GREAT NEWS!

Faithie is well. Benign. No yucky BC. YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And now we shop.

Okay, so that's the best news I've heard in a while and I needed some good news. Notice my plucky avatar there to the left? How she's underwater and all? Yep. That's me. Drowning in the work way, not the life-in-peril way, hence the natty suit. My coworker quit-her last day is May 1-but she was off yesterday because she had to take daughter to hospital (daughter is fine, just thought she'd be having a baby yesterday and it turned out not so much) and then today she's taking an exam to get into college, so yay her!! But that does leave me with extra work, which I am currently slacking off in order to post here. But I had to post the good news, right? I did. Okay, the guilt has set in. I'm going to work now.

My Week Or Not

So, it wasn't a great week, actually. I've started to post a few times, but decided not to inflict my negativity and seething anger on the e-world at large. I think that was a wise decision because I'm better now and focused on other things. To wit:

My sister is having a biopsy today. Getting your wallet stolen (which was how my week began) is sort of inconsequential compared to the possibility that my favoritest, most wonderfullest person in my whole world might have the big, yucky BC. Now my gut is positive, no matter the outcome, that she'll ultimately be fine. If cancer, we'll get through it and she'll be a survivor and we celebrate by shopping. If no cancer, we whoop for joy and then celebrate by shopping. Either way we shop together and that sounds pretty fun. But the worrier in me is frightened for her and frankly also pretty damn frightened for me. See, I think everyone has that one friend they can't do without and Faith is mine. When she's down, I'm equally depressed. When she's all happy, well, me too. So, nerves. Just a little nervy today.

Next, I'm happy because Clover sold her first book. I think that's the awesomest thing ever and I'm way excited for her. It reminded me of the day my mom found out she sold her first book. We'd been shopping all day at Trader's Village (North Texas shopping institution). This was before everybody on the entire earth had a cell phone. So when we finally got home around 6:30 or 7:00 p.m., the phone was ringing. Whoever was on the line hung up before we could get there, but no worries, because the phone rang again about 15 minutes later. It was mom's agent, Bart, letting her know that Walker accepted her ms and Mom was now a published mystery author. I'm certain mom's joyful war-cry was heard all over the better part of Fort Worth. That was a good day, one of the best days I think my mom has ever had, and I'm so glad Clover got to have a day like that.

Then there's Momentum. We're working really hard on the Women of Juarez. Right now it's just fragments of thoughts and ideas-the barest whisper of something solid. I've never been a part of creating something like this and it's challenging and interesting, and scary, and wonderful - all pretty much at the same time. Their stories break my heart and a lot of it just makes me wonder how strong I would or could be in the same situation. I take so much in my life for granted and I hate say I'm apathetic, but unlike V and S, I never would have thought of doing something like this. I'm learning a lot from them and learning a lot about myself-some of it, I don't like, but I think recognizing that is a positive sign.

Finally, I'm focused on the play I am stage-managing. The director and cast are all really talented and it is genuinely a really funny show. There have been some bumps along the road, or hiccups, or whatever you want to call them. A couple of actors dropped out because of time commitments and there have been other conflicts, some of which I feel like, while not my fault, I could have said or done something differently that might have helped things a bit. So I feel like I'm a bit ineffective as a stage-manager, but on the other hand, I came into the show after it was cast and after rehearsals had already started, so I hope that gives me a bit of a learning curve.

And that's my week. Or at least the version I feel better about sharing. I hope your week was really good. Hope someone made you laugh and I hope someone made you love, too.

A Year Ago Today

My Little Sister

I still miss you.

I miss the way you'd say whatever was on your mind no matter what.

I miss the way you used to laugh till your face turned purple, so unladylike.

I miss the way you held my hand so tightly when you were a little girl.

I miss watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer with you, even knowing you would drive me crazy by reciting lines along with the actors.

I miss the way your face would light up when you talked about your daughter, all freckles and red hair, just like you.

I miss eating macaroni and cheese with you--the ultimate comfort food--and talking about boys. I miss shopping with you at the mall.

I even miss fighting with you. I'd give anything even for another fight.

I miss you.

I Love Sundays

Sundays are great. They involve a much bigger-than-usual newspaper to peruse, the smell of Columbian coffee brewing, shared blueberry English muffins, and cuddly puppy dogs who wag their tails at the slightest provocation. It really has been a nice day. At the moment I'm sitting here at the computer with one of the aforementioned puppy dogs laying beside me. The other dog is in the living room, no doubt, laying half-in/half-out of her bed. She's adorable, but she's rather inelegant when she sleeps.

My arm hurts today, a direct result of fighting and, ultimately vanquishing, the refrigerator monster living in Chaucerian Girl's fridge. I feel mighty. Chaucerian Girl is doing all kinds of neat things to her home. I especially like her Egypt room. I'm not clever enough to come up with themes for each room in my house. I pretty much limit myself to bedroom. Living room. Kitchen. Etc. You get the picture. Chaucerian Girl, however, has a good eye for that kind of stuff. If the writing doesn't pan out (and it will), she could probably make a decent living as an interior decorator. I know the end result will justify the work and I have to say it's kind of fun being a part of the process.

Have you ever had one of those days where everything, no matter how frankly un-funny or mundane, is suddenly hilarious? See, I totally had one of those days. I know when I type this out, it will seem only stupid and remarkably not funny, but at the time? I was laughing so hard there were tears. I went grocery shopping with the parents and we were beyond silly. I have no idea what got into us. First, my stepmother cannot pass by one of those cute little animated/motion toys without pressing the button and watching it go. (by the by, Chaucerian Girl is the same way. Why is this???) Kroger had this little stuffed Scooby Doo who sang along with "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?" The first time it hit the chorus, the little Scooby voice said, "rI, ron't know..." and for some reason it struck me as really funny and I collapsed into a fit of giggles. Then my dad went off on a tangent about people and cell phones. He loathes it when people have cell phones attached to their ear like some strange appendage. So I pulled out my cell phone while we were standing there and called him. The monster found this tremendously amusing. After that, we were arguing about whether we should take the free Dryer's ice cream offer:

Stepmonster: We don't have room in the freezer.
Me: But it's free!!!
Stepmonster: We don't have room in the freezer.
Me: But it's free!!!!!!

At which point the ice cream slipped out of her hands and fell on the floor. I picked it up in a huff and told her if she didn't want the damn ice cream, she should have said so, but throwing it on the floor was kind of rude. At this point, she collapsed into giggles. This was followed by more joking and even more giggling, prompting several people to steer their carts way clear of the crazies in the ice cream aisle. And see? I just read what I wrote. Not funny. But it was at the time. Honest. You had to be there.

Well, there's considerably more Sunday left and I don't feel like spending it on the computer. I have a couple of Netflix flicks waiting. Or I could read a book? Hmmm.... I so very love Sundays.

TGIF

They really make you pay for all that time off, don't they??? It's been a crazy week, much busier than usual, compounded by the fact that yesterday was the second time in less than 30 days that we've mysteriously lost data from our database. Help Desk is tremendously unhelpful as usual. I miss my old job sometimes where I could flirt the tech-guy into actually helping. There was mocking too, on account of my profound lack of technological skills, but there was always helping. The school (my current job) is so big that we have to call a central help line first. No good flirting there, unless I want to try my hand at phone sex, and somehow I think that would be frowned upon. Not to mention that I'd have virtually no idea what to say in that particular scenario. I'm a phone sex virgin and I feel okay about that. That might possibly have been too much information. Sorry about that.

Busy weekend ahead. Chaucerian Girl has enlisted my help in tearing down the current decoration scheme in her kitchen. Yes! Destruction. Me like destroy things. Her current scheme is very cute. Super cute. By that I mean icky. She was emotionally/mentally in a different place when she selected the current design--she's about 180 degrees opposite now, and I know she'll be glad to have something different she can live with. I owe her on account of how she spent so much time in December forcing me, I mean helping me, to pack and move. I loathe moving. Incidentally, so does she, hence the big owing.

A friend was telling me today that he'd made a New Year's resolution to read the meat of the newspaper before reading the comics. I get it, I do, and I'm genuinely not judging his New Year's resolutions (that would be hypocritical because I refused to make any of my own this year), but I say life is short. Read the comics first, then the rest of it. In fact, I further recommend that on Fridays, when all the movie reviews are out, that you read only the movie reviews, the comics, your horrible-scope, the Lifestyles section, and Anne Landers, and leave the rest for later, or not at all. Starts the weekend off nice. And speaking of, I really kind of want to see Miss Potter. Probably not this weekend though because I will busy with the aforementioned destruction. Good fun.

Okay, I'm out of here. Want to check in on my blog buddies before I log off. Have a GREAT weekend!

Aaaaaaaand, I'm Back

But not for long as there's a great deal of work-type stuff demanding my attention. It was nice being off, though. I completely closed out the old apartment, a relief, and I even managed to fit in some fun. Faith and I hit the mall once or twice and watched the movie we've been planning on seeing for the last three months. We saw Eragon--pretty good. I wound up picking up the book at Barnes and Noble and reading it over the holiday. I'm now working on Eldest. Generally speaking, I'm not a fan of the fantasy genre. Eragon is a good representation of why I don't tend to enjoy it--I have no objection to wordy people (please, I am a wordy people!), but there's word vomit all over Eragon. The story is quite interesting, but the tangents are many and vary from mildly intruiguing to boring-me-into-a-coma. If the movie hadn't invested me in the characters, I doubt I'd have finished it.

I also finished the Fitzwilliam Darcy Gentleman trilogy yesterday. It's a retelling of Pride and Prejudice from Darcy's POV, and overall, it's quite good. Aiden, the author, created some delicious new characters (Dy Brougham, in the vein of the Scarlet Pimpernel) and fleshed out some characters that Austen left bare, most particularly Georgiana and Lady Anne De Bourgh. Good stuff. Not nearly as good as Jane Austen, but the next best thing.

Okay, back to work. I'll be dropping in on the blog buddies later on today when I take another break.

Tis the Season-

for too many office parties!

Between today and tomorrow, I'll have attended three office parties--one for the entire school, one for my specific department, and one for the theatre I work at part-time. Of the three, the theatre party is best, because (1), I'm not required to cook--the other two parties are potluck, but this one is being held at a local Italian restaurant--and (2), because the gift exchange is limited to less than $5 and the gift itself is required to be obscenely tacky, yet not necessarily obscene. Always good fun. I bought a hand-held disco ball with rotating lights. It's the cheesiest thing I've ever seen, and I wouldn't have found at all were it not for chaucerian girl, who possesses an uncanny knack for finding the tacky. Please don't misunderstand. Chaucerian girl is in NO WAY tacky herself, but she's definitely quirky, and she's a class-A shopper. Seriously. Girl has talent.

The theatre party is tonight--the department party is tomorrow afternoon. They've themed it as an "international" potluck, and I drew Italian. In and of itself, this is not so bad. I like Italian food, but I don't cook Italian food. Or food in general. The reason for this is that I'm a terrible cook. To quote the divine Ms. C, "I don't cook-I stir." I can make dip. I do okay at reheating things which have already been cooked. I make a mean boxed macaroni and cheese; and I can heat up a frozen dinner like nobody's business. The only type of food I actually prepare, as well as make, is soup. I make really good soups and chowders. I just have to be in the mood to make them, and honestly, I'm just not. I've decided, therefore, to visit my local Whole Foods Market and buy something Italian there. I'm supposed to include a recipe for whatever I bring, so I was thinking I'd just give everyone a copy of the Mapquest map with directions from the university to Whole Foods.

Okay, logging off now. Many fine parties to prepare for. That trek to Whole Foods is gonna take some serious energy...