Friday, February 02, 2007

Raising teenagers. Or hell. Or both.

Well today is the big day. My office is getting all new computers. Which is exciting in that we'll have newer, faster computers, and not so exciting in that having an outsider here is a little annoying. We knew our old IT guy. He was nice, a part of the extended family. But no... he had to leave to go 'pursue his dream.' Plus he was kind of cute and I could make SB jealous by telling him IT guy was coming. Though the new guy does seem nice. And hopefully he won't look through my internet records and see a. my crazy searches at work and b. how much time I'm doing weird stuff online. Nothing illegal or amoral. Or really weird, actually, since it primarily consists of reading blogs and articles on MSN. I just work better as a multitasker, and I frequently don't have much interesting to do at work. I still do the other stuff. It just bores me so I do other stuff, too.

SB will be back a week from tomorrow. I'm excited, though it'll be a little weird. It's just been me and Cassie for so long! Though she's been getting on my nerves like none other lately... I think she's going through the whole teen-age years for cats. Because she is testing boundaries and pushing her luck. She's going to get locked in the closet to calm down one of these days. She decided to run laps on me this morning at 5:30, then last night wouldn't stop scratching my clothes... see, she likes to knead certain clothes, but with her claws out. I am not such a fan of that. I moved the clothes, she moved. I threw socks at her, she ignored me. She's very good at ignoring me. Then she attacked my foot while I was doing yoga. Very exhausting. It's hard enough to stay balanced, and with little claws and teeth pricking your feet? Nearly impossible. And she keeps trying to climb in my lap while I'm eating so she can have my food. I just want to eat in peace!

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Peas + Homelessness=Yummy Goodness

You should all be quite honored. I am... WRITING A BLOG FROM HOME. I know, I know. Control the gasps of surprise. I was even going to post a picture of Cone-y (ie Cassie when she was forced to wear her cone), but the software on my computer is being stupid and I'm too lazy to install my other. Yes, yes. I've had this computer for a year now and I still haven't put all my old software onto it. I also haven't really cleaned up my ipod or figured out all the songs on my mixed cd's. So really. This all should be no surprise.

Anyways, I've been meaning to write about peas for a while. Yes, I said peas. Some of you may be wondering, "Why on Earth would a woman write about peas?" Well, it's actually in honor of Jordan Baker, who recently mentioned the children's series The Borrowers. Now I adored these books. One of my first reading memories is of me curled up next to my mom on her bed, her reading those books to me. There also was some other book that had funny paper and was about some kind of fairy who lived in a flower or something. We started that one like 6 times, but never got through it. Anyways, I love those memories, and I loved those books.

Now the night Jordan Baker got me thinking about old books, I came home and was scrounging for some veggies in my freezer and I came across a bag of frozen peas. I then microwaved them and melted some butter and it was all good. BUT. The combo of the peas and the old books reminded me of yet another favorite childhood series... The Boxcar Children. Some of you may have read The Bobsey Twins or Nancy Drew. None of those for me. No, instead I read The Boxcar Children. These books were great. The story started with four children who were supposed to move in with their mean old grandfather. Rather than do so, they run off and find an old boxcar to live in. They support themselves, doing chores to earn money, stealing from gardens... Basically, every kid's dream. Eventually they are rescued, find out their "horrible grandfather" is actually amazingly kind and rich, and go on to solve many a mystery together. Now, back to peas. I have discussed this with other Boxcar readers and I am not alone in this. One of the BEST parts of the first book? Was the food. I don't know how the kids do it, but they seem to make the most appealing food consisting mainly of vegetables I, at my wise old age of 7 or 8, had ever heard of. It sounded amazing. Which, being older and wiser, I can see was probably a good thing, as it encouraged kids to eat veggies. The author of these books has since passed on, but I hope she knows that every single time I eat a pea, I think of her series.

Also, I just found out that there is a Boxcar museum in Connecticut. It might be totally lame, but I so want to go. Road trip!

Monday, January 29, 2007

Catching Up

I'm very sad about the whole Barbaro thing, so I'm going to ignore it and write on happier topics.

I talked to Emily yesterday. It was funny. It was like the first time in over a year that we've talked, and I'd thought about calling her earlier, like last weekend. But there was the whole general malaise, and I was a bit worried that we wouldn't have anything to talk about. Ha. Um. Our short little call turned into a nearly two hour call. Apparently, I am somewhat responsible for her friend's (Jana? Something like that) addiction to the DC blog scene. J, as I shall call you because I'm pretty sure at least that your name starts with that letter (You may pretend to be from Men In Black if you'd like), please don't judge all of DC by the blogging scene. It's a bit crazed. Which, actually, is like DC and probably an accurate representation of teh populace. But there are some non-crazed people here, such as myself. So don't write us all off. It was also nice to get blogging validation. I kind of waver on what my blog should be, and wind up writing whatever pleases me. I feel my blog may have a bit of an identity crisis at times. But to hear that someone likes it enough to be sucked into the blog scene... Now that just gives me warm fuzzies.

Emily is, of course, doing lovely. We did have a possible insight into the lack of guys who dare to ask girls like us out, and we decided a good portion of it could be our age. See, early to mid-twenties is a time full of self-discovery, and figuring out who you are. A good deal of this involves going through crap where you doubt lots of stuff about yourself. Now, Emily and I and a good portion of my good friends are the type of girls who are strong in and of themselves. We don't need a guy to protect us or tell us what to do or think. We need guys who are as strong as we are, so they can be our partners, and we really won't accept anything else. These types of guys at our age are still figuring out who they are. They can't be strong enough for us yet because they aren't sure how much strength they've got. Now obviously there are exceptions to everything, blah, blah, blah. But the fact is that I think the world of most of my friends and I know that eventually they will all meet people who make them utterly happy and who fit them to a tee. Now I probably won't say that these eventual guys will be worthy of them. But I know that they are out there, being put through the fire, so that they will at least come close.