a little darker, but I look pretty much the same as I do when I go to work.

I've decided to stop. I'm going back to my mascara but sticking with gloss. No more foundation or shadow or blush...
I'll dress up when I want to, not because I feel I have to...

Sunday, September 3, 2006

Winemaking

Last night was so nice. Bobby and I showed up at my parents' house around 6:30 to find my them and my brother Keith patiently destemming and crushing the grapes they'd grown to make wine out of. They had about an 80-20 blend of cabernet sauvignon and pinot noir. Unfortunately, they didn't have a grape crusher, and you'd be surprised how difficult it is to crush those darn things. They had started with a potato masher, but found it inadequate, so my dad, Keith and my brother Aaron had gone to the hardware store to see what they could find, and eventually came home with a giant potato masher. Unfortunately, that didn't work either. So by the time we'd arrived they'd been working on this for hours. Mom and I started making dinner while dad, Keith, and Bobby finished crushing grapes by putting them in casserole dishes and smashing them with spatulas. I don't know for sure about the others, but Bobby still has purple stains on his knuckles and fingernails. And some blisters. I had no idea it would be that much work. But this time it worked, and so by the time we needed someone to man the grill, we had plenty of bodies available.

Once the grapes were crushed the next step was to measure the sugar and acidity level of the juice. The sugar level is going to determine the alcohol content (more sugar, higher percentage), and the acidity is going to affect, well, the acidity. But this was our first time, and the directions were apparently written by someone that assumes you read all the directions before even starting (rather than our way of completing the steps as we read them the first time), so instead of adding 10 ml of this reagent 0.5 ml at time, we did the whole thing at once... oh, then make sure you add three drops of this reagent before you start adding that first reagent. So needless to say we had to start over.

We were an amusing bunch though, I must admit. You put that many scientifically minded people in a room together and then ask them to perform a little laboratory experiment, and it's like giving a baby candy - we were all on our knees crowded around the pool table discussing the anticipated color change. Because you need at least three people to determine when the liquid has gone from pink to green.

We learned that we would have wine that was low in alcohol content and high in acidity. I'm not expecting a fantastic bottle, but it was a good time. Aaron and his wife Patricia came by for dinner, and we all sat down to eat. Mom had made these jalepeno poppers from scratch, and they turned out to be quite hot. Even with dad, Bobby, and Aaron being the type that like food so hot it makes them sweat, everyone was about having a heart attack from the spiciness. I, being one that prefers mild salsa, didn't have any, so I was essentially enjoying the show. Troopers that they were, they all attempted having more. The second one Bobby ate about made him cry. It was amusing listening to them all snifle.

Friday, June 30, 2006

I'm a Wuss

I went to the doctor yesterday, and as it was my first appointment at my new doctor's office, she asked me all sorts of basic questions - including when I last had a tetnis shot. It was when I was 14, so I know that I'm two years overdue, but I have a phobia about needles (when I had my wisdom teeth removed and they put the needle in my arm for the anesthesia, I fainted; I don't even like seeing needles go into someone else in the movies). Well, my new doctor wasn't having it - she didn't ask me if I wanted to take care of that today or if I wanted to schedule an appointment - she just says that after my check up she's going to send the nurse in to give it to me.

OK.... I don't like needles. I know this. I'm a little anxious at this point, but the nurse hasn't come in yet, so I'm trying to read my book as I sit in the room waiting for this nurse, but I can't focus. She comes in with the needle, and I have to admit I panicked. I was flush and shaking and suddenly needed some water really bad. I thought I might pass out again.. When she finally did it, it didn't even hurt (this nurse was skilled) - felt like a little pinch. I felt so silly for freaking out as much as I did. I'm a wuss.

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

I will not be a lazy homebody!

I can choose to spend my free time doing anything - I can watch TV, read a book, play on my computer... or I can go outside. Remember outside? Where we played as kids.

Well, I have made a decision... I will not become this lazy person that just sits at home on her computer. It's June! and it's beautiful outside! So I've made some decisions for the summer::
I will limit the free time I spend on my computer
If I want to read I will go outside to do it
I will spend at least one day each weekend outdoors doing something active

Monday, June 19, 2006

Lovely weekend

We decided we werent going to spend entire weekends indoors anymore. Especially on weekends we have Emma. We spend so much of our lives indoors, sitting at our computers and almost no time outdoors. And its Summer! Our goal is to spend at least one day each weekend outside, being active going to the beach, the park, swimming, socializing whatever.

We intended to go to the beach on Saturday, especially since our beach jaunt two weeks ago had been so lovely. We were delayed some, but we finally made it. Had a lovely time read, moved sand around as if we were building a sandcastle, buried Emma in the sand

Saturday night we spent at Bobbys parents house, mostly listening to his great-grandfather talk about his life. The man is 95 years old, so he had some great stories. Some things that stood out to me: He said, There will be a woman president, there will be a black president, (which for someone in his age bracket seems a remarkable sentence) hes been a democrat his entire life and is ready to vote for Hillary; His proudest moment was the day he married his wife, and he wishes he still had her; He quit smoking in 1942 because someone told him he couldnt do it, he quit drinking because someone told him he couldnt do it, and during prohibition he sure knocked it back (someone told him he couldnt do it).

I escaped for a bit in the morning to visit my parents and wish my big bro a happy Fathers Day., but the rest of Sunday we spent at the park, playing softball (well, as much as you can when you only have between 5 and 14 people all day), having a water fight, barbequing It was a good time. I wasnt as diligent with the sunscreen Sunday, and I have a mild burn (and bad tan lines) to show for it, and unfortunately Im a bit out of shape so Im sore now from the softball. When we were just fielding some balls, waiting for folks to show up, it was really heating up and all I could think was how nice some water balloons would be right now so I ran off to get some. Wouldnt you know no water balloons at Stater Bros. or Target. How does this happen? Its June!

Overall, it was a lovely weekend, and Im glad we spent it outside, rather than in our box.

Thursday, June 15, 2006

Disillusioned

It was supposed to be fun. It was supposed to be more than fun.
I'm a lover of comedy stand-up comedy in particular, and I got a message from one of my favorite comedians, Dane Cook, a couple weeks ago (Im signed up for email updates from his website). They were going to be filming the finale for his HBO series, Tourgasm, near LA, and if you could be within 30 miles of Hollywood on June 13th and wanted to go, fill out this form online. Well, the premise of Tourgasm is that Dane and these three other comedians travel around the country doing 20 shows in 30 days. So I think to myself this is awesome! I get to see Danes stand-up for free. So I sign up.

Last week I get an email saying I've been selected. Please reply with the names of me and my guest, and check my email the morning of the 13th for the location. YES!!! I immediately forward to my boss and tell him Im taking a half day (the thing is at 3:30, somewhere near LA).

I check my email in the morning its going to be at the Santa Anita Racetrack. I take my half day. I'm so excited. I rush home, change, and head over to the train station. Bobby's working in LA, so I'm going to meet him there and were going to carpool over. We arrive at 3:30. I'm so excited and there is one of the longest lines Ive ever seen - and I go to Disneyland all the time.

I think to myself OK, they just have to check everyone's ID and release form and they probably just started. At around 5:30 we FINALLY get through the gate. For those of you that don't know Tuesday was warm. I was expecting some sort of wait time, but this is ridiculous. OK, now were in, and there werent too many people behind us, so it shouldn't be too much longer, right? Nope. Once inside, we were portioned up by wristbands, and told to stand in a particular place. They essentially lined us up along a pathway so Dane and the others could walk through while they videotaped it. People are getting really irritated. I'm hearing things like "This better be a damn good show" and "I thought Dane was all about the fans, but I guess he's all about the bullshit." At 6:30, some guy tells us Dane and the others will be landing in about 10 minutes and the whole thing will get started. At 7:00 thats right folks, 3 and a half hours after we arrived the helicopter shows up. About 15 minutes after that, Dane et. al finally start making their way through the crowd. I dont even want to clap at this point I want the show to start. They get to the end and do a short Thanks for the memories thing with each other, awarding silly awards to one another, promote their websites, etc. Then some guy gets up there and says, OK, people with red and white wristband go over [somewhere], everyone else, thanks for making it out, head out the way you came and we have Tourgasm posters for you on your way out.

Excuse me!?!? Are you fucking kidding? Its 7:35. The red and white wristbands are people working there. I think they had something set up for the green wristbands, who were at the front of the line (god knows when they got there), but basically they sent everyone home.

My heart sank. I was pissed. Let me explain the many thoughts I had at that moment.

  • What, no comedy?
  • Fuck this, if I wanted to take a half day to hang out in the sun all day for nothing, I'd go to the beach.
  • Its a damn good thing the only alcohol anyone had was what they brought, else there would be a riot. (And then, because I often think of little Dane-isms, I thought of him saying, no, youre a riot, and then I was sad, because I knew that now every time I think of a Dane-ism I will remember this day and be angry and sad).
  • I took a half day and wasted whole afternoon, so now I will feel bad if I take a half day to hang out with family on Thursday like I normally would. And all for nothing.
  • I am not this girl. I am not the crazed fan that just wants to touch by celebrity of choice, which is what we were all recruited to be. I don't even care if I meet him I just want to be entertained.
  • What can I do about this? Stop watching the show? I'm not even watching TV as of late I wouldn't be watching anyway. Not buy Dane CDs or go to his stand up when he's in town? This hurts me too - I enjoy his comedy (although now it will be tainted by this day). Write an angry letter or email? I could, but will he even see it, and what can he really do now?
This morning I checked my email and there is another email from Tourgasm. It is a note from Dane to all those that came on Tuesday, apologizing. He says it was his production company surprising him, and that he didnt know what was planned (which was consistent with the previous emails), and that he would like to set up something special as a thank you/sorry. This is all I wanted, an apology, but I still feel saddened by the whole thing.

Thursday, June 1, 2006

The Tides They are A-Changing

I think there are moments in your life when change occurs. Sure, some things change slowly over time, and there are things that are always changing, but it seems like major life changes happen over a relatively short period of time, and often close together.

I feel like I've grown up a lot over the last year or so. I know I was technically an adult nearly 9 years ago, but I still always felt like I really wasn't there yet. What is it that changed so suddenly?

Is it because I'm crazy in love right now? Because I'm with the person I'm sure I want to marry? Is it because I'm almost a step-mom? Is it because I'm no longer dependent on a parent or guardian figure to support me financially? Is it because I'm done with school and working a full time job? Is it because all of these things are the case?

The strange part is that it all happened within a relatively short time. I feel like I wasn't a real grown up a year ago, or even 9 months ago. It seems this sense of being an adult, a real adult, has really only developed over the last 6 months.

While I still enjoy spending time with my friends, I would rather go out to dinner with them than a club. I enjoy a BBQ with my family as much as staying out all night with friends. I don't mind when I call my friends and they spend as much time talking to their toddler as they do talking to me.

I am an adult.

Thursday, March 30, 2006

Life is Good

Hmmm.... Life is GOOD. There are great bits and sucky bits I suppose, but overall, I'm very happy right now. Family is good, work is good, traffic sucks, I need a vacation.

Been with my boyfriend 6 months now. And strangely enough, I have MySpace to thank for it. I'd been looking for old high school friends on here and his was one of the names I'd looked up. We'd been friends back in the day but I hadn't seen him in like 7 years.

I seem to be hearing similar stories often enough though. Old friends reconnecting through this online community.

Not so good: My grandmas are sick. The one I was living with until recently was just diagnosed with cancer. I feel kinda bad. I just moved out, and now she's dealing with this. Luckily she had a friend move in with her, so she isn't alone. We had a scare with the other grandma recently when she had to go into the hospital for 10 days. She's still recovering, but she's to fiesty to be down for long. Stuff like this reminds you of how important people are to you.

My oldest nephew, who was born deaf, got a cochlear implant and is now adjusting to hearing. He went on his first trip to Disneyland.

My brother bought a house two-doors down from my parents. My dad keeps saying that one of us needs to buy the house in-between now so we can have a little half-block. And put gates between all the yards.... That would be a little strange, like I was living in a sitcom.

Seems to have been a changing of the guards at work. People come and people go, but few that were here when I started are still here. And I miss having a few of them around. Of 20 full time employees, only 6 have been here longer than me. And 4 of them are the owners. And I haven't really even been here this long.

A friend of mine just got married. Beautiful ceremony. I'm really happy for her. Feel like I've been to more baby and bridal showers this year than I ever have... and we're only in March. I have another to go to on Saturday.

I'm trying to plan another trip back to Europe. I really want to go again this year, but I know I won't be financially prepared to go back until late in 07. Probably try to go in September again... hit up Oktoberfest... again. This time I'm paying the extra and staing in hotels. And using a suitcase rather than a backpack.

I want a vacation. Just to take a week off with no obligations. Seems like I've been very busy of late. Even on the weekends we are scheduled for most of the day. And if there is some spare time... there's laundry, or the apartment needs to be cleaned, or something will suddenly come up. And during the week I wake up, go to work, come home, make/get something for dinner, and go to bed. I probably have 3 hours between the time I normally get home and the time I should go to bed. I could stay up later I suppose, but I get cranky (and unproductive if I don't get enough sleep). I want to lie in bed and watch movies for a day.