CafeChatNoir

Last night, I got to see the Roundabout Theatre’s national tour of Twelve Angry Men, starring Mike DiSalvo. And some guy that was in The Waltons.

Mike was one of Donald’s college roommates, and so when he asked if I wanted to go with him to see the play up in Wilmington, I couldn’t say no. (For whatever reason, they went everywhere but DC it seems.)

Let me tell you, the production was absolutely fantastic. I had no idea who was cast in it, and just figured it would be Mike and 12 other people that I didn’t know, given that I’m not really up on who’s who on the stage. Wrong. Very wrong. The cast was top notch. They just did a great show, you could tell everyone was really enjoying being on stage with each other and if it hits your neck of the woods, catch it. Oh, and Richard Thomas is not aging - just a tad disturbing.

If you ever find yourself in downtown Wilmington, hit the Washington Street Ale House. Nice people, great food and beer that is about 1/3 less than it is here… We went over and had some beers with Mike after the show, got to meet some other folks in the cast (very cool) and a good time was had by all.

I haven’t seen Mike since 2001(?) - it was great to get to see him again, and my lord, he’s all grown up. I couldn’t be happier for him that he’s getting to do this work!

My cold has come back with a vengeance and I decided today that it’s time to suck it up and make some proper soup of some sort, so off to the market I went.

I’ve often felt that if you’re feeling poorly, taking a few minutes to spruce up will make you feel better. However today my mood was, “OK, so I’m gonna look like a scary 70s housefrau, the world can deal with it.”

If nothing else, I think my look probably cemented the idea that the market is NOT a good place to pick up chicks with the local male community. Come on, if this isn’t a come hither look, I don’t know what is: Sweatpants, MCM shirt, Tevas and hair doing god knows what, cause I just pulled it back into a clip without looking in a mirror and off I went.

I also discovered that in the same vein of “don’t go to the market when you’re hungry”, that I shouldn’t go to the market when I have a cold. For whatever reason, EVERYTHING looked good. I guess it has something to do with the fact that when I do have a cold, I will eat pretty much anything within reach. (There was an incident at Red Lobster many years ago on my brother’s birthday. I had quite the head cold, and I lost count of how many cheese biscuits I devoured, and how many times I asked family members, “Are you going to finish that? Can I have a bite?”)

And I must say, the Starbucks next to the local market is VERY convenient. And if Starbucks can’t fix me, nothing can.

Wow, it feels SO GOOD to not feel like crap!

And it’s a beautiful day out there to boot. Went out to run some errands and had the windows down and the sunroof open and it was just spectacular. This is Mother Nature’s way of keeping the winter suicide rate down, I am sure of it.

I got a visit from the Department of State today… And I greeted them with my usual side door ambush of “Can I HELP you??!?” cause I don’t take kindly to people ringing my doorbell when I’m trying to work.

It would seem that my ex-husband either has or is going for a job that requires a clearance. Mind you, I’ve not seen or spoken to him in over 7 years, so from the get-go I didn’t exactly feel like my input should matter given that a) there was no physical abuse, b) no monetary addictions, c) no active plans to overthrow the government in a violent manner, and d) he’s 7 years more grown up by now - and I’m quite sure at the age of 42 I’ll be quite different from the gal I am now, and I expect no different from him. Though I will admit that the first words out of my mouth were, “Wait, he’s got a REAL JOB?!!?” Followed by, “Feel free to mark me down as the snarky ex-wife.” (What can I say - the job he had the last time we spoke was 32 hours a week, 8 of which were playing golf.)

Shit, what the hell am I supposed to say? I did say he was “a decent guy, but a lousy first husband” and I clarified by saying it was simply because he was too young at the time. (I know they discount bitter sounding comments from ex’s - we’re ex’s for a reason.) I wouldn’t date him again, but shit, I’d trust him with national secrets, especially since he has more to lose now than he did when I knew him.

I’ll fully admit that there is part of me that wants to hunt down his current address and drop him a note saying, “Don’t worry - I never mentioned the cross-dessing!”

He was by no means a perfect person, nor am I - otherwise we’d still be hitched. But hell, give him the clearance - he’ll do just fine.

Just odd to have that part of my life that I thought was totally and completely behind me crop up on me when I would have never expected it.

And DoS - if you’re reading - I didn’t lie about anything today - it was just weird.

Trying to do some picking up in the kitchen today.  Managed to knock over a glass and break it, and then not 5 minutes later, picked up a package of light bulbs, the package popped open and then I spent the next 10 minutes getting more broken glass off the floor.

I don’t think I’ll be attempting any more cleaning tonight - I’m obviously going to be injured if I continue.

I’ve come to the realization that the weekends that the Redskins have won any games have been the weekends where I have not seen a single minute of said games. For the rest of the season, it seems that it would be best that I not even take the time to pop over and check the score, much less actually watch a game.

Fortunately, this trend has not crossed over to hockey, as I have actually seen the Capitals win a couple times this season. (Even before they replaced the coach.)

I am afraid this trend is affecting the teams of my friends. I went up to watch the end of Philly/New England game this evening, fully expecting that the Eagles would be in the process of being slaughtered only to discover that they actually showed up to play, and I was quite stoked because it really looked like they would win. Many of my friends at the pub are Eagles fans, and I was heartbroken for them when the Eagles couldn’t quite pull it out. But they played one hell of a game - not too bad to only miss by 3 points when you go in with a 30 point spread.

In completely unrelated news, it’s not often that people genuinely surprise me in a positive way and it’s happened twice in the past week. It’s nice to have your faith in people restored every now and again. (For the most part, I can maintain my faith in humanity, it’s faith in people that gets a little shaky at times.)

Thank you for all the nice words about my little buddy Snoopy. One day he was fine, the next I’m hauling him to the emergency vet and it’s all over. Good cat to the end, when it came time to make the decision to let him go, he made the decision easy for me. I had a really nice dream about him last night, so I know that wherever it is that good cats go, he’s there and OK.

You were a really good cat, and I’m gonna miss the hell out of you. It was an awesome, fluffy 14 years.

In the spirit of “Spoon River Anthology”, there will be a series of short stories entitled, “Tales From the Pub”.

That are about 2 hours late, but hey, that’s how I roll.

To be perfectly honest, I have found the easiest way to deal with family holidays with both my folks being gone is to just ignore them. Healthy? I don’t know, but it works for me. We all have our ways of coping.

Saturday evening I was out with the boys, and a round of Sambuca showed up and a toast was made to the Dads. All I could do was look skyward and say, “Dad, I hope you’re proud of me.”

It’s been over 10 years since my Dad died, and a day doesn’t go by that I don’t think of him in some way or another. Honestly, I think he’d be tickled with all the strange turns my career and life has taken, as he did the same. (Well, career wise at least.) 20+ years in the Navy, a stockbroker stint and then found a place in banking that fit him just right. For me, it was accounting & finance, some day trading thrown in that I loved, more accounting & finance, then software support, and suddenly I find myself with actual trading capital. So, stock trading is how I pay the bills and the bar tab now. And considering Saturday’s Den Mother evening, it seems to be working. :)

I really think he’d love the fact that I’ve turned what I’ve got into trading capital. (And am ahead of the game, to boot!) He was the one that introduced me to the stock market in the first place. I remember back in 7th grade we had some chick from EDS come into our Civics class and we had a stock trading competition. Dad & I pored over the stock pages looking for stocks for me. (This was back in the day when it wasn’t unusual or unacceptable for parents to help kids with homework, because it was actually “help” and not “doing it for you” or complaining to the teacher that the assignment interfered with soccer practice.) I went back to class with a request to go short on Alaska Airlines. Sadly, shorting stocks wasn’t allowed, but Dad & I kept track of it anyway. If I recall correctly, Alaska Air tanked, as we had thought it would.

I remember when he was working in the city with Shearson Lehman (which has since morphed into Citigroup Smith Barney.) He had access to a QuoTron!!![1] Holy crap, Batman!! We both thought it was the coolest thing EVAR. Today, I have real time charts and quotes right here on my laptop. I think his head would explode if he could see that. I’m also fairly sure he wouldn’t even bat an eye at the fact that I will head up to the bar with a handful of stock charts to sit and review over a Guinness and SportsCenter. (He’d probably be happy at my multitasking abilities.)

He was a workaholic, no two ways about it. (I got that from him, too.) But somehow, he managed to do that and always be there for us whenever he could (US Navy not always conducive for “being there”, but when he was a civvie, it was never a question.) I remember when he died and his boss brought back the things from his desk (a task I would not wish on my worst enemy) he seemed very upset/concerned/something about the fact that there weren’t a ton of super-personal things. First, he wasn’t in his office *that* much, he spent a lot of time running around town for the job. Second, it’s hard to explain to a civilian that hey, he gets to come home every night - the personal items that some folks may have on their desks to remind them of their family, well, his family was only a few miles away at that point instead of on the other side of the world. I remember telling his boss, “Yep, he was a workaholic and still managed to be a kickass Dad all at the same time.”

He instituted what came to be known as the First Friday Club. Once I was out in the big wide working world, the first Friday of every month we would meet up for lunch. Working in Old Town at the time, we always had plenty of options. I will always remember when we hit SouthSide for lunch (about a block from my office) and I told him we would be eating at the bar (cause that’s where I always ate when I was there) and I got the freakin’ Norm treatment when we walked in. He went to the men’s room and the bartender asked about him (OK, I was showing up with someone who was quite literally old enough to be my father and they’ve never seen him before with me) and I explained it was my Dad. Dad returned from the men’s room and the bartender looked at him and said something along the lines of “I’ve never seen your daughter before in my life.”

I think as far as the running & tris go, he’d shake his head and say, “You’re nuts,” but be right up front at every race. He proved his worth as the best jockstrapper ever when I decided that I was going to do the July 4th 5K on the base in Japan many, many years ago. I’m quite sure I was the only racer that had a support crew - he biked the entire course with wet towels for me whenever I needed them. I think if he had been able to be at MCM, he would have figured out a way to be at every damn mile marker with a cooler full of whatever I needed or wanted at the time, including the steak in peppercorn sauce I so desperately wanted after running through G-town with every damn restaurant kicking off the kitchens for the day.

I wish he could see what a red wine fiend I’ve become! He loved red wines, and it just took me a while to really get into them. He would LOVE Il Vino, and I think be pretty happy with the fact that I can walk in there and if I haven’t been around in a while, Massimo asks, “And where have you been??” I realize now that I also got a lot of my foodie tendencies from him - though he wasn’t a heavy duty cook (but did love cooking with fire, as every Dad should [2]) he did truly appreciate good food and wine. I think he would have loved the cooking school weekend I did down at the beach, and would be exceptionally proud of the fact that I had absolutely no problems with dealing with prepping live softshell crabs for lunch. (Where do you think my first thought of “we should have races to decide which crabs become lunch!” came from?)

I wish he could have been around longer, but the time he was here, he really was a kickass Dad. Not perfect by any means, but kickass nonetheless. I still miss him terribly, even after all these years - there is so much I wish he could have seen, but I just hope somehow he knows I’ve managed to accomplish, and can see how much I am really enjoying life right now.

[1] At the time, the only way to get real time quotes, not available unless you were working at a brokerage. The little people had to either look at the closing prices in the paper or be updated by their brokers as things progressed during the day.
[2] I will never forget the evening that we looked out on the deck to see my father doing a spectacular imitation of the Statue of Liberty. It would have been absolutely spot on had Lady Liberty’s torch been fueled by flaming kielbasa.

Personally, I think it’s critical in life to have safe places you can go to and just exist with no questions asked on a regular basis. Sometimes it’s IRL, sometimes it’s virtual, in the form of a blog, a friendly forum, whatever.

One of my safe places is GD’s. It’s someplace I can go completely alone and never even think twice about it. I can go in, have a beer, watch a game, catch the box scores on SportsCenter and no one hassles me. I find it amusing that when Pink’s song “U + Ur Hand” came out, my brother said, “That makes me think of you at GD’s.” Spot on - I’m there for a beer and decompression and little else, so sod off.

Not that I am a hermit beeyotch there, I have completely accepted (and embraced) my role there - we all have them, even if we don’t know it - early-onset-mildly-aging-hockey-junkie-barfly who loves sports and always has an extra smoke for anyone that needs it. And I’m OK with that. I’ve met a ton of good people and even when the connections seem to be nothing more than superficial, it’s good to go somewhere and have a sitdown and check in with everyone and make sure they’re doing OK, and they do the same with you. I’ve met some fantastic people there and I wouldn’t trade them for anything.

That’s why at the end of a long (but technically short) week, I couldn’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be to kick back and celebrate the fact that we all made it to Friday.

Have a good weekend, kids.

Current Music: The Ballad of John & Yoko - The Beatles

and other thoughts after a fairly craptastic week in the world.

- No more putting off training (or anything else I want to do for that matter) because I feel like I should be doing ‘more important’ things with my time - screw that - I realized I was letting other idiots define ‘important’. Today I finally got out and ran for the first time in forever.  It was ugly and painful, which I fully expected, but it also helped clear my head a little, which I very much needed.

- Don’t let anyone else define what is important in your life. If it’s truly important, you’ll know it. If it isn’t, it isn’t. If that gets someone else’s knickers in a twist, too bad.

- There are some seriously messed up people in this world. Maybe they could have been helped with very early intervention, maybe not. But, they’ve always been there in this world and they’ll always be there in the future. Personally, I’m not going to spend my entire life looking over my shoulder waiting for someone to snap. At the same time, take the time to reach out to someone who might need a shoulder to lean on or an ear to bend for a few minutes.

- Some people have way too much time on their hands and become petty jerks to justify their existence. Please, go find a real hobby.

- Some people will always confound me, no matter how hard I try to understand them. (And yet, I’ll still try to understand them.)

- AUTiger23 summed up why some folks are just jerks very well with this quote from Scrubs: People are bastard-coated bastards with bastard filling.

- There is no such thing as having all home improvement projects finished. Ever.

- Earth Day can be incredibly annoying for a gun-loving, capitalist, beach-bum hippie chick. If you’re not hard core on either side of the arguments, no one wants to play with you.

- It’s 80 degrees and beautiful out today - which means it will probably be in the 50s and raining again in the space of a week.

Current Music: Suddenly I See, KT Tunstall

Tonight’s task has been taxes. Whee!! Right now I have 2 of the 3 tax returns finished, which is a far cry from this time last year when I was filling out extension forms and praying that the IRS had the same definition of ” good faith estimate” that I did. As things turn out, we must have gotten a sympathetic reviewer, as I’ve not gotten any nasty-grams from them once our various and sundry accounts were paid in full before the super-really-totally-final-unless-you-file-another-extension deadline. This year, everything will be done well before the 4/17 deadline, thank god.

However, I do have to say I take just a tiny bit of pride in the fact that earlier this evening little bro left the house to visit w/folks as I was cussing out Turbo Tax’s auto-crap-update feature, and by the time he returned just a few hours later, I had 2 of 3 returns done and had still had time to go catch last call at the local watering hole. You can take the accounting job away from the girl, but you can’t take the accountant and resultant celebrant alcoholic out of the girl…

I remember the days when I used to have my taxes done before February 15th… Not sure what happened, but yeah, not quite that much on top of things these days, but I’m still meeting or beating deadlines, so it’s all good.

So, we’ve covered taxes. Death - it sucks and is inevitable, not much more to say on that. Other miscellany - indulge me on this one -I have a playlist called “Aftermath” - beats the initial naming of it, which was “Down, Not Across” - and well, it’s not quite *that* morbid…a small sampling follows.

To toast Spring: Back to the Earth, Rusted Root
To remember why you don’t want to be a cynical beeotych: Suddenly I See, KT Tunstall (took me a couple listens to get past the guitar riffs being too close to “Black Horse & The Cherry Tree”)
Just sit with me and listen: Samba Para Ti, Santana. Sit and listen and you’ll get it.
We can’t always have everything, and it’s not necessarily the end of the world…: Beverly Hills, Weezer
Things have a way of working out: Float On, Modest Mouse
Self Explanatory… : Superman, Lazlo Bane
Gotta bag of Mickey’s TallBoys without anyone to share with?: Party Generation, Dar Williams
I’d give you everything I have and then some: Santa Monica, Everclear
It just feels good: Naked Eye, Luscious Jackson
Cause we all need a little Dead: Friend of the Devil, Grateful Dead
Cause I’m a sucker for some old school Clapton: She’s Waiting, Eric Clapton
Where is that other shoe, anyway?: Feelin’ Way Too Damn Good, Nickleback
Damn, where did I eff things up?: How to Save a Life, The Fray

Oh to have the rewind button on life some days.

Today’s post over on the Dilbert Blog - The Meaning of Meaning did a good job of hitting home on some personal things of late, especially this excerpt:

I found ways to use my success to make the world a little bit better. It’s surprising how often the opportunity comes up. It ranges from personal favors to investment decisions to my choices to continue making a comic and a blog post for you every day.

Now, I can’t say I have much in the way of success, but I do try to be a decent person. Not for any grand reward, but because it is the right thing to do and maybe someone’s day will be better for it. The problem is, you can only give with nothing in return for so long before you run out of “give” for anyone. Someone once told me, “There are only three people I trust and depend on: Me, Myself & I.” I’m starting to see the point.

Recently, an acquaintance was in need of something. Not a dire need or anything like that, but it when I heard her mention it, I realized I had the solution for her. One email, 2 pieces of paper and maybe 10 minutes of actual activity and it was done. It really wasn’t a big deal, I was happy to be able to help. She was very appreciative of it all. I didn’t do it for that reason, but it was really nice to have someone say thanks and really mean it.

Like I said, I don’t try to be a decent person for any grand reward, but for every instance that turns out like the above, I wade through the following crap:

Exhibit A: Glad I can make you feel more secure about yourself… The insecure ones that have nothing good to say unless it makes them sound better, and because they know you’re basically an idiot and will help where needed - they will ask you for it. And then later talk about how they could have done it better. Nice.

Exhibit B: You know, I can’t possibly be the ONLY dependable person in your life. You can only be the go-to girl for so long, especially when it gets to the point where it’s completely taken for granted. For the love of all that’s good and holy, say thank you and possibly reciprocate sometime. Cause I can’t do this forever.

Exhibit C: Have you just completely lost your mind? You’re mucking along, doing your thing, have been nice, have been helpful, and suddenly you’re evil incarnate for some unknown offense. Sorry I’m not a mind reader and have no earthly clue what you’re talking about, but I guess it makes you feel better to be mad at someone, and it might as well be someone who has done nothing to you and you can feel confident that there will be no retribution for it, because you’ve targeted a “nice” person.

Exhibit D: Just tell me what I want to hear. Don’t come to me for advice knowing that while I try to be a nice person, I am also an honest person. If you want to drive your car blindfolded off a cliff and ask me if I think it’s a good idea, don’t expect me to remind you to gas up the car before you head out. (Granted, some days I think I should just say “yes” and let Darwin take over.) If you don’t want to hear the answer, don’t ask the question.

ETA: Exhibit E: The anonymous asshat that decided it was fine to park my reserved space at the townhouse. Whoever you are, please get your head out of your ass. I use that space at all hours, I direct contractors to use it, and people who are coming to pick things up from the townhouse. Not yours.

I do try to put myself in other folks’ shoes - when you take the time to look at things from someone else’s perspective, it can explain a lot. However, these instances - all I am left with is scratching my head and wondering “WTF?”

It’s stuff like this that really makes you wonder what is the point of even trying some days.

Those that know me very well know that I have a very well developed cynical streak that I’ve managed to keep at bay for a long time. Maybe it’s time to just let it loose again and just look out for myself - cause I’ve just about run out of anything I can give to anyone else.

So, sometime Saturday evening, I managed to lose my cell… I had it in my hand and *thought* I put it in my pocket immediately before getting into Dave’s car, but Sunday morning, no cell to be found. After checking all pockets, couch cushions and anywhere else it could possibly be, I asked Dave to take a look in his car. Got a call this evening that he’d searched the car, flashlight and all, but no cell.

It is amazing how quickly you get totally used to having a phone you can truly take with you anywhere and has every phone number you use in it. Today I was stuck waiting on a call from the pharmacy, and having no cell, my sorry butt was stuck at the house. I had to look up my grandmother’s phone number in our address book to call her last evening. I was incredibly impressed with myself that I remembered Dave’s number, given that I think I have actually dialed it once, and that was to put it in the cell phone.

Dave said he’d take another look tomorrow in the light of day but I can’t help but think it ended up in the parking lot and probably is nothing more than a pile of metallic pink shrapnel. In the meantime, I’m going into mobile DT’s. I find myself double checking my pockets as I leave the house because one of them is light, even though I know exactly what is missing - I keep hoping it will magically appear in a random pocket somewhere.

So, it appears I’ve got a trip to Radio Shack for a new phone tomorrow. Which will likely guarantee that my “old” phone turns up out of nowhere.  If that happens, 911 victim services gets a nice shiny working phone, so it’s all OK in the end. And until I have the new phone, I can still check my messages (where the pharmacy left a message, despite my leaving my landline number as a contact.)

But dammit, I want my phone.

Sometimes the best gifts you can receive have absolutely nothing to do with you. :)

Life seems to have caught up with me. 11 hours of sleep last night and very possibly as much if not more today. Despite what I am sure are appearances to the contrary, I’ve got lots of crap going on - big/small/good/stupid and actually very little wild/craziness and my body has either decided “screw it, we’re stopping for the day” or I can just blame my brother as he was sick earlier in the week.

Note to Iran: Please stop with the asshat uranium enrichment comments, it’s screwing with the stockmarket.
Note to US policymakers: Please stop baiting Iran into asshat uranium enrichment comments, it’s screwing with the stockmarket.

There is an ad on CNBC by the National Association of Payday Lenders (might not have the name quite right, but it’s their self-governing body) and it stresses the responsible use of payday advances. I have no problem with the message whatsoever - getting into those can be an real slippery slope. However, I have to wonder if they’re really reaching their target audience - how many folks who are using paycheck advances are also watching CNBC?

OK, I think I am going to go curl up and die for a while.

So, I’m thinking I may head up to Philly next month for a couple days for the Philadelphia Flower Show & the Tutankhamun exhibit. Looking at the maps, the convention center/hotel/museum all are within about a mile of each other, which is good, but I know absolutely nothing of Philly, so it may also all be in the skankiest part of town.

So, if anyone out there knows the area around the convention center at all and can tell me if it’s semi-decent or if I’m not going to want to even leave my hotel room, that would be great.

Today was just one of those good days. It’s not that I’ve had a ton of horrid days, or that anything particularly earthshattering happened, but it seems of late that each day seems to bring something new breaking in my life, and that gets a little old.

I was in a good mood from the moment I woke up this morning. And it stuck all day. Tended to some things in the morning, went for a short (cold!) run (decided to skip the gym) and hit the shower. Well, warm, fat & happy = a nice little hour nap. Hit the market, and was quite literally bebopping through the aisles, and I’m quite sure scared the checkout clerk when he asked how I was doing and I replied, “I’m doing fanstastic!” - he gave me that look of “whatever you’re smoking, please share.”

Dinner was good and followed by a little more dozing on the couch while watching TV. Topped off the evening with a couple drinks and my SportsCenter fix with little bro up at the pub.

A good day indeed.

If a little on the cold side, but it’s bright and sunny and I’m in a lovely mood and life is good in general. I’ve gotten the name of the shop in Old Town - La Cuisine - where I will go cutlery hunting at some point in the near future and I’m getting info on a slaughterhouse/butcher a little south of here.

Son as I finish my coffee, it’s off to the gym and then the market to be prepared for our end-of-the-world snowstorm coming along later this week.

Have an absolutely glorious day.

Though I didn’t spend quite as much time as not knowing what day it was this morning, I did wake in a panic thinking, “Contractors! 8AM! It’s 8:30!! Crap, crap, crap!” and then realized it was only Saturday and that I had not in fact slept through the entire weekend. I can think of much more pleasant ways to wake up.

In making dinner last night, I’ve finally convinced myself that I really DO need some new knives, and it really wouldn’t be a frivolous purchase. (I’ve wanted them for a while, wasn’t sure I could say I needed them.) At a minimum, a new chef’s knife & a santoku knife. I’ve got a couple good paring knives and a good bread knife, but my current chef’s knife just isn’t doing it anymore. There is supposedly a great culinary shop in Old Town but I don’t know the name, nor can I find any kind of directory listing for it… So, I may end up back over at Sur La Table for them, but I’d rather support a non-big-chain business if I can. Guess I’ll find out whenever I can get myself up to Old Town and take a look around.

I’ve had folks ask if all the days tend to run together with the whole unemployed student thing going on. Actually, they don’t and I actually make a point of not letting the week/weekend blindly run together, and I have an amount of structure & routine in my weekdays that surprises even me. Weekdays are for getting stuff done and weekends are for sleeping in and not getting stuff done. (Well, other than laundry & dishes.) Granted, I can get more done during the week now than I did before, which helps the weekends stay “weekends”, but Friday night still has meaning to it in my little world.

Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down
And steep my sense in forgetfulness?
~William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I

It’s quite late and sleep is eluding me. Given my confirmed night owl status, this should not be a surprise as this is when my mind is usually racing with thoughts and ideas, but it is also frustrating given that I would like to get up a bit on the early side tomorrow. But I’m not particularly good at shutting off my brain, as evidenced by the ever flipping rolodex of thoughts whipping through it tonight.

Should the character in the piece I’m working on be married or just engaged when she finds out she’s being cheated on?  (Don’t feel sorry for her, karma comes back and bites him in the ass and it’s all good.)

How long do you really have to stay in the Army when you enlist? Especially if there wasn’t this Iraq thing going on? (Yeah, I’ve checked military.com and stuff and can’t find a very clear answer. No, I’m not enlisting.)

What will be on the dinner table tomorrow night?

Would Welsh Rabbit be too much to go along with soup?

How much snow will we get?

Will Target have a decent enough selection of toaster ovens when I go over there to replace the one we have? If not, that’s going to suck, because I really don’t feel like hauling all over town to find one I like.

Why didn’t I notice that the window people hadn’t gotten back to me before they closed for the evening?

I wish the dog believed me when I tell him “Nope, sorry, can’t go out - it’s dark. If it’s dark it means the outside has gone away for the night.” Though if I ever have children, I may try it on them and see if they believe it.

Exactly what kind of drugs leads you to have a site dedicated to watching cheddar cheese age? Because frankly, I can’t see a sober mind coming up with that one. But, they’re probably sleeping well.

Watching the President totally hose floor trading at the NYSE at the moment. The White House had repeatedly denied that he would be visiting the NYSE after his speech across the street at Federal Hall, but there you go. The Secret Service folks do not seem pleased with this turn of events. (I hope they are at least grateful that the NYSE floor is an exceptionally secure area to start with.)

I’ve got a friend that could be making a mistake and I’ve done my best to give warning. (Not “you’re an idiot” mistake but a “you’ve got bad information, PLEASE double check it” mistake.) I’ve done what I can and now all I can do is hope that things turn out OK. Frustrating to say the least.

Entry migration is still coming along. Everything that has been brought over so far has been tagged and checked for security. Once everything is in, then there will be some minor cleanup still to do, as anything without a subject is automatically assigned a # for the subject and that has to go. Minor, but mildly annoying. Need to figure out how to convert the archive list to a dropdown cause it’s just too long, and there will likely be some category cleanups as well.

It’s been really interested re-reading everything as I’ve been importing it. I’ve found that when things are going badly, I write a lot more. It’s a little disturbing how things are so different for me now than they were just two years ago. Never in a million years would I have thought I’d be where I am today. Even with all the changes, there are a lot of good reminders of “don’t make that mistake again, dumbass” in the older entries.

Given that I always seem to have a to-do list that is a mile long, despite the absence of 40 hours hijacked by the office, I have to wonder if the amount of things to be done simply expands with additional time available no matter what, or if the list grows because you’re finally acknowledging items that you’ve completely and utterly ignored because there wasn’t any time.

It being Sunday, I’m plotting out what needs to get done this week and hence, the thoughts on the to-do list. Car to the shop tomorrow - decided it would be kind of cruel to call AAA out today in the snow given that it’s not exactly an emergency. Gotta call the potential laptop repair place to make sure they do the repairs onsite rather than shipping it off since it’s not warranty work, and how long it would take to get the DVD drive replaced. More phone calls to make on the estate, which I am actually starting to think may be settled in my lifetime. Townhouse stuff. House stuff. Get Moxley the snow monster to the groomers again. Eliminate poverty. Bring about world peace. Make a million dollars. Wave a magic wand and make everything right for everyone I know.

Sometimes the list is a little overwhelming.

OK, I need to go to bed. I’m thinking way too much.