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."

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.

First off - remember months ago when I posted about being found by my old high school friend? For a while there I was actually dressing nicer in case he showed up. Kind of like when you are going to your high school reunion, you want people to think you improved or haven't aged or at least not embarrass yourself. But months went by w/o emails or anything on either of our parts, and honestly I got so busy in my own life that I kind of forgot about the whole thing.

Secondly - it's been a really stressful two weeks. Between the road trip return (which was awesome but tiring), the bathroom renovation (that is a giant story in itself), company visiting from NY for two weeks, some bizarre stressful work stuff that somehow just disappeared thank God, preparing for a Halloween party, sudden day trip visits from friends in Tallahassee, Virginia, and Mississippi, and other stuff. It's almost all good things, but I'm tired and sick and overwhelmed, and it's showing in my face - partly cuz I'm scowling and partly cuz I have a HUGE HUGE HUGE MASSIVE GIANT POSSIBLY GLOWING bump right in the middle of my forehead. It's like a third eye. It's hideous. Today it yelled at one of my coworkers.

I am guessing you can see how these two items relate. Yep. He showed up yesterday. At least I had a nice outfit on to counterbalance my toxic head. When I spotted him roaming around the lobby peeking at doors like a lost freshman looking for homeroom I told him he would have to pick today to show up and to go away and come back when my face was clear. Other than that, I had a nice visit! He's really funny, so we spent as much time actually catching each up on our lives as we did making up goofy stories about people passing by outside my windows. At one point he was telling me about how on his way in to C1 he passed some random guy flossing his teeth in the parking lot. He wasn’t entirely sure, but he thought it was the mint floss. He questioned the idea of a person walking around college grounds flossing, clearly something was wrong with this person – we went on the theorize what was behind the odd behavior. Perhaps the Flosser was just crazy or perhaps he was up to something nefarious and the flossing was some sort of decoy… And there were jokes about D making it safely to his car if the Flosser were still out there. So he promised to send me an email to let me know he made it safely to his office...

> From: D
> Sent: Monday, October 26, 2009 3:29 PM
> To: MLR
> Subject: Made it
>
> I took a wandering path to my car, in part to throw off pursuit and to a
> lesser degree that I forgot where I parked. Suffice to say, I made it
> back with no floss marks.
>
> Beware Big Headed Babies,
>
> D

I wrote back, but he never answered - so I got a little nervous my response was more stupid than silly.

> From: MLR
> Sent: Monday, October 26, 2009 4:14 PM
> To: D
> Subject: RE: Made it
>
> Well thank goodness! Most people don't realize how deadly floss can be.
> It's unexpected tensile strength and teflon composition
> (possibly not the mint kind) means it has all sorts of nontoothy
> applications. According to one website I read, just 18 strands braided
> together can support the weight of a small sea bass. I'm not entire
> sure, but I believe most Nisson vehicles are equivalent in mass to fish,
> hence their amazing gas economy, therefore it wasn't unreasonable of me
> to worry.
>
> Anyway, glad you are safe!

Maybe I can blame the crazy on my forehead.

Should I feel guilty that I have baked a cake or a brownie for like a million friends, family members, and coworkers, but I'm not doing anything for my husband this year? Monkeys and I talked about it, and with Dragoncon next week we have too much trip prep to worry about a party. We don't even have time to clean the house - there are clothes and suitcases and everything all over the diningroom table. I'm not sure what he's done in there, actually.

Oh, well. I threw a huge, awesome party for him last year. :)

And I'm going to get him a brownie and some coffee at BAM on Saturday.
And I'm going to see a movie I probably would not otherwise see but for his birthday.
So I don't suck totally.



Supernatural tonight is my favorite Misha episode. It is the one where I realized what an amazing actor he is.

43
SUNBNR
Professional Tarpon Tournament Series

This is a kind of neat overlap moment. Yesterday I dedicated a Rosary to Beth's mother at the hospital, my mother's safe traveling to AL, and John's mom's soul. It was Saturday so, I said the joyful mysteries (the annunciation of the birth of Jesus, the visitation of a pregnant Elizabeth by the pregnant Mary, the birth of Jesus, the presentation of Jesus at the Temple, and the finding of Jesus at the temple) which as you can see have a great focus on motherhood. I didn't think about that when I started, so it felt really right to have all the mother moments.

On a bad note, I didn't go to church today. I thought I was sick, but I think I probably could have made it, so I pretty much suck.

Monkeys and I are watching Eureka on Hulu; it's such a wonderful show. :) We also watched two awesome episodes of Bones - one with Stewy and one at a convention. I'm also cross stitching again, finally.
And I made two stupid icons. One is from scratch and the gears one is a logo I stole from some company.

When I was a little girl one of my favorite Atari 2600 games was Adventure. However, the "dragons" terrified me, and whenever they appeared on the screen I would scream. My mother had to take over the game for me and escape their clutches. I think once I even cried from fear. Later, in my teens I loved Nintendo's Super Mario Brothers - except for the mushroom jumping. TERRIFIED. If I fell off a 'shroom I would scream. I scream a lot. You can ask my friends. Anyway, the point is that I get waaaaaaaay to attached to characters in games. I cannot seem to separate myself from the avatar. So if Mario fell to his death, I thought *I* was falling to my death. If my little cube was being chased by a dragon, I felt like *I* was being chased by a dragon.

Now I've over on Facebook playing an incredibly stupid Vampire game and a Pirate game. I am trying to save up blood to buy some vampire trait so that I can advance to the next stage but people keep fighting me and stealing my blood. Likewise, over on Pirates people keep stealing my treasure which is stopping me from building my tariff station. I'm not as upset about the Pirates thing, because I make a lot of treasure, but that blood is difficult to come by. Plus, it kind of sucks losing over and over. It's seriously hurting my feelings! I really need to stop playing these games for my own sanity. Then again, I am hoping playing will break me of these attachment issues. It really is a miserable personality flaw.

I am a TERRIBLE pirate, by the way. I never attack anyone. I did at first, but when I did I would attack once, and if I won I would pick a different target. So seeing that the same person has attacked me five times in a row strikes me as awful and enrages me. You don't kick someone when they are down!! Except, I suppose if you are a pirate or a vampire you do. (Again I reiterate, me = really bad pirate. *grin*) Now I have completely given up on attacking. I just click the plunder button to build up treasure so I can buy islands and build tree houses. :)





Adventure icons works in process. I want to make a moving one that says "going on an adventure" or something, but I'm too tired. Also, today I'm vaguely depressed.

I have massive self doubt when it comes to expressing myself in public. Is this an okay music review?

GREAT CD! I can listen to it over and over, catching new meanings or sounds with each revisit. Excellent musicianship – the drumming ROCKS, the various strings and their arrangements are outstanding. While somehow maintaining an overall sense of unity, there is a lot of variety to the songs-from flat out rocking, to dark melodies, to world music, and more. Lindsay is a master lyricist. I have had all the songs stuck in my head at some point, and I’m thankful!

Also - buy the new Lindsay Smith CD Beautiful Life. It seriously is outstanding - I haven't taken it out of my car's CD player since I got it.. I wish I could write a good enough review that actually expresses how great the CD is.

Argh. I'm going to go fold some laundry.

I just tried out the Wii Fit Monkees bought for me as a belated anniversary present. It's fun!! I messed with all the yoga postures, three of the aerobic activities, two of the strength training activities, and one of the balance activities. I have excellent balance on the yoga games, but I suck royally at the balance games! Seriously suck!! The game mocks me. It actually asked me if I have trouble walking.

The first time I attempted the set up I had the Wii Fit board thing facing the wrong way. So every time it said to lean left, I would lean left, but the Wii registered it as leaning right. My initial body test results had me as being 55 years old and a hazard to those around me. After I got it turned the right way and redid the test, I dropped to 41 years old - still older than I actually am and still a potential hazard, but at least it was better than before.

The link below takes you to an even bigger oops than facing your Wii the wrong way... ann_mcn posted it on her LJ. She found it on metaquotes. I read it to Monkeys and we both giggled in admiration, so I wanted to share it, too.

Aspiring photographer asks his boss about taking some photographs...
http://the-hunter.livejournal.com/410348.html

There's a commercial for Trident gum saying it makes your teeth stronger. I've watched this commercial a million times, but only caught it from the point where a guy on a motorcycle falls down and the blonde girl carrying a million shopping bags picks up stuff that's fallen out of her purse (including the gum). After the voiceover guy talks about how great the gum is, they go back to the scene where an older lady on a Little Rascal type scooter runs over him. Every time I saw the commercial I would cringe and feel bad for the poor guy on the motorcycle who gets first got knocked over by some zealous and unobservant shop-a-holic (who I assumed hadn't seen him because of all her bags and her rudely trying to answer her phone putting others in jeopardy) and to add insult to injury got run over by a clueless old lady. Poor guy had a suck-tastic day.

Tonight I saw the commercial from the beginning. He's a thief. He's trying to grab the poor shop-a-holic's purse from her teeth (cuz her hands are full from the bags and the phone) and her teeth are soooooo strong from the gum that she can keep hold of the purse w/o straining thereby pulling the guy off his motorcycle.

I've been feeling bad for the wrong person all this time. Durrrrr.

But the commercial makes a whole lot more sense now!



(PS... I am drinking the most yummy coffee right now. Redd and Imran got me craving some...)
(PPS... Happy Birthday Supergoober!!!!)

Today I hit reply all instead of replying to the one person I intended. That email then went to everyone on my Class of 88 listserv. It was an alternative link I intended to send to someone living in Germany who had a question regarding some of the political back and forth debating that was going on in the community (specifically to a set of links someone posted about Acorn and Ayers). I didn't want to get involved in it or enflame it, but I also thought that maybe he hadn't seen the video I was sending (I don't know what they get over there in Germany) and that maybe he'd like a different viewpoint than was being presented on the listserv as he seemed more on my wavelength from his previous posts, blahblahblah, so I wrote him a little message.

Except someone (named Kristin!) walked into my office as I was writing, I jumped and hit a wrong button, and it went to everyone. Also, I forgot to include the link! (duh)

I read my email to Monkeys when I got home, and he agreed that what I wrote was not at all argumentative or offensive (thank goodness). Still, it was not something I wanted the world to read. The person who posted the links in the first place actually sent me an apology if his links offended me. I successfully wrote him and only him back saying I bore no ill feelings. No one else has responded. Other people have sent other emails that do seem more argumentative, so people are focusing more on those and not on mine. That's good, because I don't want to be noticed. It's also bad because I am afraid people might stop being civil if they keep writing about it. I know people should feel comfortable enough to express and discuss different opinions, especially if we as a country are to work together to heal divides, but it does feel uncomfortable, and no one seems to be changing opinions just exchanging words. There is a lot of refuting statements (he's a muslim/no he's not, i read this/well i read that). Last year we went through a similar phase of Bush rocks/Bush sucks emails, where someone insisted that as our president we should support him regardless of whether or not we agree with him. Some (liberals?) objected. Now, it's being reversed as Obama supporters are saying the same thing to objecting (conservatives?). I would like a bit of a break from this.

On the bright side, they all know about the meteor shower now.