This brought back so many emotions that I actually cried.

I was so caught up listening to Mr. Rogers that I didn't realize Monkeys was listening from the kitchen until he burst out with "This is so cool!" After it ended, Monkeys shared a story about being upset and crying as a child because he had to go to eat lunch while the show was on, so he turned the station off. When lunch was over, and he returned to turn on the tv again he discovered the show was over. He had thought that by turning it off it would stop the show until he returned.

I remember my mom telling me that when I was really small I couldn't say my L's so I called one of the character's Yady Eyane. And just yesterday I walked up to my mewing Cassie Cat and said "meow meow meow meow meow?" in an impression of Henrietta Pussycat.

:)

As in, you answer someone’s question, and instead of saying “thank you” they say “okay” and hang up.

I can almost see it if they were getting bad news or unpleasant news -- it’s still rude, but I’m sure they aren’t thankful for the answer so not saying thank you makes sense even though it would be polite behavior to say it. But if it were just a normal answer to a question it seems weird to not say “thanks.” That's the usual and accepted and polite response, right?

Multiple times today, to me and to others in my office, we've gotten "okay."

Caller: "When does registration start for new students?"
College employee: "November 30th."
Caller: "Okay." *click*
Correct response: "Thank you."

Caller: "What's the phone number for advising?"
College employee: "123-4567, and I can transfer you."
Caller: "Okay." *silence/waiting for transfer*
Correct response: "Okay, thank you."

See, you can still say okay.

Saw this on Bryan's Facebook and love their entire site, not just this video. :)

Gah! What's with YouTube's new setup! I don't know how to embed stuff anymore. It took ages to figure out how to get this here.

http://www.howitshouldhaveended.com/
Click How Twilight Should Have Ended

If you've read the book or seen the movie or heard enough tweeners talk about the book/movie or heard enough people complaining about the book or movie or have a good sense of humor than you will find this funny.

Monkeys calls me every morning. It’s kind of our daily checkin/how you doin/no how you doin/I love you minute.

This morning it took a wrong turn.
If you can get passed all the mush at the beginning, it made me giggle quite a bit.


MLR: I bragged about you on FB and LJ today. I said you hung the moon and stars.
Monkeys: Awwww, I love you soooo much.
MLR: Undeservedly much.
Monkeys: You are right; I don’t deserve you.
MLR: *taken aback because he turned my statement around so quickly* You are smooth!!
Monkeys: As smooth as your lips.
MLR: *pause to process* Okay, now you are just corny. Funny how you can go from smooth to corny so quickly.
Monkeys: *in a vaguely Isaac Hays voice* Corny as Iowa, baby.
MLR: *fit of giggles*
Monkeys: And on that note, I’m going…

Our bedroom is a celestial theme. We just moved the piano and instruments from the Alice room to our bedroom, so we had to rearrange the various stars, moons, and suns that were hanging on our wall. On Wednesday I helped with the pictures and wall decorations, but last night Monkeys was in the bedroom alone working. I thought he was cleaning out his dresser. When I went to bed last night I discovered Orion and the milky way above our bed. Moreover, he’d bought a mini-solar system for me, and he hung the planets around our ceiling fan sun in the positions they held on December 2, 1970 – the date of my birth.


On a less romantic note, he also hung the cool flying saucer/shooting star Christmas lights I bought for our Halloween Invasion party. They are behind our bed with his robot collection and look awesome.

I found a folder for one student and some paperwork for another student that had been eluding me for two weeks.

I found a folder for another student that had eluded me for two months.

I found a solution to a student’s bizarre transfer problem. (She went from a semester school to a quarter school back to a semester school and the differences in how English composition is handled plus the mathematical conversions of the hours between systems initially caused her to appear one credit short. I found a solution for her unique situation.)

I got unexpected and extremely high praise from the educational advisor who was trying to help said transfer student – "Great news on this one!! The communications was a worry – I am indebted to you once again for your tenacity to resolve issues and your quick communication with us. You are my hero!"

W/o going into details about why this is such a big deal – one of the seven students I’m tracking resolved herself completely today. Three should be resolved at the end of this fall term. Two worked with the Registrar who has her fingerprints all over the registration and at the end of next spring they should be completely resolved. One I think has “left the building.” So I’m really excited!

I didn’t snack today and even managed a slow walk despite a backache and sore legs.

I’m sure other good stuff happened, too, but I can’t remember it offhand. It’s registration, and I’m not crying yet – that’s good. Even though I’m sorting the mail for a coworker who’s out of town, it’s not putting me behind in my priority work and I’ve managed to collect a few cute stamps for my philatelist uncle. (WOW – I spelled philatelist correctly!) While not clean by any stretch of the imagination, my desk is not awash in paperwork either.

I am going to have to remember this moment because in December it is going to get bad. It is going to get bad and ugly and I’m going to go absolutely mental.

On the way to Tally this weekend caught an NPR program I'd never heard before - I don't know the title but it had to do with economics. They were doing a special program about money and kids; as a part of the show they had two eighth graders reading excerpts from stories or poems they'd written. I didn't catch either of the stories completely because of the conversations going on in the car. I pieced together what I thought the girl's poem was about based on the bits I did understand - I think she had saved up some money and was looking around online with an eye toward purchasing something, but her mother saw her online searching and started giving opinions and advice which the daughter was rejecting. She kept saying "ninja stars" over and over - which was the phrase that caught my attention in the first place in the murmuring of the radio. Only, I thought she was buying a star - probably because I have always wanted to buy a star myself. I kept wondering what kind of star a ninja star was and if it was a newly discovered type of star because we didn't discuss those in astronomy class. Maybe it was because I was struggling to figure out what I was listening to and the overall story in addition to the poem, but my mental processing took a while before I realized she meant the weapon ninja stars, not a stellar object. I wasn't as interested at that point, but my confusion amused me, and I told John about it. He suggested perhaps the Ninja Star was related to dark matter. Then together we came up with the idea of a motivational poster of a constellation reading "There are 12 Ninja Stars in this constellation."

I love my pumpkin!!!

Sarah you are amazingly crafty and talented!

A big THANK YOU to Monkeys and my dad especially, but to all the men and women who've served our country and sacrificed for our country. Also to all the active duty members and and spouses and family members. :)

God Bless!
Be safe!

TWICE now I have tried to eat the french fries pictured on the cover of the book sitting beside my computer. I am going to have to move this book.

Cuz we aren't meeting on Saturday!! Darn it!!

oversized scarecrow
guards the plastic pumpkin patch
on my windowsill



I was a strong person today! I confronted two personal issues directly and made difficult choices. Well, for *me* it was difficult choices. I risked saying the wrong thing to two people (one of my biggest fears) and somehow ended up not screwing things up with either of them. In fact, I think I even managed to have a deep conversation about emotions instead of staying in my comfortable shallow water areas. Go me!

If the Incredible Hulk and the Thing from the Fantastic Four got into a fight, who do you think would win? Mr. Duggins said his friend who worked for Marvel Comics would describe attending cocktail parties full of conversations that began along those lines. That was how Duggins transitioned to describing the conversations engineers were getting into at the 2005 NASA meeting at Disney’s Contemporary Resort Motel when they were asked to create a new kind of space ship. They were told that it could have wings, it could have tanks, it could have anything – just throw what you have against a wall and see what sticks – so they were coming up with all kinds of scenarios. But in every scenario imagined Batman beats Superman. Just saying.

Pat Duggins, NPR space expert and newly hired something or other with Alabama Public Radio, gave a lecture on campus today based on his book Beyond the Final Countdown: NASA and the End of the Space Shuttle Program. I am curious if this is the same lecture he gave on CSpan’s Booknotes. I watch that show –that’s where I discovered Simon Singh and AJ Jacobs – but I haven’t seen Mr. Duggins there. I have heard him on NPR. His lecture today was a bit meandering and his powerpoint presentation minimal and slapdash, but I think his actual book will be really good. I think he must have liked the subject so much he hopped around a lot in his talk, but he probably couldn’t do that when writing a book. He has a great voice and is very personable, so it was pleasant just listening to him talk.

My favorite story from the presentation was centered around Challenger. He opened with asking us to share our first memories of NASA and the space program. From the memories shared, I think I was the youngest person in the room by about twenty years. Cosmos would be my first “real space” encounter, but my first actual memory of the space program is the Challenger explosion. _{Well, unless you count the MTV commercials with Buzz Aldrin.} So I was particularly interested when he got to that portion of his presentation. He said in the 1980’s the news programs didn’t really cover the space program. When Coke and Pepsi sent up zero-gravity dispensers it was on the news, but other than that the space program was mostly ignored, which I guess is why I don’t have many memories of it. Reporters didn’t cover the space shuttle’s flights because it would be like covering an airport – they took off, they landed, back to you Jim. So he wasn’t covering Challenger when it exploded; he was in the production room with another story when he noticed people scurrying about and asked what happened. Upon hearing the shuttle exploded he grabbed his tape recorder and a company car and sped to Cape Canaveral barking on a CB radio to arrange press passes be waiting for him when he arrived. While waiting outside the security office to pick up his badge he noticed a school bus and a group of 3rd graders with hangdog expressions, so his first interview regarding the Challenger was with those kids recounting their experience watching the shuttle explode. He kept the tapes and 20 years later when he began writing this book he tracked down some of the children, now in their 30’s, to get their reflections on the shuttle program. I found it interesting that for the kids the scariest part of the Challenger explosion experience occurred when they returned home later that night. The bus ride was three hours and no one had cell phones back then, so by 6pm their parents had watched the shuttle explode over and over on television without knowing for sure if their children were okay. What if they’d been hit by some debris?!?! When the kids disembarked they were grabbed in a mad scramble by frightened parents.

He also told a great story about the invention of WD40 . He showed a street sign in Cocoa Beach called “I Dream of Jeannie Lane” and said astronauts really did hang out at Bernard’s Surf as mentioned on the show. And because I was in the audience he mentioned Steve Jobs.

I didn’t realize that when the Shuttle program shuts down it will spell the end for Cape Canaveral. Duggins thinks Huntsville, AL will pick up the torch. As a Florida native, I’m saddened by this.

Not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car." (Will Shriner)

My grandfathers were the first people to come to mind on All Soul's Day. It seems like they were radically different people. I guess they had one thing in common: They both had really white hair. I hope when my hair changes colors it's the same pure shade of white.


Most of my memories of my maternal grandfather are from when he was in the VA Hospital towards the end of his days. He passed away when I was six, and when he was alive he lived five or six hours away, so I didn’t get to see him often. But all the memories I do have, I cherish. There are pictures of me sitting in his lap while he read me the newspaper, sitting in his lap on the porch, swinging in his tree swing, or curled up asleep in his big green chair. I don’t remember any of these moments, but I remember feeling loved. I associate him with circus peanuts. I don’t have any specific recollection of him ever giving me a circus peanut, but I know that he must have with every visit because to this day whenever I see a bag of circus peanuts photographic images of him float through the back of my mind. I also think of him every time I am offered a thumbprint cookie. I remember being five years old and helping my mother bake thumbprint cookies before a trip to the VA Hospital. She mixed the dough and rolled out the cookies. I supplied the thumbprint, and she filled the hole with jelly then baked them. I remember carrying a giant plastic container full of yellow apricot and grape purple cookies into the lobby and offering all the nurses and attendants cookies. I loved the attention and compliments. Papa couldn’t actually eat the cookies because of the breathing tubes. These were the old days, when children weren’t allowed up in the rooms. I don’t know why we were banned from the rooms – maybe they thought we’d be traumatized, maybe they thought it wasn’t healthy for the patients, who knows. My parents had to take turns watching me hand out cookies in the lobby while they each took a turn up in the room with Papa. When there were no more cookies I got taken outside to the grounds, held up underneath a familiar third story window, and told to wave. I waved more emphatically once I spotted the hands waving back down at me through the curtains. Other visits I recall running around the grounds playing tag with my cousins, also too young to be allowed in the room for a visit. My mother lost Papa in 1976, but I lost him years before thanks to those hospital regulations.


I could write a book about my paternal grandfather. Actually, somebody ought to write a book about him; he was a real character. I loved him dearly because he could always make me laugh. Whether it was from stealing my dinner rolls then blaming it on my grandmother (surefire amusement for a six year old) or offering to spray down my boyfriend’s bushy beard with chigger spray for my protection (well, it amused me), he was always up to something. My favorite story involves one of his favorite pastimes – sitting at the counter at the Donut King in Odgensburg eavesdropping on conversations then butting in with unwanted advice. If anyone railed at him he would raise his eyebrows with a confused and hurt expression and apologetically protest, “Hey, I’m just a concerned citizen!” Someone actually bought him a baseball cap that said “Concerned Citizen” so that he could just point. Maybe that’s apocryphal, but I could totally picture him doing it.

Today is All Soul's Day

At mass yesterday they had little envelopes where you could write the names of loved ones who have passed on. I didn't have a pen, so I borrowed one from the lady sitting next to me and wrote down five names. (Both my grandfathers, Redd's mother, my uncle, and George Harrison.) I knew there was another name I wanted to list, but I couldn't think of it. I knew it was really important, but I couldn't think who. After I'd returned the pen and mass started, I realized I forgot Monkey's mom. So I prayed that her name be included along with the five I submitted.

There are so many dear people that could have also been added. I thought to myself I ought to start a list of names. Of course, that's impractical since it would be incredibly long. Every friend and family member I've known and lost. Every celebrity who's passed on after making an impact on my life. Every family member I never got the chance to know. Every friend and family member of my friends and family members. And everyone else. That may not even cover it.



All you holy men and women pray for us.

As today is All Saint's Day I wanted to acknowledge it somehow.

I thought perhaps I'd just do a quick write-up about my confirmation saint, Saint Barbara and why I chose her. I had compiled a short list of ten or so names which perhaps some day I will post because I was impressed and inspired by several. It was a really hard decision!

I finally settled on Saint Barbara for two main reasons.

1) My mother's name is Barbara. I thought it might please her if my saint had the same name. So it was a way to honor her and be closer to her. Also in some fashion I thought it might ease Mom's mind on my converting to the Catholic faith if she had any issues over my switching from the way I was raised. Just recently I realized I may have an even closer family connection to the name. My grandmother's family was Catholic and my grandfather was Methodist. My grandmother died giving birth to her forth child. Mom was only three at the time, so she never really got a chance to know her mother. Of course, without her presence, the children went to my grandfather's church and were raised Methodist. But listening to the Litany of Saints being sung and hearing "Saint Elizabeth and Barbara, pray for us," I thought perhaps since my grandmother was Catholic perhaps my mom and Aunt Elizabeth Anne were named after the saints. I even rationalized why the boys weren't - the firstborn was named after his father, and since she died in childbirth with the last one she didn't have a say in his name. So by picking Barbara I may have picked the same saint my grandmother picked for Mom!

2) St Barbara is the patron saint of explosives. Monkeys is exEOD. Had I been Catholic and married to him at the time he was in the service, I'm sure I'd have been calling on St. Barbara a lot. :) I figure she was watching over him all that time anyway, so I owe her!

She also has a really neat story that's easy to remember, so I can tell people about her if asked.


My icon is Saint Michael the Archangel. One of my favorite prayers is dedicated to him.
Saint Michael the Archangel,
defend us in battle;
be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray:
and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host,
by the power of God,
thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits
who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.
Amen
I think it's beautiful and poetic and powerful and needed.

Also, he's being featured prominently on Supernatural right now. He's way more awesome then they are letting on. If in one of the many universes out there there exists a universe where I'm married to Jensen Ackles and we have a son... I'd make sure his saint was Michael. :)

Just wanted to pop on quickly and wish everyone a Happy Halloween!

And Happy Samhain for those who celebrate!!

PS Aliens have invaded our house! Woot!

This made me feel special. Geeky, dorky, and strange, but also special.

Normally on Halloween I dress up at work. I’ve worn my various pirate costumes from Dragoncon (occasionally with giant plastic swords); I’ve worn various Renn Festival outfits (occasionally with horns); I’ve dressed as a witch; I’ve dressed as the Doctor. Once I talked my coworkers into dressing as “the plague” where we were all to wear our pajamas and bathrobes and give ourselves lipstick measles. Despite everyone saying yes, I was the only one to follow through. I taught class in said pajamas and bathrobe later that evening, although I did wash the measles off my face. The last few weeks have been very busy and very stressed (good stress is still stress), so emotionally I couldn’t psych myself up to dressing up today. I was planning on wearing one of the Salwar Kamishes, but 1) I don’t think of them as costumes and 2) I got sick last night which collapsed any ambitions I had. So today I wore an orange sweater, black jeans, black and orange striped socks, and orange Converse hightops, all of which I have worn to work before – just not at once. I also wore my fox hat – which I
hadn’t worn to work before but have worn just about everywhere else as you can see from my Wisconsin pictures, my New York pictures, my Dragoncon pictures, or ask any of our local gas stations. So in my mind, I did not dress up. I dressed down. And more importantly, I felt down until something happened to cheer me up some.

People have been coming out of the woodwork to see if I’m dressed up. I mean, they’ve come from other buildings, even. And they are crazy about the hat. Everyone seems to think I’m a tiger (Tony the Tiger, Tigger, etc.) because of the socks, but that’s okay because it keeps the Come to Kenya song running through my head. I can’t understand why they think I’m so festive since I feel incredibly mundane, but I’m glad they aren’t seeing it as mundane. The best moment was when the Registrar and her assistant heard my voice at the copier, and they excitedly called and called out to me to come into their office because they wanted to see what I was wearing like they had really high expectations. I actually apologized because I wasn’t dressed up, but they disagreed and actually raved about my outfit. Someone else came in and said that I looked more like a tiger than a fox, but I said my husband called me a fox and I was sticking with that. Also, one of the groundskeepers stopped at my window and signed to me how much he liked my hat. He recognized it as a fox hat, and he mimed me chasing down and attacking a rabbit. I signed back “chocolate rabbit,” and he applauded.

Also in the vein of "it’s a good day no matter how awful I feel", the assistant registrar called us all into the vault and had us pose looking overworked and stressed out so that they could have a picture to use in a PowerPoint presentation for the registration meeting. We crammed eight of us on stools and ladders in the vault, using folders and buckets as props. Those with glasses cocked their glasses, and all of us tried to make over-the-top overworked expressions. Our college has grown by leaps and bounds since it's construction in the 1960's, so the once-spacious vault designed to hold admissions files is now crammed to the gills making it hard to file or retrieve files. I think this picture was done in comedic protest of how our many requests for more storage have not been fulfilled. I cannot wait to hear the reaction to the picture at the meeting.

ME: If you had to choose between Jennifer Lopez and ice cream which would it be?

DAD: Oh, that's hard. What flavor's the ice cream?



We were playing Apples to Apples with my relatives, and when my mother played "Fantastic" during her role as judge my Aunt Cheryl played the name of a cute actor. She won the round, and consequently won the game. My uncle and father grumbled and complained and accused her of cheating somehow. She mentioned that had a man been the judge she would have played Jennifer Lopez. Dad shook his head in resignation and said "well, if I were judging you'd have had another green card." We all laughed, and Dad made some sort of comment about how you couldn't not pick Jennifer Lopez. That's when we started presenting various options. After it was established that it would be chocolate ice cream, Monkeys moved on to number of scoops...

I suppose I should have been grateful it was even open at 7:30 pm, but as it was 7:30 pm I was really anxious to get through my grocery list and get home ASAP. (Preferably in time to watch Castle.) In fact, I was debating whether to stop off at Walmart on my way home from my parents’ house Monday night or go Tuesday after work. My aunt/uncle/parents were coming up for dinner on Wednesday, and we wanted to make the soup on Tuesday night to give it time to meld and to give us more time with them instead of spending part of their visit cooking. As Walmart was on my way home and stopping then would give more time for cooking and cleaning on Tuesday, Monday won out. I was zipping through my list until I got to the last two items – Sundried Tomato Turkey Breast and Cajun Roast Beef. One pound each. Thin sliced.

There were three people in the deli area. One was packaging roasted chickens and two were chatting. When they noticed me at the counter one of the chatting ladies came over to ask if I needed help. The other chatting lady started packaging roasted chickens. I pointed out the meats I wanted, but she had trouble finding them. I guess the packages they slice aren’t behind the examples in the case. So she got some help from one of the other ladies. She also had to ask for help again to find out which slicer to use. Finally she got the turkey ready (although not in the amount I asked for) and stuffed it in a plastic bag. After ten or eleven attempts to zip it shut, she gave up, commented on how hard they were to seal, and then stuck the price label across the top of the bag rendering it somewhat shut. It still left the bag open on either side of the label where things could fall out. Or in. All the while, a gentleman was standing over at the bakery counter holding a cake and talking on his cell phone. She left me to ask him if he needed anything. There wasn’t anyone working the bakery and despite my lady asking her coworkers, still packaging chickens, if they could write Happy Birthday on a cake, if xxx could write Happy Birthday, if xxx could write Happy Birthday, etc. until she ran out of names, my lady couldn’t come up with anyone who could write on his cake. He said not to worry about it. She deferred and said she would get a manager. Then she asked her coworkers, still packaging chickens, how you call a manager. The coworkers didn’t seem to care about her questions or the fact that I was still standing at the counter wondering why one of THEM didn’t wait on the gentleman or at least take over helping me. The roasted chickens could wait – they are already dead, you help the living customers first. In the meantime, I managed to zip up the turkey package. On my first try, even. My lady then disappeared into a back room for a while and finally came out to tell the gentleman that someone was coming to help him. Finally she returned to me and began trying to cut open a package of roast beef. That took a while. It involved buckets and trays and knives and some other things I didn’t recognize. That’s when I noticed how dirty the meat scale was. Well, not dirty exactly – but there were bits of other meats all over it, indicating it hadn’t been wiped down lately. Then the phone rang. My lady stopped wrestling with the roast beef package and went to answer it. The other two ladies continued packaging chicken. Oh, and occasionally they would throw older chickens in the trash. I couldn’t figure out their system. After about five minutes my lady finished with the phone call, repeated to the gentleman that someone was coming for him, and then disappeared into the back room again. Eventually she returned to the roast beef. I wondered about her gloves and whether or not she changed them after hanging up the phone. I choose to ignore my thoughts since at least we were back on track and my roast beef was being sliced and shoved into a plastic bag. (Once again, not the amount I asked for. Close, but not quite. I was expecting her to ask “Is this okay?” like they normally do at meat counters when they are a couple ounces over or under. I don’t know why I expected that as by this time I was convinced she didn’t actually work the deli. In my mind she was Olga, an illegal immigrant fleeing the Russian Mafia who happened to be passing through the deli and stopped when she saw me. Still, I’m sure she’s gotten meat at a deli before and at least heard the question at some point. Or possibly “Это о'кей?” if Babelfish is to be trusted.) This time she only made two attempts to seal it before just handing me the bag, unfolded and untaped, while wishing me a good night. I zipped it shut and made my way over to the checkout counters. My cashier was upset about the turkey label being folded in half. It meant it was impossible to scan. Together we carefully peeled the label back to prevent it from ripping; I held it out for her so she could use her handheld laser on the barcode. I felt partially responsible since I moved the label when I zipped the bag then returned it to its folded position, so I vaguely defended the placement saying perhaps they don’t realize the impact of label placement since they don’t do checkout. She disagreed and said it was just laziness on their part. I don’t know about laziness, because in truth they never stopped working for a minute. They just weren’t working for me.

And I missed Castle.