I am Sisyphus. This is my rock.

The Terminix guy came today for his monthly check to see if our traps had any bugs in them. One did. The very first one up by the corner of the front of the house. Near where we park. He said that based on the number of termites in there, the colony is very small, and is probably right under our parking area... All the other trap/poison thingies had nothing in them. He said that's a very good sign that this one spot is all we've got and will be dead by spring.

Well isn't that great. Thank God for good news.

He pulled the bait wood out of the tube, and it was crawling with the little bastards. He crushed it and them after getting a count. He was a really nice guy doing a real pain in the ass job on a very very hot day.

So -- thanks Terminix guy. You are awesome.

---

And also -- thanks to the people who sent me email to cheer me up. All three of you rock supreme.

I'm much better now. Sometimes I just get all sad and mushy over something, and it passes. I'm happy that's the way I am -- if I obsessed or got depressed and didn't come back up for hours or days or months, that'd be an issue. So I'm much better this morning, except the Patriots totally spanked the Steelers.

I'd hoped for a closer matchup, a better game.

But Kordell was more like Korsmell, and the Bus got a flat. And Tom Brady knows how to throw a football to his guys, and his guys know to get the down and out of bounds and stop the clock immediately instead of running and screwing up and dropping it or having it stripped from their hands (ahem, Bus? Hello? That'd be YOU!)

My buddy Chad, the soon to be father to twin boys, was thinking of taking the night off of work so he could watch the game. I sure hope he didn't... it would have been the equivalent of taking time off of work to shoot yourself in the head.

I'm all about the Patriots -- I love them. But. I love the Steelers. So when they meet I'm happy one wins. But. But but but... I love seeing a GOOD game instead of a shellacking. And I got to witness a shellacking. last night. I went to bed before the start of the fourth quarter.

But I'm totally in a better mood today. In spite of.

---

I have been actively working on the food pantry for the church over the last few days and have come to find out that the pantry we supplied wasn't calling us for food not because they had enough but because they closed down.

I think that perhaps there isn't a need for us to maintain a pantry, because they're gone. The coordinator is retiring and moving to Minnesota to be close to her family. There is no one in their church taking it over.

The other food pantries in the area are all set for their own storage space... so when I think about it clearly, we serve no further purpose other than to supply ourselves or to be there if the local police or fire department let us know they come across a need. Which hasn't happened in years.

So I'm going to talk to Doug about what he thinks we should do, and talk to our vestry.

But... in the meantime, our pastor's wife used to supply protein products to a group that fed kids in Haiti. The guy had called me in the spring and he and I played phone tag all summer. He's coming up here on Friday to gather what he can take which can be shipped down. So I'll be able to unload all our tuna fish, peanut butter, dried and condensed milk... that kind of stuff. I'd like to keep supporting them, because they do really good work. They also are looking for toiletries for the kids, so I'm going to start a drive for that which they can pick up in a month.

I don't want to stop doing some community service in some form. If we stop the food pantry -- I want our parish to be involved with something... we don't have a huge outreach program. In fact, this is it really. So dropping the pantry would really dissolve our participation in helping the rest of the planet. There's a lot to think about... and I don't like thinking (grin).

---

I can't find my car keys, again.

I have half the set, I split them up one day when Jessica needed my house key, and the house key is the glue that holds the set together. The half that is missing is to the car I have sitting in the driveway. The other half is to the car Doug has right now.

So I had to borrow my tenant's car this morning.

She is the best. I LOVE YOU JEN!!!!!!! I got Geoff to school on time, but only after I dumped all our dirty laundry out in the yard looking for the pair of shorts that I wore yesterday. No keys in the pocket. I didn't freak, yell, panic, or get nasty the way I've done in the past. I know they are somewhere around here. Hell, I used them yesterday. They can't have gone far. Geoff told me the keys were "in the laboratory..." his word for this seat. He thinks the computer is in his laboratory, like he's Dexter or something. But they aren't.

So I'm trapped here for the day. I have a baby shower gift that I have to go pick up, so I guess I have to wait for Doug to get home and go do that. Sigh. I wanted to run some errands... meh.

I have a confession to make. I think I'm being kept here in the house by Divine Intervention. My house is a mess. A wreck. A pigsty.

My house looks a mess -- and I've procrastinated, dragged my feet, made excuses, watched Jerry Springer and Law & Order in efforts to evade having to do anything about it.

But I can't deal with it anymore.

I deliberately stopped cleaning up a few weeks ago because I was sick to death of picking up, leaving a room, walking back in and finding that everything had been undone. I do the dishes, clean the stovetop, make everything nice, then Doug hits the kitchen... makes an ungodly mess and leaves trash in the sink. That's right. Trash IN the sink. If he opens a packet of pasta, the box or the plastic sleeve goes in the sink instead of the trash. Cuts tomatoes? The stem goes to the sink. Brews iced tea? Tea bags -- in sink.

The livingroom. I pick up all the toys. I vacuum under the couch. I clean the top of the table. Geoff comes in. Food everywhere. Crayons, paper, toys. Everywhere.

The dining table... well, that's my bad. I fuck that one up all the time. I fold laundry in my room, walk out the door and put it on the dining table in part of a step to get it to Geoff or Jess' room.

But then I never take it the rest of the way there. So I absorb all the blame for that.

Jessie's room is a nightmare right now because the puppy keeps using it as his personal poop and pee grounds. We clean it up, reprimand him, try and correct his behavior... he does it again. The room is fairly clean, but the carpet needs an industrial sized shampooer applied to it and fast. I can't stand going in there. I don't know how the poor girl sleeps in there. Feh!

But it doesn't bother her.

Our whole family. We're lazy asses. We don't clean up after ourselves... and when the boil comes to a head, I'm the one who pops.

I made serious efforts yesterday after I finished working with Professor MF. But to no avail... it's all undone today.

I am Sisyphus. This is my rock.

Why am I this way? I think that I learned a lot from the way I grew up. I inherited the skills of housekeeping from my mom. Not to disrespect her or anything...

I know she's reading -- and I don't want her to think I harbor some sort of left over childhood angst because she didn't keep a meticulously clean house and drill me to death to clean my room and do chores. She pretty much let us be and do what we wanted. If our rooms were messy -- whatever. And I liked that kind of freedom. But it definitely didn't prepare me for home management of my own. The lack of an upkeep of the home gene is part of my DNA. And I married someone with that same genetic defect. And like two people getting together who carry the CF gene -- we've passed it on to our kids. We are sloth siblings and should have never mated.

I do the mandatory. Don't get me wrong.

I keep the dishes clean, and the laundry clean. The bathroom sink and toilet -- clean. The tub wasn't clean when we moved in and looks permanently dirty even though I scrub that bastard weekly.

The laundry is clean but not put away. The daily mail piles up on the table next to Doug's seat on the couch.

The study -- a paper bomb went off in here. There are books, and junk mail, and CD cases...

My bedroom is a wasteland of clothing that does not fit, read and unread books and magazines piled up beside and under the bed. The Nordic Track is a clothes horse because Doug can't get over to the closet to hang anything up on a regular basis.

The content of the house is disheveled and disorganized. Even though I've made several attempts at organization and resheveling. It is a sad, sorry state of affairs. I had a long list of things to do when I got laid off. So far only a fraction of them have gotten done.

Today I'm taking on Geoff's room. I need to go through all the toys and get rid of anything resembling a toddler toy or younger. I need to go through all his clothing and get rid of anything under a size 7 and archive for future use anything that got dumped in there which is larger than size 8. I need to get him a bedframe. His mattress and boxspring are on the floor - I want to either build a platform for him and have shelves and storage under, or just get a used bedframe someplace.

He took fingerpaint and painted his bedroom walls a few weeks ago -- so I have to repaint.

I think one of my problems is, that when the rock rolls over me down to the bottom of the hill, the way it does every night, I get tired and frustrated. I get shell shocked. I get sad. I give up. Then, I get renewed desire, like today. Maybe my mom had that same problem -- that sense of "whattayagonnado."

Today though, I'm reborn. Rededicated to the cause. I'll see it through to its clean conclusion -- (only to see it all undone again, I'm sure...) Maybe my keys are in his bedroom.

Wish me luck.

Patriots Rally on City Hall Plaza

Couldn't resist. So... guess where I went today?

That would be Boston's City Hall Plaza and yes. I went out in the freezing awful cold to stand around for hours and hoot for guys I couldn't even lay eyes on. I went to the Patriots Welcoming Rally.

Shoulda stayed home and watched on TV, but... I actually had a very nice time.

I had left Ben a voicemail at work yesterday morning saying "Woooooo! Let's go!" and he called me back saying no one else wanted to go with him, and he wanted to, so sure. Let's go. We agreed to meet at his place at 10. I had hoped Holly would come too, but she opted out. She confessed to me that she isn't that big a fan yet and didn't feel that it was something she wanted to do. I would have enjoyed her company.

So Ben and I treked the way into the city, parking in one of the very last spots for the Wonderland T station, and we got to town at about 11:10. The picture above is what greeted us when we came up out of the Government Center T stop. Jumbotron central.

Here's Ben, wearing the best hat on earth... I was able to find him whenever we had a horde of people cram between us. Hurray for the hat!

And here am I. Green wooly cap and sunglasses, freezing and loving it.

And I'm thinking... I'm at the friggin Pats Rally. Holy Shit! I can't believe this! What the hell am I thinking!!!!!!!!

It wasn't nearly as cold as I thought it was going to be. When I left the house it was 18 degrees on the front porch, so I thought the worst and dressed overly warmly. There were tons of people to stop the wind, which wasn't as much of a factor as it could have been for an early February winter day. And it wasn't as bad as long as the sun was shining on us.

We walked around the plaza and realized that no matter where we stood we were shit out of luck if we wanted an actual human view of the stage. So we headed back to the Jumbotron and actually had a great spot to stand and look at the screen.

They were rebroadcasting the game, which sort of pissed me off. I think they should have showed the parade from Copley so we could see the guys as they were coming. The parade started at noon, they got to city hall plaza at about 1:30.

While we waited, this is what we saw.

This woman was one of like four dinguses walking around with these stupid donut things on their heads, bumping into people... Goddam corporate sponsorship stunts. It made me think of Homer Simpson when he sold his soul to the devil for a donut. And in the end his head ends up shaped like a donut and he keeps picking at it. The guy on the right was wearing this cool assed Pats hat that was beat to shit and totally ragged... and in a sea of thousands of brand new hats I thought it was kind of special. So I asked him if I could take his picture and he laughed. He kind of looked like Aaron too, and that made me smile.
The left is the top of Boston City Hall, home of the hack city employees... and there's a bunch of them standing up on top freezing ass. It was really windy up there and all these women are up there wearing fashiony leather coats and jumping up and down to keep warm. Accident waiting to happen. The right picture is part of the crowd between the City Hall Building and the JFK federal building... the stage is at the far end of this crowd, way in the shadows of City Hall. Dumb place for a stage.
This guy and his buddy were a trip. You can't see it in the picture, but he's missing one of his front teeth and the ones that are in there are a friggin' mess. He and his buddy had a running conversation the whole time that amounted to hours of pure drivel. The buddy, who has the hat on at the right edge of the picture and his back is turned, said some of the dumbest things I've ever heard. It is hard to pinpoint exactly what was the dumbest thing that stands out, but trust me...he was full of them. Toothless Guy agreed with every inane comment that came out of his mouth. They were kind of rude to the mentally handicapped dudes that were standing in front of us too, so I SO disliked these guys. Jerks. So much smarter and cooler than the assisted living handicapped guys... meh. I do like this picture though because it looks like God rays shining down from Tremont street right on this dude... There is room at the cross for everyone, even you, ya toothless redneck.
And here are the handicapped guys. They were so nice and funny. They watched every play of the replay and cheered and clapped and booed as if it was happening live. The house girls that brought them were really funny too... great attitudes for two girls who probably didn't want to be hanging out in the cold with these three residents (you can see dude number three in the first picture, far left, hat on backward like Geoffrey likes to wear). The dude in the blue tried to get a hi-five from a guy to my left and the guy just stared at him and then turned his back... so I tapped him on the shoulder and told him that I would gladly give him a hi-five. He was psyched and then told me how much he loves football. He knew every player when they came on the screen, and I talked to him for a while. I make friends very easily. How rude do you have to be to not want to have some friendly time with a dude like this?! They were sweet. Big Huge Pats Fans... and don't make fun of them for being 'retaaaahds' and Pats Fans at the same time like it is some sort of obvious connection. They were infinitely cooler than the toothless redneck and King Sarcasmo standing behind us.
Then the Pats show up, and they come down Tremont street, turn right onto Court Street, and then they went in the back of City Hall up the back stairs to the podium. here's a picture of the crowd facing up to the corner of Tremont and Court. And we can't see the Pats at all.
The wicked cool thing was when they hit the corner of Tremont and Court, they were showing the final drive of the game and Vinitieri's field goal, so everyone was going totally nuts and cheering, cause the timing was perfect. Nicely done jumbotron boys... They then put up a view of the podium, and the sign says "Mayor Thomas Menino and The People of Boston Congratulate the New England Patriots." Then Bob Kraft comes up and puts the Lombardi Trophy up on the stage and the crowd goes insane... Totally insane.
Then, the Jumbotron Breaks. It freezes on this picture of the guys coming up on to the stage. And it is stuck like this and they start the program. ???!!! Uh, hello, tech support! Come fix the jumbotron! So the crowd where we are starts to get restless. King Sarcasmo mentions that he thinks someone should start a chant "Fix the Tron Fix the Tron..." and two seconds later off to our left the chant starts up. He was thrilled at his powers of suggestion and his super human mental strength. He thinks it, we do it. Yes master... shut up! The jumbotron doesn't fix, so some people start bailing and walking away, others start pouring over to the left to try and see the actual stage. Then, they unfreeze the Jumbotron, and put up a Great Big Advertisement for Dunkin Donuts, (used earlier up in the picture of the two dudes from the assisted living house)... kind of a screensaver thing. That gets booed wickedly. We can hear the program going on, and we know there are football guys there smiling and waving, but we're looking at a stinking corporate logo for something that I'd love to have more than anything right then. So the crowd starts getting ugly. They're throwing bottles of water up at the jumbotron and hitting the display. People start cheering. Ben and I both kind of stand there for a minute. At first I thought it was kinda funny, but then thought better of it when full bottles of liquid started to get hurled at the malfunctioning screen. We decided to hotfoot it outta there. Find a bar, eat some food (neither of us had eaten before heading down and the hunger was starting to outweigh the novelty of hanging out...) so retreat was our obvious choice.
Ben suggested we head over to The Rack, a bar by Quincy Market, but there was a huge line waiting to get in there. We looked into a few other Quincy Market Bars, and they were overflowing. So off to the North End. We hit Joe's right there on the waterfront, and it was an hour wait for a table, and the bartender ignored us when we wanted a beer, so we screwed out of there. We looked for the Aquarium T stop so we could bail back to Wonderland and then hit food on Rte 1 or something... but for some odd reason neither of us could FIND the Aquarium T stop. What the heck!!! It used to be at the corner of a hotel in front of the Aquarium, but damned if we could find it. Dumbfounded, we walked south trying to figure out where to go, and decided to bail and cross back to the other side to the Financial District. We found a little Irish joint called Tiernans, it looked like it wasn't too darn crowded... There were two very busy waitresses and the owner greeting and encouraging people to come in and grab a table when ready. He had a nice thick Boston Irish brogue, and was darn friendly. I felt good about the place but kind of apprehensive when I looked at the crowd. How many of these people are here for a drink and how many are waiting for tables. The owner guy's "grab it if you see it open" policy kind of made me nervous. Ben went to the bathroom and a table opened up, so I grabbed it. He was all ready to suggest we bail because he felt the same way I did, so he was surprised to see me sittin' down and readin' a menu. We had a good lunch, a couple beers, watched some of the podium happenings on the TV, and relaxed. Aaah. Beer. Food. Warm. Nice. We got the train back to Wonderland and I got home before rush hour could ruin my day. Stupid Jumbotron! I saw these guys on the way home on I-95. The sign says "Honk for the Pats!!!" They passed me and I honked for them... and they cheered and hooted. Then I wanted a picture so I waited until there was free road in front of both of us and I caught up to them, rolled down the window and took this picture. Those guys were laughing their asses off. The driver is cracking up. I love it. What a day. What a bunch of happy fans. I had a lot of fun today, in spite of the jumbotron screwing up and the incredible amount of friggin people. The news on the way home said that there were 1.2 million people there. Ben and I were two of 'em. Yahhoooooooo! I'm exhausted... but laughing. I so never need to go to another one of these things again as long as I live. I went. It was fun. I'm old... Here are some observations I'd like to pass on: 1. Don't bring strollers or small ambulatory children to things like this. This particular event was rather mellow, but this whole thing coulda turned wicked ugly, wicked fast... so for the love of your kids, stay home and watch it on TV even if they beg you to take them. 2. High school kids should just get a room. Man. I saw more hanging on, pawing, and other gratuitously overt displays of love here that kind of surprised me. Get a room. Tell your parents you're going to the rally and stay home and paw each other. Man. The show here is supposed to be the Super Bowl Champs, not you and your Newton Lower Falls cheerleadin' girlfriend. Snarf. 3. There wasn't nearly enough face paint or other ridiculous behavior. If the Steelers had won, or the Raiders... fuggeddaboutit. The scene would have been full of crazy dressed freaks from every corner of the stratosphere out there showing their true colors. The fans here were patient, mellow, rather polite... kind of a let down. Not enough chanting, yelling, cheering. Perhaps it was where we were... The announcer came on the loudspeaker twice and told people in front of the stage to stop pushing and to stop doing the wave, that people were getting hurt. 4. Have a backup plan for the jumbotron, show the parade instead of a rebroadcast of the game, and for crying out loud, thank you for not letting Mayor "Mumbles" Menino talk. That was the best move of the day. I so enjoy hanging out with Ben. He is so easy going, that sometimes it is such a relief. He didn't come into the day with an agenda in his mind that only he knew and wasn't willing to share... he's all about "whatever works. Let's go..." I am like that too for the most part, so a couple times the two of us stood there not doing anything, which was funny. Kind of weird. I am glad it was just us because Dan and Brian might not have had fun just standing around. So this was nice. The bummer thing is that this morning after I dropped Geoff off at preschool I was almost in a car accident. I was driving up the road and a guy wanted to make a left hand turn but obviously had to wait for me. But he decided he didn't want to wait until I passed... he decided to jump RIGHT out where I am... without waiting for me to pass. I slammed on the brakes, held my breath and closed my eyes. I ended up in the oncoming lane, and the guy was basically touching my right front fender and screaming at me. He was an old fart, with a HAT on... gotta watch those guys in hats. I stepped on the gas and drove away, and he sat there for the longest time. I could see him in my rear view mirror. Sitting there. Hope he was so scared by what he did that he shit his pants or something. MEH!!! I actually for a split second was totally convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was going to hit me. Then, I said, Ben's waiting for me. I have no cell phone to call him and say "buddy, I can't make it." Football fan angels were watchin' over me. My right hip and knee are killing me from the slamming of the brakes, just like a few months ago when I was coughing and almost hit someone and slammed my brakes. The freezing weather didn't help the stiffness. So a hot bath and a shot of whiskey are in order... And a nice hot pad. AAAAAHHHHH. Okay. I gotta post this for posterity. Woo! and again I say Woo. Thanks for indulging me these past few days. Your regularly amusing journal will not be football filled henceforth. Yay Pats.

"Silence of the Rams" - Patriots win Super Bowl

Oh Me of Little Faith...
As Greg Brown sings... "Who Woulda Thunk It." But. Wow. Here it is. I have to get the kids to school. Who woulda? Not me. Not me ever. I still can't believe this happened, and I watched it.

Wow.

Patriots going to the Super Bowl! Meh and Yeah all at once....

I really wanted the Steelers to win. (pictured here is the view of Heinz Field, formerly Three Rivers Stadium, from Mt. Washington on the North/West side of the burgh. Downtown is just out of range to the right of the stadium, which shows how seriously these people take football. Unlike Foxboro, which is an hour from Boston, The Steelers play in Downtown... in the heart of it).

We fired up the fry-o-lator and made wings -- best non-restaurant wings I've had in ages. I rushed home from Charles and Margaret's good bye luncheon, missing only part of the first quarter... I was aghast that the Pats pulled out in front but thrilled that the Steelers came back with their collective teeth bared and their attitudes adjusted after a very crappy halftime show. Gah, I hate Sheryl Crow.

But they lost. And while I certainly are happy for the Patriots, I am also incredibly sad because I think the Steelers were a FAR better team this year, and by far one of my favorites. The media was totally behind the Steelers, favored by a ton of points. And the Patriots made monkeys out of everyone.

I guess my sister's friend Rob stands to win some money just because the Pats made it past the AFC championship and are going to the big dance.

So at least there was a real highlight during the day here. And I am happy for them. But...

Meh.

I am happy for the Pats. Honest. If anyone other than the Steelers would be going to the Super Bowl, heck. Sure. Go Pats. At least it isn't the Dolphins or those God Awful Ravens. And they had a hell of a story this year. I mean, everyone wrote them off completely. Me especially. Year after year they've broken my heart, so I gave up routing for them. I still wanted them to win, but they kept inventing new ways to lose. Last year they were like 5-11 and this year at the start no one said they'd beat that. Then Bledsoe gets injured after they start the season poorly. Brady steps in and things start clicking together. Win after win after win, week after week. Astounding. The fire was lit under the arses of the erstwhile sarcastic bubbleheads known as sports commentators, and the Pats start marching up the AFC East ladder.

Bledsoe stands on the sidelines injured and sad, Brady keeps winning. Bledsoe's job security becomes fodder for the keyboards of commentators and writers in AND outside the sports field.

Today, Brady ends up getting injured, so Bledsoe gets the chance to save the day. And he does. Amazing. Totally Amazing. Brady may have a broken ankle, so there is a good chance he won't get to play in the super bowl.

How's that for a fine howdy-doo. The proverbial kick in the pants as it were. He brings the team this far and may not get to play THE game of his rookie career. Gets the team this far and whammo.

At the end of the game, they kept in tight on Drew Bledsoe's face, and he was crying. His chin was quivering, his eyes were all misty. He bit his lip in a Clintonesque way. He was truly moved, shocked, astonished, and amazed. It was so evident. So obvious. A man who doesn't know what his job is going to be in August now has the chance to save the day and become the hero instead of the Goat that everyone has believed he is to this point.

Wow.

It's a great story. And the Eagles and Rams are playing right now, and we shall see who the Pats will face, and we shall see if Drew will be that hero. I wish him well. Goodness knows I am glad for them, and I sure ain't routin' for any NFC team here.

Geoff tore some of his wallpaper off his wall today and I am pissed and angry. I can't believe he did that. It was the one truly 100% finished room in my house, and now it's screwed. So now I have to tear it all down and redo the damn thing. Good thing I'm friggin' laid off! Hello Home Despot. Need some paint. And the kicker is that I'm going to have to mud his walls entirely because the bottom half is Dark Dark Blue... unless I want to paint the whole room that color now. I still am going to have to mud where I remove all the wallpaper trim. Damn damn damn.

Well. Other things... this weekend on the whole was nice. We did go out to dinner on Friday night. The sitter was a big hit with the kids. They liked her a lot and she states that she's willing to come back (!) so that was a relief. She reminds me of my roommate from college a little... she's from Eastern PA and has a very Laurel's First Year at College haircut, and glasses, and she smiles the same, uses her eyes. So it brought back some interesting 17 year old memories for me.

Dinner itself was a blast. Expensive beyond belief, delicious, relaxing. Good food, bottle of wine, excellent service... I love this place but wish it wasn't so dern 'spensive. We then went to a movie of Doug's choosing... Gosford Park. Meh. It wasn't nearly as funny as the commercials made it out to be. A murder mystery set in the English Country Estate of a pompous old fart hated by everyone. Great performances by Clive Owen and Helen Mirren, and too many pictures of Ryan Phillipe's pouty full lip and puppydog eyes. It would have been a much better movie if they shortened the buildup to the murder. Establishing the characters and their inner workings went WAY too long and didn't add to anything. The plot after the murder and the happenings therein were much more interesting, and sort of exciting. I thought it was going to be more like Wooster and Jeeves (Stephen Fry is in this as a bumbling inspector, very funny, the only truly funny thing in the movie) but it was more like Masterpiece Theatre and just as dull.

The beginning of the movie is interesting, when the servants/valets come to the house with their Lords/Ladies/important rich snobby folks, they show the goings on Upstairs and Downstairs (so much like the aforementioned Masterpiece Theatre)... and the contrast between their worlds is amazing. The lifestyles, the attitudes, the working class strength that carries SO much of the British nobility that without their maids and valets it is obvious these people would perish, yet they get no respect. It was a beautiful rendering of the period - the clothes, the lifestyle, the furnishings, the way a manor home worked with all its inner mechanisms... that I liked. But overall I wouldn't recommend it.

Saturday we went to Dave and Gretchen's house to hang with them and our buddy Dan, Mr. Humanity Moment. It was a nice visit. Initially Doug didn't want to come, he had a list of things that HAD to get done this weekend and was bemoaning them all, but suddenly changed spirit and came with. It was nice to come with him. So often we get invited places and he just is anti-social, doesn't think he'll like these people or like their work or have anything in common with them. And then the end result is everyone is communicating well and telling stories and it isn't dull for him and we have a great laugh or two, and it's awesome. Dave and Gretchen have a stunning home (no lipsticks were mushed here by the way)... and it was so nice to see them, as well as nice to see Dan. I miss him so much sometimes. Dave and Gretchen have a beautiful little boy and it was a blast to play with an 18 month old for a while. Someone who doesn't tear wallpaper off the wall. mmmmmmeh.

We were on our way out when another former coworker, Susan, and her daughter and husband came over, so I got to see her for a brief flash. I always enjoyed hanging out with Susan, she was so much fun to work with... so it was great to catch up.

Gretchen told me that the company I used to work for (her husband was my boss, and after I left she started working there...) is shutting down in April, so there is going to be a big BIG alumni reunion kind of thing -- everyone who ever worked at this company invited back for drinks and a larf and some good memory sharing... so that will be fun.

I loved working there, loved working for Dave and loved doing the stuff I used to do. It makes me sad to know they are shutting down, and it makes me even more sad to think about the company I just got laid off from, but there's nothing I can do about either.

Oh, by the way, I had mentioned the other day I'd gotten my hair cut. My daughter took this picture of me today after church, as well as a couple other pictures that I took over the last two days. And, it occurs to me now, I didn't take any pictures of Dan. I would have liked one of him and me... oh well, hopefully there will be another time...

Me with my short coif... it is almost all one length except right in front where it angles down. Next time I get it cut, it'll finally be all one length, like this:

And it is scary how much me and my kid look alike. I think. Only sometimes I'm the bigger ham.

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We went to the car wash on the way home Friday night because it was like 50 degrees and the car needed it badly. Doug aims James Bond Style, yo.

Tomorrow my friend Mare from High School is coming to visit me. Her husband has a ton of family in Western Mass, so every couple of years they try and come east. Currently they live out in Dana Point, California! I haven't seen Mare since Jessica was about 2. She came out 2 years ago at this time, but I had the flu so badly that I told her there was NO way I wanted her to come visit. She's expecting her third kid in March, so she'll be fully big and preggo. I plan on taking her over to Newburyport for a little walk'round, and some time without her 2 boys... she's got her hands full!

Mare and I met in Kindergarten. She remembers more about my childhood than I do! She tells me anecdotes about stuff we did in brownies, and places we went, and I don't remember them. So I'm sure going to try and get some more stories from her. She was incredibly athletic and I was bookish and uninvolved... we went our separate ways for a while, not being really close friends, until I reconnected with her in high school band and in Campus Life, the youth group that I went to in high school... she was an active member, and it was great to rekindle that friendship which we'd shared for so long. She's a very involved evangelical Catholic, doing lots of stuff with her church and her family and her husband's bike store (owned and operated by them!) so she's a great woman and one whom I hold in high esteem.

Well, I'm going to remove myself back to the family. I will try and write tomorrow of the wacky adventures of a pregnant lady (Mare) and a lady who looks pregnant (me) but isn't.

Football Season Is Here!

I love football.

I love football season. It helps the bulk of the winter pass by quickly, it is fun to spend long dark Sunday afternoons in the livingroom eating munchies, looking at the tube for hours on end, intermittently doing things like dishes and laundry when games are total blowouts or when they're doing a lot of gab between games. I love football.

It's too bad that NFL stands for No Fucking Luck for both my favorite teams, the Patriots and the Steelers. Patsies and Lerrrrrrrrrs this year. Oh well, guess I've gotta route for Denver. They've got a cute QB.

The season got its big kickoff with a little gathering of friends at Hoagie's house this weekend up in New Hampshire. Dan, Derek, Doug, Geoffrey and I were there, as well as a surprising addition of another former co-worker and his wife. Dan2 never comes out. But he was there and it was super to see him. I haven't seen him since I left the IT department at the college over 2 years ago.

We were harassed by flies while out of doors, so the party moved inside and football was consumed with baseball in picture in picture technology on Hoagie's 8,000 inch TV (damn!). We had lots of fun and I was pooped.

Hoagie has a really nice house. I mean, really, really nice. Interior -- immaculate. Lovely. Clean. New carpet. White walls. It made me sick. Sick, sick, sick. And it made me long for a day when I'll have a house that isn't a frigging pigsty, where any small effort I make is matched by the efforts of others, and we live in perfect harmony.

I, too, would like something nice to live in. Our place in Atlanta was nice, but we had no furniture, so we sat on sleeping bags on the fucking floor to watch our 13 inch TV. Things got better but more cluttered in Beverly, where we at least had a used couch, and the girl was too little to do any damage to anything. Plus, she never did anything bad anyway. When we lived in Marblehead, we did our own home improvement, and that was a big mistake. Nothing matched... the best room in the house was the livingroom, it was a gorgeous pink color with sandy white woodwork. I loved that room. The best decorated room we've ever had. Lynn was okay, but the interior was there when we got there and was sort of, New England Italian, if you know what I mean, with an ugly assed rug (brown poo colored) and really ugly linoleum in the hall, bath and kitchen.

Every surface in my house is in ruin. Walls have been colored on by my budding artiste Geoffrey, even though we got him a chalkboard to write on when he needs to do vertical art. I have to repaint his room, repaint Jessica's room, repaint my room... none of this is very endearing, especially when we thought he was done with this phase of life. Last week he took pen and wrote all over Jessica's wall. He likes to draw these faces, which are hysterical, and I love them, I just don't love them on the walls!

I wanted to redo Jessie's room anyway. Just didn't want to do it anytime soon.

Our house has a lot of potential. But I get the feeling we've run out of steam and we just can't do that. We're a million years away from having it all right and put together, but I get the feeling that while we have the boy under our roof it'll be a complete pit forever.

Anyone want a kid?

Kidding. I love my son. I just dislike some of his canvas choices for his self expression.

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Remember my new washing machine? The washing machine which kicks ass and makes me sing childhood songs? Well, it almost died a horrible death last night. Let me 'splain. Jessica was sent downstairs with the equivalent of four loads of laundry. I instructed her to sort out the darks from the whites, to wash all of daddy's and my clothes in cold water cold rinse, and to wash all the whites in hot water. She told me she understood what I meant, and went down to wash.

Later, I went down to put the clothes in the dryer and saw that there was no sorting done, there were no clothes even visible which could mean only one thing. I could smell and awful rubbery burning stench. Kind of an engine burning aroma which means only bad things in the mind of a home owner.

She had put all four loads of laundry into the washer. All four. And, on top of that, used about 10 cups of laundry detergent.

Aw man. All I could see was me lying to the Whirlpool repair guy saying "Honest man, no one overloaded the washer. Three towels and some underpants isn't overloading!" So I pulled all the laundry out of the washer, got the manual out, read about how it has an auto shutdown over-ride feature where the machine will turn itself off if it feels it's overloaded. So obviously my machine had the common sense to cease trying to wash 900 lbs of laundry.

I should have guessed something was wrong when the lights in the house were flickering. That usually means there is some sort of wicked power surge going on. We'd once had that problem when my upstairs tenant and I were blowdrying our hair at the same time or something. Come to find out the electrical wiring up on the phone pole had been chewed at by some small critter and our source wiring was exposed, so power was leaking out into the ether and not making it to our house. I had started to think last night that it was happening again. Only this time, instead of a small furry creature chewing maniacally at our wiring it was a large blonde creature trying to save time by doing all the wash at once.

So my daughter got "spoken to" which means I sat her down, explained what she did, asked her what she was thinking, and I sat there, waiting for her answer.

The always popular "I don't know" was what I got from her, with her grey eyes staring back at me from her tired face. "I don't know." Obviously she was thinking SOME thing at the time, or else she wouldn't have done it. I asked her if she was temporarily insane or possessed by demons from the underworld. She shrugged. I basically told her to go to bed.

I think she prefers being yelled at instead of the cold, hard "just go to your room, I can't bear to talk to you right now" thing. It made her cry.

Sometimes, and I hate to admit this, sometimes I think it is important with her to hit on something emotional. She lets so much slide off her back and doesn't really express any anger until an inappropriate time. She really internalized Missy's euthanasia and didn't deal with it until much later. So I was actually pleased to see that she recognized that she screwed up, and didn't just shrug and say "Whatever."

We talked about it later after the washer engine cooled down. I went into her room and she didn't want to talk to me, but I told her the machine was okay and reminded her never to do it again, and, that I loved her.

Never go to bed angry.

Anyway... this turned out to be a longer post than I had anticipated. I have to see how badly Scott C is kicking my A at Fantasy Football in our Yahoo.com league (like I said, I love football) and see how our online Office Pool standings are doing. And, I have to go home to see if Geoff's writing on anything that will fit in the washing machine.

ant infestation...

The weekend was a washout. Not because of weather, but because the good graces didn't smile upon us or our happy circle of friends with great luck. No. Not at all.

Aaron and Michelle were supposed to come visit. They dropped their transmission on their car. Seeing as they are all the way the heck up in Maine, and it was like Friday Night, we couldn't get ourselves together fast enough to get up there nor would we. They (A&M) had barely been at their house all summer, seeing as they were living out at Mount Desert Island while working with the parks service at Acadia, so they had kind of a messy house which needed some love and attention.

So we all opted to reschedule. Sadly.

Pictured above is Mr. Aaron himself, at his finest; a most intelligent, kind and loving rendering of him I think. HA! Aaron sent me this picture when I was grieving for Missy. He called me on the phone and said "Hey, check your email, I sent you something that will make you smile." The file name was something like "Tree.jpg" so I was not at all prepared for this. I actually laughed my ass off and started crying at the same time. Here's a guy who knows how to cheer a girl up!

That's a true friend.

Back to the story.

As you know,Geoff had a fever and was sent home from preschool Thursday... remember, we lost out on tix to the Pats/Deadskins pre-season game? Thinking this was your textbook little stomach bug, we (Doug) brought him home and rode the day out with him sleeping. That night he got ill (as in puking but no further details are necessary there... lucky for the babysitter we didn't abandon him with G-puke after all!) and I spent the night sleeping with him. Friday he was listless, we figured that was par for the course, and I waited to come down with whatever stomach bug he had.

He doesn't have one. He has an ear infection... come Sunday morning he was all crying and pulling his left ear and complaining that he couldn't yawn. So we got him to the doctor (thanks Dr. Barrett!) and got a prescription for amoxicillin. 48 hours later he's a new boy.

I think we would have been a whole ton of no fun at the way out inn if A&M had managed to come visit us. Geoff pretty much just walked around whimpering, and it was sad.

We did however get a closet cleaned out and organized books to take to the 2nd hand store. The closet is going to be a home entertainment center. We have to build in shelving and make it rock. I'm looking forward to that day.

I felt inspired after clearing out the closet. Empowered. Charged up.

I tore a fence out of the yard because of it.

We have a couple of old ratty white picket fences that are about 2.5 feet high, and they are so damn trashy looking. Doug refers to them as "shabby chic," but that's such a load of horseshit. They look like crap.

So I have been trying to convince him that one of the fences, the one over by the creek, had to go. I want to pull out the hydrangea, cut out the evil grapevine that actually has grown all up and around all the trees around our neighborhood (no lie) and cut back the tendrils on the black raspberries and blueberries.

That area is such a waste back there. It could be SO nice.

So Doug moaned and complained and said "we'd" do it later in the fall.

He went inside.

I started yanking on the fence. It pretty much came right the heck out, the total piece of shite that it is. He initially pretended to be hurt. Pretended is the key word. I didn't take him at all seriously when he protested. He whimpered like I was taking his teddybear away or something. Turns out he really was kind of angry with me. He let me know after I was completely done that he really did like that fence and he was hurt that I just dispatched it the way I did. I basically told him he was in need of counseling. I'm sick of living in a place that looks like it is half falling down. And my proactivity probably just shamed him.

I told him to get over it and move on.

I went back outside and all that was left was the bottom of the fence. I pulled it out and the whole thing was infested with ants. Crazy loaded with black maniacally scrambling ants!

I almost leaped out of my skin.

I didn't expect to see the wide Ant Diaspora of 2001 in my yard. An exodus caused by my hand. With creepy results!

I ran in the house to see if we had any Raid or anything. Doug shrugged and said to just pull the fence away and cart it out to the woods, chuck it out there before the ants could regroup and invade, thus eating us alive in our sleep as revenge.

In other words, "No, Ms. Stupid-ass For Pulling My Shabbychic Fence Down, we are out of Raid."

So I pulled all the parts of the fence together, threw them in the wooden cart, hauled them into the corner of the yard and chucked them all, piece by dreaded ant-covered piece, into the woods. I walked back around under the tree area, and pulled all the pieces back even further, just so they weren't visible from the yard or I would be sitting on the deck looking at broken nasty pieces of wood fence simply teeming with ants, thinking they were on their way to an organizational meeting on how to meet out their revenge by chewing me from head to toe in my sleep.

Shudder.

So now the fence is out. I've got some hacking and bushwhacking to do to clean the area out. I feel like it will be nice to have just a tad more yard to look at instead of something "shabby chic."

Not much else to report from this angle. I'll let you know if my sugar bowl is full of crawling little fiends later. Ugh. Shudder!